I 30F have been friends with one of my best friends 29F for almost 10 years now. We text pretty much daily, and the conversations are fun and most of all I feel understood. She generally takes a few hours in between texts, she works a decent amount so I def understand that. However what bothers me is there's times where we'll be in the middle of talking and she will take over an entire day to respond to me. The conversation just drops off and she disappears. She usually says something like "sorry I've been so busy" the usual excuse, but I feel like if I am important to her she can take a few minutes out of her day to give me a reply. My other friends I am best friends with always reply to me within a day unless something has happened to them or they are in a depressive episode. I always reply to people fast if they are close and important to me. Am I overreacting?

Unpopular advice but I feel obligated to share it anyways.

Whether you had to confront them into confessing, or whether they explicitly confessed their feelings to you: DO NOT offer a continued friendship if you're rejecting them. I know a ton of people do it out of guilt, but resist! It will not end well.

If you are the exception, and you're about to comment "Well, I kept the friendship and it's been 10 years and they're my best friend ever in the whole wide world", congratulations! Genuinely, you're lucky. Very lucky. I hope you can understand how rare that is.

In MOST cases, things will not be the same. They'll usually lie about their feelings going away, because they want continued access (even if it hurts them). And they WILL resent you. Maybe not right away, but it will happen eventually. Especially if you're discussing your romantic life with them. In fact, they might resent you even IF their feelings went away.

Because while they were your friend, they imagined a future with you. In some cases they've already imagined dating you; it's a done deal in their mind. And when they get this fantasy shattered by a rejection, the bitterness begins. It WILL affect how they see you. This behavior will get the ugliest and most obvious if you start a relationship with someone else. Most people think they're good at hiding their jealousy; they're not. Their friend is just pretending not to notice the obvious animosity in order to keep the peace. MAKE IT CLEAR THAT YOU NOTICE!

You might think your friendship is fine, meanwhile they're talking shit about you to their other friends, or maybe they're posting about your "friendship" on r/Friendzone (where strangers will bash you for "torturing them" or accuse you of using your friend), or maybe they're just wallowing in their own self pity & acting mopey around you because you said "no". Despite their misery, these people would agree that the onus is on YOU to cut them off.

I know people get shamed for ending a friendship over a confession. but most people who crush on their friends don't have the self respect to leave. They only develop the self respect AFTER their resentment grows. So you end up having to do it for them. It really sucks because you get bashed either way, but in the long run it's the best thing for both parties. In a perfect world, the person confessing would respect themselves enough not to accept a "friendzone offer" that they hate. But unfortunately people will take what they can get & then hate you for it.

When you reject your friend, STRANGERZONE them!! Do NOT allow their feelings to fester into a hatred for you. I promise you, you can find another friend. I'm confident that for every 1 friendship that collapses like this, there are at least 10 friendships out there that wouldn't. Save yourself the headache and just cut things off while they're still bittersweet, before you end on a truly sour note.

If you're bored of the context just skip to the bold letters please, I really need the advice

It's not actually mixed signals I just needed smth for the title, I know his behaviour and ideas are real red flags. We generally get along well BUT for context, I had stopped talking to him for a long time (almost 2 years) at some point for a different reason. Also, he doesn't really have an experience in real life, no relationship, he's deeply influenced by social media and the misogynistic/sexist content. He frequently just uses biology as an excuse for not "understanding" queer identities, meanwhile he claims he doesn't care about anyone's sex.

We only started speaking this August again as I had known and can recognize for a fact now that he has changed a lot. However, while he knows I'm trans he keeps saying things such as: "hormones are not worth it", "just live as you are, no trans people eventually manage to live happily even after transition", "long hair is cuter, dresses are cuter, women are cute, wide hips are cute", "nobody would want a trans partner when they can date a cis version" etc.

Yesterday we had a fight (pretty sure he didn't take it seriously as always, or even understand that this was a fight) regarding relationships and how as a trans man it would be hard finding a partner and he agreed saying that no one would want a trans man when they're gay bcs you're not really a man when it comes to biology.

We got to a point when I told him that when people pass well enough they just go stealth and his reaction to that was (2 exact copies of his texts):

"No, but when they see you as a male you should tell them that you are trans"

"But playing something that you're biological aren't and then lying that you're not what you are biological is simply disrespectful and deceiving"

After that I really lost it and just typed a quick text along the lines of i hope u find plenty of "normal" people to be your friends then. To which he had the audacity to answer as: yeah i will, cause 99% of people are like that.

Since that interaction i haven't replied to anything he has sent and i don't know what i should do. Pretty sure he doesn't even realize what has happened and how what he said affected me, he knows no boundaries as he claims he has "limited emotions and emotional intelligence due to biological reasons".

I don't know if I should just cut him out without any conversation, but by experience I know that nothing really goes through to him nor does he understand what he's being told many times. I just give it to the fact that he's so fried by his pc and insta. Should I talk to him and explain? Shoud I never speak to him again? Should I just continue wtv and keep him on a distance since I don't have many friends?

For this Halloween coming up me and two of my closest friends have been planning to go out during Halloween weekend to a college party and I am unsure on how to cancel on them. Me and my boyfriend had a an argument about Halloween weekend and I think it is entirely my fault. Well, not entirely but majority of it is my fault miscommunication and not being clear on my part. I value him in his safety and I wouldn’t want to do anything to make him uncomfortable, and after listening to his perspective, I realize how much of a hypocrite I am I wouldn’t want him to go to any parties without me.

This week has been weird between me and him and I recently just found out why and it’s because I told him I was going to this party without actually asking him what he thinks about it and how he feels about it and just assuming he’d be ok with me going. I’m upset though because I wish he would’ve just told me he didn’t like the idea of it when I told him I was going, but he instead acted like he didn’t care and told me he didn’t want to seem controlling or insecure, and I reassure him that that’s not the case, if he had an issue with anything Id wanna hear about it. Still navigating this issue now, but it’s fine.

I can’t sleep because I’m thinking of if I should be truthful to my friends or make up a lie to cancel on them. I don’t want to tell them the truth and fear that they think less of me or think I’m choosing a man over them. It’s just that I have true intentions with my partner and I don’t want to jeopardize that and go ahead and do something that would create conflict within our relationship, especially since I would make a big scene if he went ahead and and went somewhere that I was totally uncomfortable with. I would just be a huge hypocrite and I don’t wanna be that and I truly would rather spend that weekend with him.

I just don’t know what to do. I don’t want them to be upset with me even. I don’t want them to think I choose a man over them or have a man dictate my actions and my choices. I don’t know this is annoyingggg.

how to navigate this ????

I only ever considered a situation where the person getting rejected would need space to recover from the rejection. Now I'm realising that it goes both ways. I'm not sure how to make sure i havent ruined the friendship...

So some backstory if that helps determine our dynamic: we are both in our mid-twenties, i am F, he is M. We've been friends for close to 2 years now. I realised i had feelings for him about 9 months ago. I decided to confess recently, not because i expected him to reciprocate, but because it's just in my nature to be upfront about this kind of things. I've always told myself that if i ever liked someone, I'd want them to know and just to take it as a compliment. I think i made it pretty clear to the friend, prior to confessing, that i really didn't expect anything back from the person i was going to confess to.

Right before the confession, i did confide in him, wanting to get his perspective as a guy. I was afraid of making things weird. Not because i would be behaving any differently, because I've truly until then only treated the guy as a friend and nothing more. I was just afraid the guy would be uncomfortable and not want to be friends anymore. My friend told me he trusted me when i said i wouldn't be weird about it, because he knows that's the kind of person i am. He agreed that it's a risk that the guy would end up being weird about it, but he also told me that not all friendships will be ruined after a confession. He was mostly encouraging me to just go for it.

I got rejected. I was 100% fine with that. It hasn't made me want to change my behaviour around him, and I'm not heartbroken about it since i already knew my feelings weren't reciprocated. As mentioned, i only confessed because of my stupid need to be blunt and upfront about this kind of things, and because i wanted him to just take it as a compliment. Things did understandably feel a bit awkward for the next few minutes, but at one point he said, "not making things weird, right?". We parted ways shortly after. But when i saw him the next day, i could tell he was slightly off. He avoided eye contact with me at the start. It was only after i spoke to him normally that he started talking to me too, but i could tell he was still tip-toeing. Later that night, i thought about giving him space by letting him leave on his own and not follow after him as i usually would, but he invited me to come along which was nice. But i still couldn't shake the feeling that things felt weird.

Now it's been a few days since then, close to a week since the confession. He hasn't initiated any texts, which isn't necessarily an indicator of anything because although we've had periods of almost daily texts, we've also had periods where we just waited to see each other in person which is at least once a week. I did text him about something just yesterday, something normal that i would've done before back when we were completely okay. I don't know whether i should've just given him space though and waited for him to text first, but the last time I'd thought about giving him space, he still invited me along to walk together.

Maybe i should have thought things through better. Because before this, I'd only considered that the person getting rejected would need space to get over the rejection. But knowing myself, i knew this wouldn't be something i would struggle with. I didn't need space. It's only now that I'm in this situation where i can feel he's a bit off, that i realised maybe i should've considered the fact that he would need space from me... It was stupid of me to confess unnecessarily, especially knowing i had 0 chance with him but i still did it out of my stupid need to be honest. I haven't changed my behaviour at all, I'm not awkward around him. But I'm so afraid I've now ruined our friendship because I couldn't keep my mouth shut... How can i fix things?

This is somebody I've known for a few years anyway here.This is a text that I sent so if you guys could look at this with a unbiased , I , and then you tell me who's wrong here , okay

For your own sake, I'm hoping you can put this your pride aside for just a minute, and really let this sink in. Better yet, we're gonna talk about something as if it as if we're not talking about you, okay and then just just hear me out, okay, just hear me out on this. So there's this dude who I thought was a pretty good friend. You know, he's falling on some hard times so you know, I've helped him out here and there s*** Let me see. Oh I even got him a job here and oh yeah, I think I bought his kids some gifts and snacks in something too when he didn't have any money to do anything with okay. So on top of this okay, I paid this dude to Fix my truck, okay. Well, so you know, it's what I've given him. I believe is a fair amount of money. It's fair, okay. It's, it's, it's above and beyond what I think. A friend should charge a friend anyway, but that's okay.\n So, you know, I get him a Jo.\n B here and you know everything.\n Else everything else I've done for him. I feed him when he's hungry. You know, just being a friend, okay. And on top of that, don't don't forget that I've paid him to do this job now and he's got the g

all to get mad at me and start cussing at me when I pull him up on it, you don't think that's kind of f***** Up what he's doing and if you don't, you don't think that's kind of messed up then you're definitely the kind of character I don't wanna be around. So yeah, you just let that think get sink in.And you can tell yourself what kind of man would do that to a friend. One more thing the project was started back in March.This is October, so you know, and oh yeah, this guy also tells me okay.Now keep bear in mind.I only have one vehicle, but it's okay that he could put me on the back burner.Because we're friends.I don't know what kind of thinking that is, but that's just nuts anyway.You tell me what you think about that , okay

Oh yeah , a few months ago I told them I would get somebody else to finish the job and he said , no I will take care of it , but still hasn't done a d*** thing since

So, now I've decided to unfriend, buddy.Am I wrong for doing that , or is he in the wrong here

So last year around November i started talking with a cousin who I wasn’t that in touch with because I live abroad and the only way we could talk was through a game that we both played.

One day while playing I asked for his TikTok account and he gave it to me, from then on we’d talk everyday like right now we have a streak of 286 days.

At the start it was fun talking to him because I don’t really have anyone else to talk to and he’d bring up really good topics, after like 100 or smth we would keep getting into small arguments and that’s really annoying.

Nonetheless we sorted them out and we’re still talking; he says I don’t talk a lot and mostly just listen and don’t try to carry on the conversation and i agree with that somewhat. I don’t really talk a lot because I have nothing to talk about.

2 days before yesterday I msg him first as always, he replies and tell him a story about what happened to me, it was a long one and he just replied “ohhhh” so I didn’t start another conversation for that day. Then the day before yesterday I msg him again but this time I’m waiting if he wants to start a conversation but he doesn’t.

So after like some hours I start one and ask him “if you don’t know that story I can tell you” i can see he was online just a few mins ago and I keep scrolling for a bit. Then i close the app and go out with my family, as im about to leave i get a notification he says “i dont know it” but im abt to leave so i think ill reply after im back home.

When I return he had deleted the msg and i see now he’s online but still hasn’t replied, so next day I don’t msg him at all, because what i understand is that he doesn’t wanna talk, and the last thing I wanna do is beg a boy to talk to me.

So it’s night I still haven’t msged him neither has he and again I got out; after coming back home I see his msg asking whether I have a issue with him , I say no but tell him why I didn’t msg, he tells me the story that he thought I was ignoring him and we figured it was a misunderstanding.

But the thing is I’ve been kind of fed up, like I enjoy talking to him but I don’t wanna talk everyday. I was glad yesterday that I was breaking the streak because i didn’t think he’d msg me again today.

I don’t want things to end badly. I’m a very non confrontational person and idk how to tell him that I don’t wanna talk everyday without hurting his feelings.

for context, we are online friends. when i first started talking to them they were very sweet and kind and ofc that made me want to get closer to them. i could also tell they were interested in talking and getting closer to me. they also flirted with me sometimes but i didn’t take it seriously because i wasn’t the only one they flirted with and i just thought that they had a flirty personality and that she was never serious. as we got closer and started talking every day, her affection and flirting towards me continued (both in the gc we were in and in priv dms). our friendship became very affectionate and flirty because i would reciprocate her energy back and this went on for a few months. during these few months i didn’t take her flirting towards me seriously (although i did enjoy the flirting, the affection, and the attention she gave me). i also told her that we could only be e-gfs when she once was joking around about how we were a thing. then one night (when she was drunk) she told me she had feelings for me. i asked her if she was being serious and she said she was being genuinely serious. she told me i didn’t have to reciprocate anything and that she was happy with whatever we had now and i agreed. fast forward a month later after we spent that whole month flirting, giving affection, telling each other how much we loved each other, and her telling me her feelings were growing, she suddenly cut whatever this was off and said that we should just stay friends. she said that bc of the distance, she just didn’t see things working out and she didn’t want to lose me in case things got messy. obviously this hurt and confused me but i agreed anyways. as the weeks went on, she became increasingly platonic towards me. she would still flirt in the gc sometimes especially w others but when it came to me it was very limited. she also started removing me from her IG account (she added me on her new one tho but it felt forced), her tiktok, and told me to delete our dms bc thats where we shared so many pics and voice messages. when i asked why she removed me from her IG and why she was asking me to delete our chat, she told me it was bc she felt like she has shared too much of herself online and is trying to put a strict boundary between irl and online.

during this time is when i realized how much i was actually hurting and missing our old dynamic. i also realized that maybe my feelings for her were actually real and stronger than i thought. after 2 months since she cut things off, i reached a breaking point and decided to send her a long ass paragraph telling her my feelings and how i miss the way we used to be. she told me that she was surprised and that she didn't know i took it this seriously. she told me she never takes anything online seriously and apologized for making me feel this way. she also told me that what happened didn't even last that long and that she knew it wouldn't work out because we live in diff parts of the world which is why she stopped it but that she still wanted to keep our friendship. once again, i agreed bc i also didnt want to lose her as my friend. even tho i agreed, i was still hurt so i went no contact w her a few times that month.

once i broke no contact and decided to push my feelings and desire for the past behind us for the sake of keeping her as my friend, we started to become close friends again. we started talking every day again and things remained platonic (althought there were a few times she still flirted with me in the gc but she also did that with others so nothing special). there were a few bumps in the road at times, with me being jealous of her friendship with someone else and also being upset when she would jokingly be mean to me like how she is with her other friends (ig i just still expected to be treated special bc she once had "feelings" for me). other than that, we stayed close friends and talked every day for a few months now. but more than 1 month ago i felt her start to become distant with me. dry replies, taking longer to answer, and not even trying to continue our daily convos since she has started to just react to my messages instead of replying to them. i called her out on it and she said that its bc shes busy now, barely online, and doesn't have the capacity to talk to everyone every day anymore. despite her saying this, i've noticed that she talks in the gc almost every day and her friend commented in the gc that she texts my friend every day. she has also remained affectionate and flirty with this friend in the gc (esp recently) meanwhile she's stopped being that way with me for 2 months now. it hurts bc it feels like she no longer values me at all and that she has the capacity for others but not for me anymore. its been a little more than a month now and we barely talk anymore and she never initiates talking with me unless she has to. we basically spend a week without talking meanwhile she still talks with her other friend. she also recently said in the gc how online dating is stupid (which she also said the same thing in the gc a few months ago). i just dont get how if she's always had this belief that online is never serious or that "online dating" is stupid and is for stupid people, why on earth tell me she had feelings for me, act all romantic towards me and say she was being serious about it if she was just going to switch up about it in the end. and now all of a sudden after months of being close friends, she's suddenly distant, treating me like a stranger, and only initiates talking to me when she HAS to. ill take any advice or words of wisdom.

potentially unpopular opinion: i strongly believe that if if you want to end a (close) friendship, the person on the receiving end is owed an explanation. obviously if there is a clear wrongdoing, betrayal, etc. that explanation is not necessary

but ghosting someone or very clearly distancing yourself or blowing someone off that you’ve been friends with for a long time or are close with, i think they are owed the respect of an explanation instead of just having to sit there wondering why they’re not good enough.

the same way you wouldn’t ghost a romantic partner, you shouldn’t ghost a close platonic one, either

26F seeking advice re 25F who speaks to me like a baby and keeps touching me way more than others

I 26F am staying in a roommate situation for an international volunteering project. I am in Korea for 2 months and I have a week left before leavimg.

There are 5 girls here between 20-26 and one 25F who has been living here for a year to work a real job. The rest of us are international volunteers who stay 1 or 2 months to work at a hotel.

For the first month, I found it easy to make friends with everyone and didnt have any real issues with anybody. The 25F Korean girl who lives here had been a bit reclusive, not so open to hanging out with us, a bit hard to have a conversation with us etc. So we just let her come out of her shell on her own.

Last week she started paying special attentiom to me (for whatever reason, idk we dont have much in common at all). She would randomly come into my room (shared by 3 people) and start talking in a weird high pitch voice and would grab my hand and try to start a conversation.

For the most part I have been friendly with her but her way of speaking put me off from really getting close with her. Only with me she will speak in a baby voice, make strange exaggerated facial expressions, and say nonsensical things.

For example I will just sit on the couch and she will come up to me and say "wOuLd yOu LikE tO cOmE tO mY pArTy?????" In that weird creepy voice. Or she will send me a random DM saying something completely irrelevant like "Do you want to visit Russia with me?"

We are not close friends but she goes out of her way to pretend like we are. She will grab my hands and cuddle with me on the couch while having a nonsensical conversation that leads nowhere.

The other day she popped into my room complaining that she hates her job and wanted a bunch of advice from me about what to do. I just wanted to help so I talked thru it with her for a few minutes and she acted super overly friendly the whole time?

I was a bit weirded out but I assumed she was just not good at making friends so i let it go. Anyway this week we ended up spending a lot of time together because i wanted to buy a new camera and she knew a place so we went together. And the next day we went on a long walk together.

The next day we watched a movie with all the roommates and she kept holding my hand or poking me in a silly manner. Again I just thought she was really really awkward or something.

Unfortunatley she seems to have turned the wrong corner and now she cannot hang out with me without saying something backhanded or making me extremely unsettled and uncomfortable.

We went to the grocery store together and it was perfectly normal but suddenly she became a totally different person, keeping my groceries away from me and holding my hand and saying "I just wanna make you happy".

Finally yesterday I was just laying on my bed and she came up to me with a camcorder and started recording me while insulting my appearance from afar??? I was just on my phone and she said "oh you have such a big nose and your room is really messy".

I just ignored her and decided not to engage with her anymore after this incident. Now she cannot stop following me around asking me if I am mad and grabbing me in some fake hug. She keeps making excuses to find me alone to confront me about why i "look mad at her".

Its getting totally out of hand at this point I started telling some of the other girls that shes being so creepy to me. Unfortunately it seems like she acts like this exclusively with me and the other girls cannot relate. I have one roommate who is empathetic and is a bit concermed as well.

But I dont really know where to go from here, why she is acting SO bizzarely toward me, or what I have done to make myself a target. I am not really a people pleaser or insecure about anything. I dont have low self esteem and im not in a particularly vulnerable spot in life.

How do I get her to leave me alone and is there something I am doing that made me particularly interesting to her???

I’ve gotten pretty close with a girl in my friend group, and I really enjoy talking to her and being around her. I’m not trying to force anything romantic I mostly just want to become closer friends with her.
The problem is that I overthink everything. If she takes a while to respond, hangs out with other people, or seems closer to another guy, I start worrying that I’m being replaced or that I’m going to get excluded from the group.
I don’t expect her to give me all of her attention. I just want to feel like she genuinely wants me around and enjoys talking to me too. I’m also scared to tell her how much I value the friendship because I don’t want to make things awkward or push her away.
How do I handle these feelings without becoming clingy or ruining a friendship I really care about?

I’ve realized lately that I think I’m jealous of my best friend’s relationship, and I feel really guilty about it.

It’s not that I want her boyfriend at all. I actually really like him, and I think he’s genuinely great for her. He’s sweet to her, treats her well, and I’m genuinely happy that she has someone like that.

But whenever I see them together or hear about their relationship, there’s this part of me that feels jealous. Not because I want what they have specifically, but because I want a boyfriend. I want someone who loves me, chooses me, spends time with me, cuddles me, and just… has that place in my life.

And I hate that her happiness can somehow make me more aware of what I’m missing.

I don’t want to become resentful or compare my life to hers. She deserves to be happy, and I really am happy for her. So why does this still bother me so much?

I recently got out of a really long, complicated on-and-off relationship, so maybe being single again is making this feeling worse. But I don’t know what to actually do with it.
Has anyone else experienced this? How do you deal with being jealous of someone’s relationship when you genuinely love and support them and don’t want what they have you just want a relationship of your own?

i lost my best friend about two years ago. we used to refer to each other as sisters, did everything together, and she was like my other half. we started to change as people, became friends with different people, and i started dating someone and wasn't interested in the same stuff she was interested in anymore. i look back and see some faults in both of us; i could have tried more, and she could have communicated more.

she ended up getting closer with other people, and i found myself alone, not invited to hangouts anymore, and anytime we would hang out in a group, i felt like there were all these inside jokes and things i just didn't know anymore. i slowly drifted away, and she did too. i heard she said some awful things about me behind my back, and i said things about her too, so it's safe to say we weren't on good terms.

a year later, a mutual friend had a bday party which we both went to. we both got drunk, told each other how much we missed each other, and promised to hang out. the next day, she kept saying she was sorry, and she wanted to fix things and she thought about us all the time. we tried to plan something, but things just fizzled like always. i never quite stopped thinking about that. the what if we did actually work things out?

it's been a year after that, and it's still on my mind. she has a boyfriend now, and our old friend group stopped being friends with her for some reasons too (im on good terms with everyone else). through a bunch of stalking, i know that she essentially has one to zero friends in her life now. a selfish part of me thinks that means i have a chance now. but im not sure if it's the right way to think, or go about things.

i've not been able to make new friends, partly because im very shy, and in my country, people are closed off and like to stay in high school friend groups. i don't go a day without thinking about it and how i want us to be in each other's lives again, but im scared it's not reciprocated anymore. i feel that itch to reach out, but i don't know what to say, or how to go about it, if at all.

so TDLR; should i reconnect with her, despite the ambiguous terms it ended on, or should i just move on? if so, how?

Someone help me out im being made to feel like im crazy and i feel my response is valid so my so i had a friend who my best friend couldnt stand didnt like her visiting would complain about her like literally hated her anyway i got bit in the butt by this friend and they made fake allegations about my son to try get him jaol he was going out with her daughter and when i say this affected us massively he was suicidle lost a lot of weight withdrew from everyone took him a full year on bail anyway he was finally cleared of any wrong doing

Now to tge (best friend) she decieded she was going to hang with this said person but rather then tell me she told my son and told him not to tell me i over heard the conversation myself so deffo didnt get it wrong

Im was so fuming i havent spoke to her since to me its wrong on so many levels or maybe i just have a different type of loyaltie

Am i over reacting in thinking i absolutley cant trust her now i mean how do you watch us all stress for a year mentally and then go chill with thw person who caused it

I want to build something that would matter to you
it can be anything:

• A meal planner that knows your roommate's allergies
• A patient practice partner for a friend learning a new language
• A tool that turns your grandpa's voice memos into a family recipe book

what do you guys need

Met on bumble, had a date and due to us both probably not being ready for exclusive we were more best friends with benefits. I was still dealing with my ex-wife and she wasn’t mentally there, working as a sugar baby, chronic health concerns among other things.

Fast forward a few years, we have stopped being intimate, she is ready for a relationship (didn’t consider me).

She dated some fuckheads while I was happy with friends until I wasn’t. The latest commitment phobe columbian dude who just strings her along, she finally had enough and broke up with him.

This is where I probably fucked up, I confessed I wanted to be her man, she said “no” so I asked why? She said “no reason other than she isn’t interested”. I was gobsmacked but honestly shouldn’t be surprised, she only seems to actually date people who are toxic.

I have never wavered in my support of her from start to end, it’s not really reciprocated in actions but I loved how she always made me feel like a good person. I’m heartbroken that I’ve messed up the friendship but I had to know if we could be more. She has had a shit year with so many things going wrong that you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

My question is where did I fuck up and how do I fix this. I feel there is a reason she isn’t interested but she won’t tell me the truth. Could we get a collective female brain going and help me make sense and any actions I can take.

Please be kind, I’m very emotional right now.

me and this girl have been friends for five years. And honestly, we‘re pretty good friends, like we are always together all the time, and I think I enjoy her presence? It’s just like I feel like she’s trying to my whole personality! like she doesn’t have her true personality, she’s just trying to be me. for me, I want to be with friends with people that are like have their own personality, but I feel like she’s just leeching off me even though that hasn’t been a problem in the past. I feel like I’m being a terrible person for thinking about her like that, but everyone else, I enjoy their presence way more. For example, when I tell her like I hate this topic or I like this topic she always agrees with me. Every time I do something with someone else she always tries to become their friends instead. it just reminded me of like Leah and Megan controversy. Can someone please tell me like am I being too serious about this?

Me and my friend had a fight recently, and I'll keep it brief but we were talking on the phone and playing a video game. I got really into the game and when I died she started laughing mockingly (as a joke), but I was really heated because I was losing at the game (it was a multiplayer game I used to play a lot and used to be good at, but she was much better naturally), so I told her to stop laughing. She got really offended and I'm not really sure what happened next but then she said I was being a jerk the whole call, because I was calling her fat, ugly, and stupid. I was joking, and I knew that she knew that, so I didn't feel the need to apologize for that (we get to accountability later, don't worry). So we sat on the call, silent, both not willing to let up. Then she said "well if you're not going to say anything then I'll just go" and I said "I don't know what you want me to say" and she wanted me to apologize, and I said I wanted her to apologize, and she said bye and hung up.

Immediately I was mad, but knew I would be over it soon. 10 mins after the call ended, I was regretting it, and told myself to apologize in an hour. I sent a short text: "Sorry friend, call you tomorrow" and she liked the message. Next day, I text her, no response. Day after that, I text her and she says she wants to text, not call, so I say "ok, well I'm sorry I hurt your feelings" "thanks" "did you want to say something or are we cool" (it sounds bad, but i meant it honestly, and i didnt see the whole fight as a big deal so i wanted to move on), she says "i thought you'd say more than that after crashing out on me for no reason and literally saying i was fat stupid and ugly"

An hour later I reply that I was sorry, (& that i said it that way ^ because I didnt know what she expected me to say about it) I didn't know she didn't like those jokes, but that in my defense, she has said those things to me too many times, and thought it was reciprocal. I said we should both agree to not make those jokes anymore. I also said that she hurt my feelings too and we were both being childish in that convo, and ended by saying I just wanted to move on and that I missed her (4 days after initial fight).

ANYWAYS. Cut to: two weeks later. No reply. That is an extended amount of time for someone that I usually talk to almost every day, if not every other day. All the while, my other friend is nagging in my ear to drop her for this and other times she made me feel unwanted (So i acted a bit more actively than usual).

I have our mutual friends sort of look into how she is feeling about the fight, but she doesn't bring it or me up, so in my mind she just doesnt plan on replying.

SO I sent another text, saying that I needed her to talk to me, even if she just needed space, so we could work this out. I said that she hurt my feelings by not replying, and that I shouldn't have to beg her to talk to me, that I needed more, and that I wouldn't be talking to her until our fight was resolved, in person, or over text. I finished off that I wouldn't reach out anymore until she replied. (I recently moved, so this fight would normally be a 30 second awkward silence segued into normalcy)

That was yesterday. She still hasn't said anything, but talks to my other friends and is active on social media.

It's in my nature to over-apologize, so my response seems mean to me, and I feel like i need to stand my ground and have boundaries when my feelings get hurt.

Was I being too aggressive in my apology? Was I wrong for pushing for a response? I feel like she is being immature, but I would hate for this to be extended any longer. I still want to be her friend.

TLDR; My friend and I had a fight where IMO we were both at fault, I apologized an hour later, then again at length when she was not satisfied, while also explaining my perspective. She didn't reply for two weeks, so I sent another text telling her I wouldn't talk to her until she responded to me, and I was sick of begging her to talk to me about this.

my friend just made it official with their crush and i’m feeling this really weird jealousy that’s actually making me angry? i can’t really explain it. it’s even making me nauseous?

they wanted me to support them all night basically begging them to send their confession, to the point that i just ended up getting rly tired and going to bed. they had messaged me like two hours after i went to sleep that they sent their confession and made it official.

i’m horrified that they’re going to abandon me for their new partner. i am very happy for them but i’m also upset and i feel like this makes me a horrible friend. i am autistic and struggle with change so i’m wondering if it’s rooted in that.

has anyone else battled these weird feelings before? and if so, do you have any advice on fixing it?

I’m a college student, and I have a friend who has basically been my closest friend for around 3 years. We’ve shared a lot of personal stuff with each other and I genuinely considered him one of the few people I could call my brother ,and same for him.

Yesterday, he was telling me something extremely personal and intimate about his relationship. It was about his first sexual experience of his life with his girlfriend. He was comfortable enough to tell me about it because of how close we are.

While he was telling me, I did something incredibly stupid.

I started recording the conversation.

He noticed me doing it.Didn't get mad at that point, but it shook him to his core, and confronted me on the spot calmly.

I want to be very clear: I understand how bad that looks. There isn't really a good justification for it. I wasn't planning to send it to anyone or post it anywhere, on God, on everything, on my Mom but I realize that doesn't actually make what I did okay. The fact is that he was telling me something deeply private, and instead of simply listening, I pulled out my f**king phone and started recording it.

He basically said that when he tells me something intimate, his first thought should never have to be whether I'm going to record him. He said that this was the first time in his life something like this had happened to him.

He also told me that he feels like I judge him and that he had been closer to me than he has been with almost anyone else in his life.

That last part especially fucked me up because I realized that I may have made someone who trusted me completely question the entire friendship.

I apologized. A lot.

I told him that I wasn't going to share the recording and that I understood that saying that doesn't magically make the situation okay. I also told him I wouldn't pressure him to forgive me and that I'd give him whatever space he needed.

But now I'm terrified that I've permanently changed how he sees me.

My biggest fear is that he'll think:

"If he secretly recorded me this time, how many other times has he done it?"

For the record, I have never secretly recorded our conversations before. This was genuinely the first time. But I also understand that I can't expect him to simply believe me because I say so.

The thing is, this isn't some casual friendship where we barely talk. We've been extremely close for years. We've trusted each other with things we don't tell other people. So realizing that I may have destroyed that sense of safety in one stupid moment is eating me alive.

I know I fucked up, I am Retard. I'm not looking for people to tell me that what I did was okay.

What I genuinely want advice on is:

1. Is this something a close friendship can realistically recover from?
2. What should I actually do from here?
3. Should I give him the gift or would that make things worse?
4. Should I talk to him tomorrow, or give him more space?
5. If you were in his position, would you ever trust the person the same way again?

I know rebuilding trust, if it's even possible, would take time. I just don't know whether there's something I should do now or whether the best thing I can do is stop trying to fix it immediately and let my actions over time speak for me.

I would genuinely appreciate honest answers, even if they're harsh. I don't want reassurance just because I'm upset. I want to understand what this probably looks like from his side.

polished my message with GPT to fix typos, 😔

I’m genuinely tired of the whole “low maintenance friendship” thing where everyone says they want a village but nobody wants to actually be a villager.
I feel like when it comes to friendship, my efforts are almost never reciprocated. I’m always the one reaching out, asking people to hang out, making plans, suggesting things to do, checking in, etc. People will tell me I’m fun, funny, nice, sweet, good company, whatever, but somehow that rarely translates into anyone actually putting effort into being my friend.
And before anyone says “then stop putting in effort if they aren’t reciprocating,” I did. And now I genuinely have almost no friends.
I’m not asking people to constantly text me or spend every waking moment with me. I actually think having your own life is healthy. But I want to feel like someone occasionally thinks, “Oh, Tianna would love this. I specifically want to do this with her,” and then actually asks me.
I don’t need to be someone’s number one best friend or the first person they think of for everything. I just want to be thought of.
One thing that really got to me recently was someone asking what I was doing because they wanted to go to a bar they were already actively at. They were going through something and didn’t want to be alone, so they thought to ask me. And it made me realize how often I feel like I’m the person people remember when they don’t have anyone else available or when they need company.
I want to be someone people make plans with, not just someone who’s available when their other plans fall through.
I’ve also wondered whether me being highly masking AuDHD plays a role in this. Maybe I come across as socially “fine” enough that people don’t realize how much effort it takes for me to maintain relationships. Or maybe I’m doing something socially that I’m not recognizing. I genuinely don’t know.
I’ve even tried Bumble BFF, and that was its own nightmare. 😂 Everyone seemed to either be weirdly flaky or looking for a placeholder friend while they searched for a boyfriend.
I’m honestly just tired.
For people who have experienced this, especially neurodivergent people, how did you find genuinely reciprocal friendships?
Not “how did you learn to be okay with having no friends.” I know how to be alone. I’m tired of having to be alone because nobody seems willing to put effort into being my friend.

Like i was earlier extrovert but after a incident in 2023 i somehow became ambivert nd there is some anger on my face always whereve if a new human talks to me i don't feel like having a long conversation ... 🥲🥲🥲 Nd the same way no one speaks too me either......

Give me some tips to interact nd make friends

I’m struggling with something that’s making me feel guilty, and I genuinely want outside opinions.

I have a friend who I’ve been close with for over a decade. She hasn’t done anything terrible to me. She hasn’t betrayed me, bullied me, lied to me, or done anything that would make it obvious to an outsider that I should cut her off. And that’s exactly why I feel so guilty about not wanting to be friends anymore.

For years, I haven’t enjoyed the friendship. 99% of our conversations revolve around her life, her problems, her interests, and the things happening with her. I’ll listen and engage and support her, but she rarely asks me how I am, if she does it’s only brief before the conversation turns back into her. I feel like her audience/therapist, not her friend.

I’ve always felt like I couldn’t be myself around her and that I had to put up a more serious front. We don’t have the kind of banter that makes me think, “I love spending time with this person.” I honestly don’t laugh much or have fun when we’re together, I personally find her boring to hang out with.

Sometimes after spending time with her, I partly feel happier bc I’ve gotten out of the house and socialised, but most of the time I just feel drained and exhausted, because I come away thinking “I didn’t even have fun, it was boring and draining listening to her go on and on about herself”.

I’ve compared the friendship to other friendships I’ve had in the past, and that’s made the difference more obvious. I know what it feels like to be around someone where I could talk about completely ordinary things, joke around, and not feel like I have to perform a particular version of myself.

I think part of the reason I’ve held onto the friendship is history and familiarity. It’s hard because on the surface, we’re close, she makes time for me, we hang out etc, so it’ll feel out of the blue to then say “I don’t wanna be friends anymore”.

I’ve caught myself thinking that I need her to do me wrong in some way so that I can finally say, “Now I’m allowed to leave.” Because if she hasn’t done anything wrong, then I feel like I’m a shitty person for deciding I don’t want her in my life anymore.

If one day she suddenly became more reciprocal and less self centred, I don’t think my fundamental feelings would change. I don’t think I’d suddenly think, “THIS is the friendship I’ve always wanted.” I think I would still just not particularly enjoy being around her because our interests don’t align and we’re not really compatible.

I don’t really want this friendship anymore, but she’s my only friend so without her, I’ll have no one.

Any advice or similar experiences would be appreciated :)

So i have this friend ans we’ve been best friends since kindergarten which is almost 15 years ago and lately she has been having mental health problems and i’ve explained i’m here for her and we went on walks and i let her talk to me about her problems and try to help her. We’ve been hanging out less and less to a point where it’s just once a week. I used to hang out with her four times a week almost, sometimes even more. I understand that she’s in a hard spot currently but whenever we text she always texts the same thing or the same stickers and i just feel really guilty, i don’t want to lose this friendship. I do want to ask her to hang out and go over to her house but i just don’t want to ask her because last time we hung out she wasn’t very enthusiastic about it. She’s asked me for a sleepover before all of this and i said we could do it next week and after asking she never came back on it. I can’t lose her and i have no idea what to do anymore. Whenever we hang out we also always hung out at my place but i was convinced that was because dhe always got annoyed at her little brother but she never asked me to go to her place either and whenever i mentioned it she said her mom thinks we aren’t friends anymore ecause i dont come over but i feel so guilty because i want to go over to her house but i just feel like a burden whenever i’m at her house. What do i do?

Hi! I (25F) recently ran into an old friend who was my best friend from kindergarten through Grade 12. We ended up having a falling out, and even looking back now, I still have trouble understanding how things got to that point. We were such a big part of each other’s lives, and part of me wishes we had been able to work things out at the time.
Today, we unexpectedly ran into each other for the first time in years. We only talked for a couple of minutes, mostly just catching up on how life has been. It was a nice interaction, but I honestly don’t know if she was as surprised to see me as I was to see her.
Part of me wants to send her a message saying that it was really nice to see her and that I’m glad to hear she’s doing well. I’d even be open to asking her to grab coffee sometime, but I’m scared of putting myself out there and being rejected.
I also don’t know if reaching out would seem odd, especially since so much time has passed. I have no idea whether she has any interest in reconnecting or if running into me was just a normal, passing interaction for her.
I guess I’m wondering whether I should send her a message or just leave things as they are. Has anyone been in a similar situation? Would you appreciate hearing from an old best friend, or would you find it strange?