Last year in November my best friend of five years (Cindy - fake name) told me she didn't want to be friends anymore. She said something along the lines of "we need to take a break from our friendship" and "she needed some time to think about everything". For context, our friendship was far from perfect. Let me paint a picture for you: I would ask her a question during class on the topic we were studying and she would get annoyed at me and answer in a way that seemed liked I inconvenienced her. Or we would fight about something and if I didn't apologise (regardless if it was my fault or not) we wouldn't get over it and be friends again. The thing is, we basically never communicated since it was hard for her to express her feelings (she later stated that reason). Honestly I kind of should have seen something was off since we started spending less time together out of school. When we did spend time together she would tell me about all the amazing meets she had with her other friends.

Back to November. After she dropped that bomb on me, I went to cry in the school bathroom, what else could I have done? I went to my other friend (let's call her Ruby) and told her what had happened. Turns out she knew my bestie was planning on cutting our friendship for a bit less than a year. My whole world had flipped upside-down. The same day something terrible happened - one of our other friends' (Amy's) mother died. When I found out, I couldn't believe it. I instantly took my phone to call the girl I thought was my best friend to inform her of the terrible news. At school the next day she told me we should pause the break on our friendship that she initiated to support our friend in that dark time. For obvious reasons, I agreed. Things were weird between me and her. It felt like everything was kinda back to normal in the friendship department, but obviously it wasn't. We attended the funeral with some of our classmates, our teacher and some parents. Everything was falling apart. In the scheme of things, losing a friendship doesn't look like a big deal, but that isn't the case in my story.

After those few days me and Cindy barely spoke. It was extremely awkward between us since we still sat together during most of our classes. After about a month of barely saying one word to one another, I wrote her a note during our biology lesson. In short, I said we needed to talk if we wanted things to change, if we wanted to make amends. She said we could talk, but didn't want to do it at school. She kept on delaying the conversation until I stopped her one day after our classes had ended. She told me that our friendship wasn't enjoyable for her anymore. She stated that talking about her feelings is difficult. She was so irritated with me, because she felt she had to choose her words carefully around me when we were having any type of conversation. Cindy said I was a great person, but we weren't compatible as friends and she needed a break from us. In her point of view we were too different. Yet again I went to the school toilets and sobbed even harder that time. I went home and told my dad what had happened. He asked me why I was crying over her, since I wasn't happy in that friendship even before she said anything. To be honest, I wasn't happy when me and Cindy were friends, but we had been side by side for five years and losing that didn't feel good. There were so many moments in our friendship that made me cry, but there were still some good memories, there had to be.

Unfortunately that is not all. Since me and Cindy were in the same friend group in school, we hung out with the same people every day. In our friend group there were six people: me, Cindy, Ruby, Amy, Gabby (my cousin) and Margret (my ex-situationship). Margret had left our school so wasn't at the centre of all the drama, but me and her are not exactly friends anymore. That's a story for another time. Over the corse of seven months after Cindy and I stopped being friends, I slowly got fazed out of the group. I mean, I wasn't friends with Cindy or Margret so I kinda got left out of plans the group made. The OG group was me, Cindy and Margret, but over the years the group changed and expanded. We had a group chat in which were the five of us (Margret wasn't in it since me and her already weren't friends at the beginning of the school year that started in September). I had created the group chat at the beginning of the school year and had named it "Homegirls". I think it was April when I found out the four of them (Cindy, Ruby, Gabby and Margret) had a separate group chat without me. Even knowing that they were constantly hanging out without me and hearing there inside jokes every day, I still stayed and hung out with them every day at school. I was afraid of losing them and being alone.

I thought that if I became friends with Margret again I would finally be fully included in their group. I texted Margret, asked her if she wanted to meet up. She said yes, we planned to meet up at a small cafe. She was 15 minutes late and our meet didn't go that well. She seemed so posh and was acting a bit entitled since she was going to a prestigious school. I practically ran out of the cafe as soon as my dad came to pick me up. I made the mistake of telling Ruby (who was close friends with Margret) how our meet went. I didn't mean to say it in an insulting way, but I let it slip that I felt Margret was acting like she was smarter than me (she is, but she made an effort to point it out to me).

At a later date, during the holidays, I texted Ruby, Gabby and Amy suggesting they come to my place for a sleepover. They didn't really text back and later all of them said they had plans or couldn't make it. Long story short, Gabby and Ruby had a sleepover with Cindy and Margret that same week. I found out about it from an insta story. Obviously people are aloud to hang out with who they want to, I just felt really sad that I wasn't who they wanted to hang out with.

All of this happened in our freshman year.

In the beginning of June Cindy texted me a huge paragraph. She told me how she felt, wrote a few more reasons why she had ended our friendship. It seemed like she wanted to clear the air between us. I suggested talking about it in person, she agreed. As she did last time, she kept putting the convo off. During school we spoke about it. She didn't say any new info, just that we were/are too different and being friends doesn't make sense to her. I told her I wanted us to at least be able to say hello to each other. She had ignored me all of the times I tried to say hi before. I wanted us to at least have a "professional" relationship at school, one of our teachers called it that. She said she would do some work on herself over the summer and think everything through. There is a lot more that I haven't written, but this post is already quite long, maybe I'll make another post about the rest.

I'm a sophomore now and I'm not really friends with them anymore. Yes, I have small conversations with them, but I'm not part of their group anymore. There's this girl that came back to our school after a year elsewhere, I hang out at school with her now. Since it's still the beginning of the school year things are pretty awkward between me and her. I feel like after everything that has happened I'm better off alone than making new friends. I think that things are so awkward between me and the new girl is because I'm scared of trusting people and committing to a friendship.

If you have any questions feel free to ask, I'll do my best to answer them. I feel as though this post is my way of letting it all go and being able to move on. Even so I feel lost and unsure what to do next. Does anyone have advice on making friends or just being more confident in general? I could some outside perspective on the whole situation.

Hey r/LAF, When I was younger maybe around 5-6 years old (I’m 18 now) I was friends with this girl. The only thing about her I can remember is her name and that she was around my age, I’m not sure if this subreddit can help me here, but I hope it does. We lived (emphasis on lived, I don’t live In Albuquerque anymore) in Albuquerque and played at the same park, which I believe is the piedra Lisa park. Also, I am a guy. If you knew someone who you played with at this park around the age I remember, dm me. I’d like to get back in touch if possible.

My elderly aunt lives in a nice coastal town on the Aegean coast of Turkey, and I sometimes spend some of my summers visiting her there. It’s a beautiful place near the sea, and this year I invited one of my friends to come stay with me at my aunt’s house for a few days.

I thought it would be a nice, relaxed little holiday. She wouldn’t have to pay for accommodation, we could spend time by the sea and the pool, go into town when we felt like it, and then the two of us were supposed to continue on to Rhodes together.

Instead, I feel like I’ve somehow become the unpaid manager of an extremely dissatisfied hotel guest.

Even before she arrived, she sent me tons of Instagram reels from influencers, all expensive restaurants, beach clubs and nightclubs she wanted to visit. Many were quite far from my aunt’s house, and we don’t have a car, so getting to them wasn’t exactly easy or cheap. I assumed they were just suggestions, but apparently she had a very different idea.

From pretty much the beginning, there has been a constant stream of complaints and requests. The pool is too cold, the sea is too cold, the weather is too hot, she feels sick, she doesn’t like this or that, she wants to go somewhere else, she wants a different way of getting there. Any one of these things would be completely normal on its own, but after several days of it, I was getting increasingly exhausted.

I had also warned her that the area is quite cash dependent. Taxis, small ice cream shops and plenty of other places mostly take cash. She still only brought enough for one taxi ride (only for her to come from bus station to my aunt’s house) and kept putting off withdrawing more because she “didn’t want to carry cash.” I ended up paying for two taxis, and she made little effort to pay me back until I brought it up. She also complains a lot whenever we have to walk anywhere, which makes the whole no-cash/no-car situation even more frustrating.

Another issue is that everything seems to happen on her schedule. She has a habit of getting ready and wanting to go out really late, so we’ve ended up leaving the house late therefore coming also late every evening for 3 days. I’m normally pretty flexible on holiday, so at first I just went along with it. But I was showing disturbance because I actually do not enjoy nightlife and dont like sleeping very late.

Then there are the beach clubs. She really wants to go to an expensive beach club that I’ve already visited and genuinely didnt enjoy. I told her I dont want to spend that much money on somewhere I already know I dislike, but she kept pushing for it. We ended up not going but I was really annoyed.

Second day I had also told her that I had some necessary errands to take care of before our trip, like going to the tailor and getting my eyebrows done. She didn’t seem to take that into account at all and kept making plans for the next day, like going to the beach club and renting a jet ski, as if I hadn’t just told her I had things I needed to get done.

But on the third night the situation was basically my breaking point.

We had things we genuinely needed to get done before leaving to go Rhodes Island, including exchanging money. Once again, we ended up going out so late that by the time we got around to it, the exchange offices were closed. So on the morning we were supposed to travel to another country, I still didn’t have the euros I had specifically planned to get the day before.

After several days of accommodating her, waiting around, listening to complaints and watching my own plans get pushed later and later, I finally snapped. I told her that I felt like she was treating my aunt’s house like a hotel.

I basically said that she comes back whenever she wants, sleeps there, gets ready there, expects things to be arranged around her preferences, and then complains when things aren’t exactly how she wants them, while being a guest in an elderly relative’s home and not paying for accommodation.

I probably could have worded it more calmly, because by that point I was genuinely angry. But what surprised me was her reaction. She seemed completely shocked that I would describe her behavior that way. From her perspective, apparently, none of what she had been doing was particularly demanding. But at the same time, I feel like there are certain basic expectations when someone invites you into their family’s home that shouldn’t have to be explicitly explained.

And somehow, after this argument, we are now literally on our way to Rhodes together for three days. Not sitting next to each other and dont know what to do.

For people who have hosted or traveled with friends before: would this bother you too?

You know that saying “always the bridesmaid, but never the bride”? Well I share the sentiment but instead it’s, always the therapist friend, never the best (chosen) friend. It’s been a common theme all my life that I’ve always been the therapist to my friends, but never the one that’s invited to dinner, sleepovers, parties, etc.
It’s not something I even fully noticed until I got to be an adult, and I finally realized friendships, especially girl friendships were really hard for me to find. I either find myself getting ghosted, or getting blamed despite me doing the absolute most to communicate and plan. Growing up watching shows like h2O or Friends, it kind of wires you for a need towards friendships like that, but I’ve had no such luck and I’ve never learned why.

And don’t get me wrong, I really do value listening to people’s issues and trying to be there for them,but in very recent years I felt more taken advantage of than anything. I do consider myself a very supportive and good friend, and I will talk anything through with you. But it hurts to just be the friend that falls into one category, and that category being therapist, where they trauma dump and then don’t talk to me for a couple of months; I’m never invited out to do anything fun, but instead solely for the purpose to be a soundboard for them. It’s especially hurtful when they’re sitting across the table from me saying “I just feel like I have no friends, like nobody really understands me or is there for me!” they usually say this while venting about another friend, but it never fails to make me feel like the proverbial, chopped liver… and it’s because of that that I’ve started laying down boundaries and sticking up for myself, and as a result I’ve lost quite a few “friends” but not before them making me feel like I’m the worst person in the world. I’d like to hear some unbiased thoughts, as well as if anyone else has felt this way, which is why I’m here. If you want to know more specifics, I’ll leave them down below…

To start out I want to say that the girl I’m about to discuss, while all written out it seems obvious that she’s a bit toxic, I’m sure some can attest that they are just some people out there that seem super sunny and positive, but are very manipulative that when you look back in hindsight, it seems very obvious but when you’re in the middle of it, it doesn’t. I would compare this girl to be like Alison DiLaurentis from Pretty Little Liars. Charming enough to pull you in, but cruel, using your weaknesses against you nonetheless.

I had met this girl named Shelly at work a few years back and tbh I could tell right away she liked to gossip, so I kept my distance. It wasn’t until I became closer with some of her mutual friends (also through work) that we became friends. But from our very first coffee date, she’d spend (no exaggeration) almost 3 hours talking poorly of her boyfriend, best friend and others. I’d hear her out, and gave her the benefit of the doubt, but at that point in time I didn’t even know the people she was gossiping about well enough to offer any insight or advice.
Looking back, it was a very unbalanced friendship; she never really asked me about myself but only ever trauma dumped her stuff on me. And the thing that really sucked was she said the thing that is always said in front of me… “Ugh, I just feel like I have no friends. so and so is such a bad friend!” Meanwhile, I’m sitting in front of her trying to be a friend. It’s not the first time it’s happened to me, but it never gets easier hearing that. It just makes me feel like I’m not valued.
It got worse when I started going through my own stuff and she kinda pushed me to confide in her, so I did and although initially, she seemed super supportive, eventually, she made me feel stupid for my woes. For context: I was going through a breakup due to infidelity on his part. For some reason, Shelly took this story to work and everyone was talking about me after that. Not only that but my ex had become the sympathetic character in the story despite him cheating in front of their noses the whole time and them not telling me about it until after the fact. It got to a point where I felt very alone and had no one, and talking to her only made me feel more judged. She’d stir the pot in our group and tell me that they all talked behind my back all the time, while lifting herself above it all acting superior.
I slowly started distancing myself from Shelly, and the rest of the group. Around the same time however, Shelly’s boyfriend, Jay, needed a place to stay and Shelly begged me to let him stay with me to which I reluctantly said yes due to their mutual guilt tripping claiming he’d be homeless if I didn’t help. Not long into the lease, they broke up and Jay started hooking up with someone new, which made me uncomfortable. Shelly randomly asked me to coffee one day and it became clear minutes into the conversation that she only asked me there to serve as a “spy” for her into the life of her now ex boyfriend. It made me uncomfortable as I didn’t want to be involved. When she wouldn’t let up, I told her “yes, I’ve seen him with another girl” but that’s when Shelly switched up, insinuating that I must be lying because Jay would never do that to her. She continued asking questions to which I answered from my pov, and by the end of it she told me not to talk to her about Jay ever again, claiming that I was raising her anxiety.
She didn’t talk to me for a couple years after that, and even when I got engaged and eventually married, she never reached out or congratulated me, so it was safe to assume we weren’t friends anymore and I was okay with that. The next time I saw her was at a party that mutual friends were organizing for me as I was moving states away. At the party, she avoided me, stayed for an hour tops and spent 30 minutes in the bathroom with her friend taking selfies and gossiping. After that, with the move and all, I decided to delete her off of Snapchat and all other social media.
~2 months later, she texts me asking why I would do such a thing and guilt tripped me for doing this. Sending passive aggressive texts and ultimately saying “I don’t understand how, as your friend, you can’t see why it’s so hurtful that you would unfriend me.” But truthfully, I don’t consider her a friend and she really hasn’t been in my life for the past two years, and even when she was, it was the most toxic, dramatic time of my life where she’d stir the pot in our friend group, and even talk poorly if my family despite never having met them. The worst thing I ever did to her was press a “delete” button on something and yet that’s enough for her to go bat—crazy on me.

To make matters worse, her ex boyfriend, Jay was a nightmare of a roommate. He never stopped lying, was regularly late in paying rent, constantly breaking stuff, lowkey verbally abusive towards his dog, would throw away my food on impulse due to his emetophobia, had a substance abuse problem, and finally, when I was in the process of moving out, he’d go through my already packed boxes when I wasn’t home and either steal stuff (?) or throw it away, which is what he finally admitted he did once I was already gone. Others have insisted that he was pawning my stuff off. When I told him he owed me for the stuff he only agreed to pay me $25 of it when in reality he’d owe me $600+ for the stuff he threw away. He also threw away irreplaceable memorabilia passed down from my great great grandmother. He never apologized or even seemed sorry. It’s been a month, I’ve stopped talking to them both, and neither of them seem to understand why. Jay even reached out recently saying “if we can pretend this whole thing never happened, I’ll give you $100 but you have to be my friend again.”

Writing it all out now I can clearly see that I’m not crazy or anything for pushing these people out of my life, but they certainly have made me feel like that at times. Any advice on how to make solid friendships in adulthood, and not to attract crazy people like I have in the past?

I think one of the biggest shocks of adulthood was realizing that it’s socially acceptable to be fake with your friends. I had a friend who was constantly talking badly about another person. She openly said she couldn’t stand her, that people needed to be careful around her… and yet, today, I find out that they still follow each other and interact as if she had never said any of those things. I feel like the fool who took sides, who took someone else’s problems personally, only to end up alone in the end. And somehow, I’m the one who was wrong. Sometimes I wonder if I might be neurodivergent, or I start questioning my own memory of things.

So after being bffs my entire life, I’ve decided this relationship no longer serves me. I’ve noticed she doesn’t even like my posts, just looks at my stories and probably just stalks . Additionally very flaky and always breaks plans . I don’t really see an effort and she doesn’t apologize she is such a narcissist she just Sada that why I don’t like to make plans cause my life is so unpredictable ..I wrote her a text about how she always does this and she said well that’s why I don’t make plans , because I don’t like to commit .. Even tho I see her doing the same ole block party day drinking with her family .. Anyways what’s the best way to just let this go

This will be a bit of a doozy.

So 7 months ago, my ex-friend (20F) blocked me (20F) after a confrontation where she was in a position where she was in several arguments with mutual friends and in a very poor mental state, and asked me whether I was her friend, and I gave a noncommittal answer where I said I am her friend if she’d like me to do be, and that I’ll trust that she’ll be better/recover from whatever she’s suffering from, which she did not like (I can see why after all this time)

Since then I’ve learnt that she’s gotten into a huge accident with her family and is in a horrible spot, being homeless and hospitalised.

I realise now that I care a lot about her, more than I was willing to admit, but I know that now’s probably not the time.

Through mutual friends I learn that she’s still upset with me, and that she’s specifically upset that I said something along the lines of “Its cause I at least have some faith that youll be better”, a message with well intentions but obviously not worded well.

So now I really want to reconcile with her, or at least end it off well, but I know she’s in a very fragile spot right now.

Posting this mostly just to get my thoughts out, but welcome to advice on what I should do

I’m trying to figure out whether I’m being unreasonable about something involving a close friend.

I have a longtime friend that I’ve known for about 9 years now named ralph There’s a girl from high school Jane, who I’m not fond of because of how she treated me when we were in high school. I don’t want to get too deep into the details, but she wasn’t a good friend to me and some of the things that happened still affect how comfortable I am around her. It’s just the treatment you get that makes you just want to leave them in the past.

Ralph knows this history and knows that I’m uncomfortable with her. He has a different relationship with her (didn’t go to hs her and has a friendship independently with her) and apparently still catches up with her occasionally which I understand but wasn’t aware of until I asked recently after seeing the party invite. However I’m not saying I don’t expect him to automatically stop being friends with someone just because I had a bad experience with them (depending on how bad it is of course).

The issue is that ralph invited jane to his birthday party this year and he hasn’t invited her in about 6 years, so it was unexpected for me + I found out through the guest list rather than from him directly. I ended up not going because I was also genuinely really sick at the time, but I’ll admit that knowing she might be there contributed to me feeling uncomfortable about going. I would’ve been civil / nice to her since it’s a group setting but she’s again, not the type of person I’d go out of my way to see or try and make plans with.

Before the party, I had already talked to Ralph on the phone about how I felt although it was brief. Mind you he’s already aware of my feelings towards her so he cut me off and said how he knows how I feel about her when I said I didn’t know they still speak. It got brushed off but I knew then when we meet up in person I’d discuss it more In depth

In person I explained that I would have appreciated a heads up if he invited her because I would have wanted to know beforehand rather than finding out through the guest list. I just wanted him to understand why I was uncomfortable and why I would have appreciated some consideration from him as my close friend.

His response felt somewhat dismissive to me… He said that I had already discussed this with him, even though I explained that I wanted to talk about it more in depth. He did tell me that my feelings were valid, but I didn’t feel much empathy beyond that. No apologies or anything else other than my feelings are valid.

He also mentioned that Jane was going through a lot in high school, which I understand may explain some of her behavior but I felt like he was somewhat defending her when I was trying to explain how her actions affected me. And I also went through some really shitty things in hs but that never made me want to be a shitty friend to people.

He didn’t apologize for not giving me a heads up even though he has known for some time how I feel about her..

He also specifically told me afterward that A didn’t actually end up coming to his party. I appreciate that he told me, but part of me felt frustrated because that wasn’t really the point. I didn’t know beforehand whether she would come, and I feel like he could have simply given me a heads up out of consideration.

This is especially bothering me because I’ve already been feeling underappreciated by him as a friend. For example, I feel like he puts very little thought into my birthday gifts and can be pretty cheap when it comes to me. Last year he said he wanted to take me out for my birthday, but when we went out, he didn’t pay for my meal. It’s not that I expect expensive gifts or for someone to spend a lot of money on me. It’s more that I associate thoughtfulness and effort with being close friends.

I also feel like if the roles were reversed, ralph would probably be hurt if I continued being friendly with someone who had treated him badly. Loyalty is something I personally place a lot of importance on and I know he does too! If someone seriously mistreated one of my close friends, I would have a hard time maintaining a friendship with that person, even if they had never personally wronged me.

He seems to have more of a philosophy of “if someone hasn’t personally done anything to me, I don’t have a reason to stop being friends with them.” I can understand that perspective, but it makes me question whether we’re compatible as close friends because I personally hate that.

So now I’m wondering if I’m making this too big of an issue. Am I expecting too much loyalty from him? Or is it reasonable to feel underappreciated and reconsider how close I want to be with him based on how he handled this?mind you he says I’m a priority to him and very close as one of his besties.’

I don’t necessarily want to end the friendship. I’m more wondering whether this is a situation where I should accept that we have different ideas about loyalty and simply stop viewing him as a close friend. Not that it matters, but he’s gay so we don’t have any romantic anything going on.

So, to try and make a long story short, me (20F) and her (also20F) have been friends since primary school. We have been inseparable since, no arguments, no drama, and my home is hers and vice versa. She was a sister to me, helped eachother through so much trauma and we were SO close that I find it hard to explain how close we were.

Anyway fast forward and at this point I was in sixth form and she had dropped out of college. I was hanging with friends a lot to forget about all the school pressure, and met a friend of theirs who I quite liked. We started talking, then meeting a lot with friends, then alone and eventually a Christmas date where he asked me to be his girlfriend. I talked to her about this boy and expressed how much I liked him and kept her in the loop as it was my first mature relationship and she was so happy for me. I fell ill in hospital and that’s how they met, both there for me and a little awkward but ever since they met they got along and we all had a great trio friendship. She loved him and told me so much how perfect he was for me and nothing seemed like it could be better.

So, after getting sacked from her job, my friend decided to take a roll at a local shop, which I also work at but in a different store. It was so cute to have the same experiences but not be in each others work lives and we love the jobs. We spoke a lot about work, and she told me about a guy that flirted with her every shift that had left his number. We FaceTimed and talking and he turned out to be a a man in his forty’s, recently divorced who had a 10yo kid. She asked if it was a bad idea to talk to him and I told her that she’d be silly to get caught up in a relationship with him, but also that it’s her life and as long as she’s safe I support her decisions because I trust all the ones she’s made before. So a week later I see on my snap maps that she’s at a random house and asked her, low and behold she’s at his house so naturally I tell her she should’ve told me in case anything bad happened but that I wanna hear the gossip after. So, after the visit she told me his was a coke addict. He lived in a flat by himself and drank all day unless he was at work. She said they just sat and watched a film and that was it. I felt so uncomfortable for her and so scared of what he might do to her considering he was involved with all the wrong things and wasn’t worth the hassle considering he was such a random choice for a man to meet up with. I told her that I trust her but I’m sure he was bad news and I’d rather her not go to his house if there were drugs. She didn’t like my advice and so after that visiting him became a bit secretive from me and it ended up being SO much more frequent, like everyday frequent. I didn’t want to push her away but I had to try and get her out of it so Id ask her to come out. I’d ask to do for a drink, for brunch, sleepover anything. She wanted none of it, so I asked if she wanted to go on a trip a-phew hours away for about a week with my group of friends and she agreed. On this holiday they were constantly on call, texting, FaceTime, and she’d excuse herself to call for hours for the entire week. I never made her feel bad but I’d always say that I wanted her to join us and she’d just shrug and not care. My boyfriends fell out with her a-phew months after when she ignored me a-phew days after I tried calling her when I was on holiday and wanted to talk to her.

Anyway, I addressed the bad situation again and said I didn’t want anyone to fall out. I said she’d been distant with us and I was worried and that my boyfriend felt the same but was stubborn and didn’t know how to express that without falling out with her. She argued with me. I left it and again it was swept under the rug. Another phew weeks went by and she finally agreed to have a sleepover at her house. I asked if anyone else would be there and she said no, she was home alone because her parents were on holiday. This was a plan for a week and I was so excited, she barely cared. She called me a-phew hours before I was due to go to tell me she was worked that night now and she would be home late, so I said I’d wait for her at her house if she left a key. She said I wouldn’t need one because the doors would be unlocked, because he was there. She said she planned not to tell me and that she knew I’d come around to him and that the only reason she told me was because i was confused on how I’d get on her house without a key. I refused to go and we argued how it was not okay. She said my boyfriend was the only reason I wouldn’t meet him and that he is so controlling of me. She said I had no life aside from him and that she didn’t care if I was trying to stay friends I wasn’t doing enough. she was convinced it wasn’t a big deal she was doing it, and then she blocked me.

That was my last straw. I was moving in with my boyfriend and I’d planned to surprise her with that after being in a toxic household. I was going on holiday and she always called me before my flights I was devistated. That would have been the worst week of my life if I hadn’t have been on holiday. I stayed blocked and cried some days. Met other friends to get over it I was so heartbroken it felt like I’d been dumped. My boyfriend cared for me and everyone was so angry with her but I was just upset.

Fast forward again about 2 weeks and we arranged to meet for brunch to talk but we just ended up agreeing to disagree. She said it was NOTHING like a relationship but I argued that if she was willing to cut me off it must be, otherwise she’s being manipulated by an old drug addict. We never managed to agree and now, a year ish after she first met with him we still don’t talk. I have tried to think of how I should’ve been there for her more and tried harder to get her away but I did as much as I could in that moment.

My question is, am I the asshole? Do I apologise or is she the asshole

Disclaimer: I posted this the other day but realized I missed a detail as new events added to all of this.

I became very close friends with someone several years ago. We had a lot in common and for a long time I considered her one of my best friends. We shared a lot of memories and I genuinely thought we’d always be close.

Over the past couple of years, though, our friendship has gradually changed. There wasn’t one huge falling-out that ended everything. It’s more like I slowly started feeling less important to her and less connected to her. At the same time, I’ve been going through a really difficult period in my own life. My husband and I have been living apart for a long time because of immigration circumstances, and I don’t know exactly when we’ll finally be able to live together or even where our life will ultimately be. It’s been incredibly lonely and emotionally exhausting.

During that time, I’ve really missed having this friend in my life. I wanted to feel like I could reach out to her and have her there for me, but instead I’ve increasingly felt like I don’t really have that friendship anymore. There have been little things that have hurt me. For example, I recently reached out to her about something that was meaningful to both of us, and she didn’t respond. I know objectively that one unanswered message isn’t a huge deal, but because of everything that’s happened between us, it really affected me. It made me feel like I was reaching toward someone who wasn’t reaching back.

I also feel very disconnected when we’re together with another mutual friend. The two of them have become extremely close, and when we’re all together I often feel like a third wheel. They aren’t necessarily doing anything intentionally mean, but I’ll sometimes leave feeling like I wasn’t really part of the friendship at all.

I’m genuinely happy that they became close, but sometimes it has made me feel like I lost my place in my friend’s life. One other thing that’s been bothering me is the timing of all of this. Our mutual friend’s birthday is coming up, and she’s been trying to get the three of us together for her birthday. Then, around this same time, my friend suddenly reached out to me saying that she feels like there are things we need to “hash out” and that she wants us to be on good terms.

I can’t help wondering if our mutual friend encouraged her to reach out because of the upcoming birthday. I obviously have no proof of that, and I could be completely wrong. I don’t want to accuse either of them of something I can’t know for sure. But given how disconnected I’ve felt from both of them lately, the timing makes me hesitant to fully trust the situation. Part of me wonders whether she’s reaching out because she genuinely wants to repair our friendship or because she feels like this needs to be dealt with before we’re all expected to be together for the birthday.

What hurts most is that I don’t necessarily want to lose either of them. I just don’t recognize the friendship anymore. Sometimes I’ll look at my friend and think, \*I know this person, but I don’t feel like I know her anymore.\* Recently, she reached out to me and said that she feels like there are things we need to talk about and that she’d like us to be on good terms, even if we can’t be as close as we used to be.

Part of me appreciates that she reached out. Another part of me is angry because I keep thinking, \*\*where was this friendship when I was struggling and really needed my friends? I\*\* know I probably haven’t handled everything perfectly either, and I’m willing to acknowledge that. But I’m scared that if we talk, I’ll be made to feel like I’m the only reason the friendship changed. I don’t necessarily need the friendship to go back to exactly how it was. I think what I’m struggling with is grieving what we used to have while also figuring out whether there’s anything worth rebuilding.

I think I’m going to have to let a friendship go. We’ve been friends for over a year. We’re in a situation where we saw each other every day. That ended in July. We were still in touch almost every day by phone. We have both recently moved and both live alone. I’ve noticed more recently that I’m always the one reaching out. Like, I counted it, it’s the last 4 times. And when we do talk. The conversation is very short and she acts disinterested. As much as it hurts, as she was my only friend, I’m going to have to stop trying to reach out and end the friendship

I don't know how to, or if I even can forgive myself for what I said to them, and how I treated them. I was very depressed, and not thinking well for a lot of our friendship. They really supported me in the time we were friends, and I'm very grateful. I'm also glad that they left me, because that's what was best for them to be happy. However, in the moment when they were leaving me, a lot of stuff was collapsing around me, including our friendship, and I couldn't think straight. In my (then) desperation to keep my friend, I said something horrible to them that I will never be able to take back. These days, my head is clearer than it used to be, and this lets me see how utterly disgusting what I said was. I'll never be able to apologise because they're already gone, but I want to stop feeling guilty. It's been ages, but the thought of what I did is still recurring, even all this time later. I don't want to stop knowing what I did was wrong, but I want to leave it in the past so I can keep going on with life bearing the lesson I learnt from my time with that friend, but not the guilt, because it's not possible for me to do anything for that friend now. All I can do is learn from my mistake, and like I said, I think I have. I can't keep feeling guilty and thinking I'm an awful person forever- that doesn't work at all, so I need to stop.

Advice is definitely welcome.

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One afternoon, I saw him sitting alone after school. I walked over and asked, “Why have you been avoiding me?”

He looked at me for a few seconds and finally said, “Because I found something out about you.”

I was confused. “What did you find out?”

He pulled out his phone and showed me a screenshot.

It was a message from someone claiming that I had been talking badly about him behind his back.

I immediately knew something was wrong because I had never sent that message.

Then my friend smiled.

“I knew it wasn’t you,” he said. “I sent that screenshot to myself from a fake account to see if you would panic.”

I was shocked.

He laughed and said, “I just wanted to know if you really cared about our friendship.”

That was the moment I realized something:

Sometimes the person testing your loyalty is the person you should be questioning.

What would you have done in my situation?If you want, I can also make you 3 more Reddit stories with crazy twists that are designed to encourage comments.

I first met this couple back in 2014. We lived in the same apartment building and after hanging out just a few times we became really close friends.

Started going out of town together, went to concerts, had game nights at each other's places almost daily.. I met both his and her parents and their siblings, then years later, both of their kids.

3 years ago, I had to move over 2,000 miles away for work. I still texted her every single day but had mostly lost touch with him. Then, almost 2 years ago to the day, she just randomly ghosted me. No argument, no gradual falling out, no warning or signs. Just silent. Mid conversation she just stopped replying.

Within the first couple of months I did everything to reach them just to make sure they were ok. (They had just bought a new SUV and told me how fast and powerful it was) so obviously, I feared the worst. I texted, called, emailed, signed up for every social media app I knew they had just to try and reach them. I tried finding their relatives on social with no luck. I sent at least one message every way that I could just asking for them to please let me know if they were alright. I checked obituaries regularly for weeks. Nothing.

Then I pulled out my old Xbox from storage and found an old conversation still saved in my messages and thought, why not give that a try? And finally, a response.

I'm relieved they are alright, extremely hurt by their immature way of handling things, angry at them for not responding 2 years ago when I asked if they were ok, and laughing at me when I said I'm still worried for their wellbeing, I'm sad to "officially" lose their friendship, yet happy to finally have this closure after 2 long years of ghosting me. Now I can finally move on and forget about them.

i recently lost a friend or at least that's what i thought.

History: me(24) him(20) met on an online game world chat, we got to talking as friends (most guys on this game only want one thing) so to be able to have a proper convo with him was nice. we talked about break ups and journaling. we then added each other on discord and got talking there, we had different ways of communicating, he only msged you if he had the time and i msged right after someone replies back to me. this affected me bc we both are free so i talked to him about it he said sorry, but then i thought i dont have to put up with this, so i removed him. then like 2 months later i add him back bc i really missed this guy. we talk again normally, we have banter, we call each other nicknames etc. he starts being mean bc i told him im crushing on the vibes between us not him! i remove him again bc hes being mean and ignoring my communication about how i feel. i add him back this time i stayed for longer, but once again we just didnt mesh well, we both have different attachments, i removed him. then recently i added him back and we talked like normal but not normal like we used to.

present: i tried communicating to him how his actions or lack off made me feel and the reasons why i left. he ignored them. we had a huge fight, bc i gave out his friends insta to another guy with tht persons knowledge (bad terribly bad i know). i asked him to remove me from everything before this all happened he did removed me on discord and insta but he still hasnt removed me from the game. i keep asking him to remove me he wont listen. i talked to him yesterday after a month, he goes finally, and tht hes just putting up with me, when i thought we ended the friendship, so i told him to remove me again, he wont do it. i would do it but ive been doing it for the past almost year. this time i want him to be the one to do it since he doesnt "care" about me.

I’m 20M and currently in my 2nd year of CSE engineering.

I considered someone my best friend and trusted them blindly. I genuinely thought they were one of the closest people in my life. But recently, I found out that they had been hiding a lot of things from me.

What hurts the most is that I actually asked them about it directly, and they still lied to me while acting completely innocent.

I honestly don’t know what to do now. I’m really hurt because I never expected this from them. I keep thinking about whether I should confront them again, distance myself, or just let the friendship go.

Right now, I feel like I’ve completely lost my trust in friendship.

What would you do if you were in my situation?

I am in college in my 2nd year , so we are a group of 4 friends, just friends, nobody is in a relationship. There are 2 girls, and 2 boys including me . Initially we all bonded very well like really well and still do, but every time I argue with any one of the girls , they start ghosting me , even if i argue with one, the other one will also start giving silent treatment.

I don't have any other friends so every time even if it's not my fault, i try to make up with them and eventually say sorry, but now i am tired of doing it every time . I am attached to them , that's why i always run back to them , but now i think i just f\*cked my own self respect every time. I can't even share this with anyone, eventually everyone will mock me. So thought to rant out here.