I (19m) am in a confusing place with someone (19f). We’ve been friends for almost a year now, and we live about 2 hours apart. I have to do all the driving to get there, but that’s no problem. However, whenever we hang out, it always feels like more than just a friendship I guess? She has a way of making our relationship feel more intimate the few times we’ve hung out… which I have 0 problem with. Here comes the actual problem…
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She is ***seriously depressed***, which has put a major blockade between us and has left me in a confusing place.
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She has a lot of personal issues and familial issues, which we’ve discussed before. Previously, for a few months, she went 0-communication with me and sorta reappeared for a month. We discussed the disappearance, but now it’s happening again, and shes going dark. We’ve communicated on this before, and she said she doesn’t have the energy to reach out. Which I understand completely, she is going through a tough time right now as we’ve discussed. I send her messages checking up on her, asking if she needs help, and affirming that I’m still with her if she wants to talk (I send these sparingly, like once every 4-5 days. Between that I try and send memes and stuff).
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Here comes the confusing part: she still hangs out with her more “local” friends.
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I’m not sure how to take that honestly. Does she do that because she doesn’t want me to see her in this current state? Or is it because she’s done with me? Or is it because she doesn’t want to “burden me”? Or is it maybe something else? Maybe shes fabricating the scenario? I can’t help but think that maybe it’s something malicious, mostly because of my own past trauma (perhaps that’s too dramatic of a word).
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I don’t know what to think about this situation. My current thinking is “she doesn’t want me to see her in this mental state”, but that seems selfish of me to think that. I’m not sure she would care that much because I’ve never asked about how she feels about our “relationship”. Whether it be just friendship, or even something more.
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I can’t really tell my other friends about this because they’re not very supportive of me, so I basically am just asking for another person (whoever may be reading this ideally) to help me evaluate this situation I’m in. Thank you.
1 comment
I’m gonna try to say these things as gently as possible cause it truly seems you mean well.
But first; you’re not in a relationship with her. I know it may feel like it to you because you’re interpreting intimacy in your interactions with her. But platonic friendship can also be extremely deep and intimate. I wouldn’t read “relationship” or “romance” into this unless you’ve explicitly had that conversation or have more than just being friends, hanging out, and having a deep connection. There’s not really a reason you’ve given here that would indicate that she perceives more than just platonic friendship.
Second; you don’t understand what she’s going through. You understand *that* she’s going through something. But trust me, you can’t really understand dealing with and navigating depression if you don’t have it. It can cause you to want to distance yourself from people you’re close to for no reason at all. It can also heighten and emphasize the negative parts of interactions with other people around you that can make it difficult to be around them or to interact with them from time to time. Point being, depression is deep and complicated and from the outside in, you’re not really going to be able to tell if her depression is the reason she’s “going dark.”
Third; she may have picked up on you having a perception of this being more than platonic friendship and she doesn’t know how to talk you down from that perception or interact with you given that you seem to be having this perception. It’s entirely possible that her “going dark” as you say is not simply due to any depression issues she may have but might also be a way of distancing herself when things get too intense with you until she feels things are cooled down.
Ultimately, the only way to figure out what’s going on with her is to talk to her. Offer her your support as you have been; but emphasize that your support doesn’t come with any implications or expectations of any romance or anything more than friendship.