I am a college student and long story short I have had a pretty hard time so far. This is my third year now. The last two were pretty rough, and I had a hard time maintaining friend groups. Ultimately I basically had a mental breakdown both freshman and sophomore years.
The freshman one isn’t relevant to this discussion, so let’s start with sophomore.
Basically, after losing most of my “friends” (I didn’t see it at the time, but looking back they were pretty toxic) freshman year, I met this wonderful girl named Rachel. Rachel and I were very similar and hit it off immediately (I remember one night we talked until 4 am). I loved hanging out with Rachel. One day, Rachel introduced me to some of her friends and we all hit it off.
So, going into next year, I focused on them being my main “friend group”.
There were problems from the start, namely I was looking for a deeper relationship and they wanted a more casual one (i.e. not part of the friend group, but someone who they hang out with occassionally).
But, I didn’t see it. I am very hard on myself and don’t typically feel validated or accepted. However, I did with them.
When I found out one of them was having a rough time with her mental health, I made a promise to myself I wouldn’t let her struggle alone and that she would feel better, because I wanted to be a good friend to her. So I made her food when she was feeling down, went ice skating with her (her favorite childhood activity), tried to talk to her when she was down, weekly check-ins, etc.
She didn’t really like that. She’s more of a standoffs I need space type person. But I didn’t get that as it was never communicated to me.
So, she began to resent me because I kept trying to help thinking I was doing good.
Anyways, over time they all started to ghost me more and more. And I was confused, why are all my friends ghosting me? I would straight up ask them why I wasn’t invited to this or that or why I didn’t get a reply for like 2 weeks, and they would say “oh it was spontaneous” or “oh I am just a bad texter”. This went on for the entire year.
Finally, at the end of the year, they went on a trip to a big city a few hours away. I was not invited. I lived in the same apartment building as two of these “friends”. The night of their trip, the fire alarm went off. I left the building and called/texted everyone I know to make sure they were alright. That’s when I saw their snapchat stories, and where they were. Everything came to a head then and i realized I had been excluded all year intentionally.
So I met with Rachel, asked for real answers not bullshit and lies. That’s how I learned all this stuff
None of this was ever communicated to me. Ever. Had it been communicated I would have changed. But it wasn’t.
So, I was angry with them. I was angry that the people who I finally felt accepted by, after a lifetime of being an outsider, had really lied and excluded me the whole time. It hurt really badly. I felt robbed of my validation and acceptance as well as my confidence. They don’t owe me anything, you’re allowed to not like me. That is fine. I don’t own anyone. But if you don’t like me, don’t pretend to be my friend, actually communicate what you want! I spent most of the summer in a depressed, angry pit of self pity. I basically spent the summer exploding at Rachel about this over text message.
Anyways, now school is starting again. Rachel needed a break from me because of this so I am not currently speaking with her. She said she would reach out “later in the semester”, but with the amount of lies I have been told, who knows if “later” is ever coming.
If it does come, I want to re-evaluate things. On the one hand, I don’t think Rachel resents me, she was just in the orbit of the others and gradually we spent less time together because they were excluding me. And she did actually listen and talk to me this summer, she was the only person who did that. That counts for something.
At the same time, she doesn’t need a break from them, even though they played a role in the conflict too. They were the ones who lied, how is it fair I lose my friends? Why doesn’t she feel drained talking to them? And can I really trust someone who has consistently chosen them over me, never contradicted the lies, never communicated, and also ghosted but for different reasons. She herself admits what she did wasn’t fair to me. But I don’t really trust her anymore.
On the other hand, she’s the last relatively close friend I have now.
So how do I go about this? Should I consider dropping her as a friend? I was going to ask for changes if later in the semester does in fact come, but her not needing a break from them also hurt me, so idk. I am re-evaluating. Any advice?
Tl;dr:
“Friends” lied to me and excluded me for a year. Rachel was part of that but admitted she was in the wrong and apologized. I am not part of that friend group anymore, there was a big fight and some harsh words were exchanged. Spent the summer in a pit of self pity and rage and Rachel saw it all and was the only one to talk to me. Rachel needed a break from me though because she was drained talking about this. She participated in the lies and exclusion, she has consistently chosen them over me, but admits that was wrong of her to do and said she would change as well as apoligizing. Any advice on re-evaluating my friendship with her?
2 comments
Wow. It sounds like you *really really* need to learn not to come on so fuckin’ strong my dude.
You do realize that everyone is different and you cannot force friendship on people…right? Cause it doesn’t seem like it. If someone is standoff-ish you *back the fuck away* and say a gentle “if you need me, I’ll be available” not push and push and push.
You cannot force bonds. You also cannot have a “deep” friendship with everyone and you cannot make someone want to have that. That is a cold, hard fact my dude.
So my advice to you is to chill the fuck out and let friendships form naturally versus being all over people then whining about why they’re backing away.
I mean, overall this situation sucks.
As far as the larger friend group, it absolutely sucks, but recognize that it’s a pretty normal first-couple-of-years-of-college thing to find and connect with the people you genuinely connect with. Falling in with people who aren’t really “your” people is pretty common. There are other people at the school. You’ll probably find a better friend group without too much trouble.
I understand why Rachel needs a break from you. What’s happened here is that she’s the one who is trying to make things right, and you ended up punishing her for that. She (belatedly) offered you true friendship, and what did she get for it? A summer of being yelled at via text message.
And she doesn’t need a break from the rest of the group because they haven’t done anything like that to her.
I sometimes think about the difference between niceness and kindness. Niceness avoids confrontation: that’s what everyone was doing all year, “Oh, jeez, I’m sorry, I guess we all forgot to text you.” It smooths over potential conflict or upset feelings. Kindness is harder: kindness is telling you the uncomfortable truth and empowering you to make changes, even if the process is painful. Rachel, belatedly, chose kindness.
People who do that are invaluable.
But at the same time, you can’t ask other people to wage your wars for you. You don’t like the other people in that group, with good reason. But them not wanting to be close to you is not the sort of crime that requires that Rachel shun them. (Choosing niceness over kindness, after all, is often little more than cowardice and conflict avoidance.)
I’ve born a few grudges in my life, and I have to say that with the benefit of hindsight I don’t think they’ve done me any good. When people are offering honest, kind friendship, that’s more valuable to me than the momentarily surge of endorphins you get from rejecting them. When people ask for forgiveness, and are doing the right and difficult thing (which telling you the truth was!), and honestly their sin was mostly just going along … I think you’ll regret it in the long run if you hold a grudge here.