I’m just going to begin this with the event I feel like it started with and move on from there. Not located in the US btw
A while back me and a friend went to a party in town to drink and have fun. Neither of us are very social (and frankly have no other friends than one another), and we agreed to go there together. It wasn’t super exciting, I had some to drink and talked to a few people, and eventually he found a group of people he stuck with. They disappeared for a bit, I called him and asked him where they were, apparently my friend was going to an afterparty with this group. This annoyed me as I felt he could have at the very least told me beforehand, bc the plan was for a relative of mine to come pick us up at a designated time. Most of all I just kinda felt abandoned, I was half-drunk alone in town and my friend went with these people without telling me.
The next day he sent me a message saying he hoped I had fun last night, I was honest and said it felt shitty that he had up and left like that. He apologized, said he should have considered me, and I felt that was fair. He was drunk after all, so it’s not like he was thinking super clearly.
The whole event kind of got me thinking, and I realize how rarely he takes initiative to do anything at all. I asked him if he could recall a single time within the past 12 months where he had taken initiative to hang out. He couldn’t, but said he does ask to play games online from time to time (which I’ll give him credit for), and to him it didn’t matter if we spent time together online or irl. And he apologizes, says he’s just been busy a lot, but he realizes he’s been bad at it and will put more effort into our friendship.
How I managed the situation next is going to sound petty, and it is, I admit that. Still, I decided to not be the one taking initiative for a while to see how he puts in effort. Since then, we went from talking online every single day, to a couple of messages every two weeks. We see each other at school, several hours a day, five days a week, and he didn’t talk to me a single time during those weeks. He walked up to other people and groups, talked to them, but not once with me.
I felt like I had gotten a reality check and I was reevaluating our entire friendship. Frankly, I pretty much settled on the fact that we’re not friends anymore, or at the very least I can’t continue to pretend this guy is my best friend. Still, I messaged him about it. To summarize, I said I felt like he genuinely doesn’t give a crap about our friendship, and couldn’t understand how he could go so long and not offer me a word when we spend several hours a day in the same room. He apologized again, but said he felt like I was busy at school, and that he knows he’s bad at initiative, but frankly he hasn’t had any other friends since primary school (his words).
After this, he did get better at taking initiative, and has asked me to hang out a few times. Paradoxically, and even though this is what I wanted all along, I now feel like I don’t want to be his friend anymore. I know it’s dumb, but I’ve just felt so incredibly hurt by him as of late, and I hate having to remind him or have some serious talk because I feel unappreciated. Next year he’s doing military service, and I’m studying out of country. We’ve been best friends for 10 years but I’m thinking maybe this is the time to put an end to it. I don’t know what to do. He changed and improved, and I’d feel bad “punishing” him by ending the friendship now
Sorry for rambling towards the end. I’m open to any and all advice, critique and not
TLDR: My best friend of 10 years has barely talked to me or taken any initiative in our friendship. I talked to him about it several times, but now that he’s finally making an effort, I’m not sure if I want it to continue.