Greetings to the Reddit community, English isn’t my first language so there might be confusion within the post so just putting this upfront, thank you for taking your time to go through this long post and sharing your opinions.
In 2018, I met this girl through a dating app. I am from Asia and was also still there at that time, while she’s in Europe and has always been. It didn’t really start as a dating vibe as we lived so far from each other and I think at the beginning there was no intention of this from both of us as well.
Nevertheless, we became good friends fairly quickly as we share a lot of common interests and values and we vibe with each other very well as well (at least in my opinion), even though we were just texting and sending voice messages to each other. We literally chat about anything. I was gradually attracted to her personality and cleverness (and her look of course, not gonna be like I’m a saint or something) after loads of chat, but since we really haven’t met each other in person, I told myself this might be an illusion I gave myself but also at the same time I really should try and meet her at some point to figure it out. We did also chat about things like how we can meet each other in the future, so I feel like this is definitely going to happen someday.
Then in the autumn of 2020, I obtained an opportunity to come to Europe for my studies, I was extremely excited not only because I dreamt of this for a while already but also I’m much closer to her and thus increase the chance to meet her in real life. However as you all recall, 2020-2021 were basically COVID years and travelling was difficult, not to mention that I need a visa to get in the country she lives in or vice versa. Near the end of 2021 I tried once to visit her but was not able to make it in the end, and during this initiation she correctly sensed my feelings towards her is possibly beyond friend already, I also honestly disclosed my feelings to her as she asked. She told me she does not feel the same way but she’s more than happy if I am willing to stay as friends, and I accept it because I also see her as an important friend as well. And I promised her if we are to meet it will only because we are friends, nothing more than that unless situation changes.
Later on I’ve successfully secured a job in Europe, and we’ve been acted like how it used to be, still lots of chats, just that she’d sometimes suddenly be absent for a few days or even weeks. Her explanation were either she’s not feeling well mentally, busy with her work, or being too mentally exhausted to reply to long messages properly (Our messages are usually pretty long so I think that’s understandable), I know she’s dealing with a lot of stuff in her life around that moment so I can understand if these are true. I also tried to adjust my mindset of her and started to try and date with other people but there had been no positive results, I eventually stopped a few months after. I have to admit the desire of getting to know her even better still exists in my head during the time I was trying to date other people even till this day, but I’ve been trying my best not to let it get in between our friendship.
I tried to initiate a meet with her again in late 2022 again, this time I asked her if she’d be interested to have a little trip with me (in the sense I already know she’s likely to be not available during those dates, I wanted to know if she’s still interested to see me at some point because she’d probably offer another dates which she was available if that makes sense?) cos it would be easier for both of us if we meet at a middle point where we both don’t need a visa to get in, and also at the same time I know she’s been anxious and stressed about her new work’s workload for a while, I thought maybe a trip could help her ease the stress a bit. But she only told me she’s not available during those dates and didn’t even mention when she might be able to do something similar.
Until now we still keep chatting to each other but I feel like the time she’s absence from our chat gets longer and more frequently, and I started to feel that sometimes she’s not telling me almost everything like she used to do (That’s another story how I found it out), but she at the same time also told me about her vulnerability (mental illness). This confuses me as she chose to skip some topics which usually friends would chat about (e.g. if they meet any new person they fancy or something), but telling me the kind of things which you wouldn’t want to let other people know unless pretty close (e.g. mental state)?
Also sometimes I feel that she’s not that interested in our conversation anymore, not something I have ever noticed in the past 4 years until this year – most of the times I can still feel she put a lot in our chat though. I know she’s dealing with her mental issues at the moment and I believe every word she tells me, I also told her not to stress replying to me when she’s busy or not feeling well. But just from all the above I started to think whether I have done something wrong? Is it all because I told her my feelings, so that she’s not sure about seeing me anymore and not willing to chat like normal friends would do in certain topics?
I told the above to my female sibling and asked her thoughts on this and she said she thinks this is odd and she feels like my friend is using me as a spare tyre, emotional tampon, and likely to just see me as a simp. She said she think my friend messaged me when she’s bored or she wants companionship emotionally. I refuse to believe so but it does make me worry…what if all she said were true?
I feel quite lost about the friendship between us at the moment, any opinions/thoughts provided are hugely appreciated, thanks again!
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