I’ve had a friend from work for 6 years now – we hang out at and outside of work, usually just us two. I’m quite quiet and struggle to make friends outside of work or take my work friendships to outside work. Owing to the nature of our careers where people move a lot it’s difficult to keep friends and I have really struggled with loneliness. My friend knows this.
I’ve generally considered my friend supportive but a few things have built up over the years which make me question this friendship. I’ll preface this by saying if I’m ever in trouble and need someone’s practical help he is there – taken be to hospital a couple times for instance and helped me through a couple difficult times. I’ve also helped my friend, let’s call him Sam, get through a few things. But there are a few red flags cropping up.
I’ve been getting on well with people my age at work and at a similar career level (my friend ‘Sam’ is technically a couple tiers above me on the career ladder). I found out recently that Sam has been hanging out with these people outside of work and I have said I’d like to be invited if there’s room for one more (I can drive so car capacity ect are not the issues). It seems I’d be a natural fit for this group due to mutual friends. But it’s been a few months now and no invite. This started to come to a head recently when one of the mutual friends passed her PhD and I read her acknowledgements – everyone was mentioned and spoken about lovingly except me. This was someone who I’d spoken to nearly every work day for a couple years and thought I had a good relationship with. While this may be an accident she had read mine and seen her name there close to her submission – she’d even made a passing comment for me to not read hers suggesting she was purposely planning on excluding me. When I expressed my sadness to my friend ‘Sam’, he brushed it off and said it’s not a big deal and I shouldn’t be upset. He then very quickly changed the subject (which he’d also been doing whenever I used to suggest joining their hangouts or that I was feeling isolated). I called him out on this saying a felt invalidated. He apologised but also defended himself saying he just felt uncomfortable talking about it but would like to help where he can. I said if he wanted to help he could be inclusive and try empathise. Nothing.
I’ve also recently moved up the career ladder and been promoted. When the promotion paperwork came in I thought they’d been a mistake as I was being promoted up two pay grades and positions – this pretty much never happens so I thought my supervisor (who is often rushing through things) had simply inputted the wrong codes. I joked about this to Sam who also assumed it was a mistake. It wasn’t – my work performance meant I’d been boosted up about 3- 4 years compared to others. Sam was immediately negative about this and said ‘Dave’ and ‘Rhys’ who were technically a year ahead of me were earning the lower grade (equating to about £10k less) and that it had taken ‘Sam’ 3 years to get to my position. If I’d known it wasn’t a mistake I wouldn’t have told him but the job title that goes with the promotion makes the promotion pretty public. Instead of feeling proud of my achievement I was made to feel sad and awkward. If I’m being honest, I know I have been promoted based on exceptional performance and have achieved more at my years of experience than Sam, Rhys or Dave – but Sam seems to think quantity (years worked) is more important than quality. I’ve not really wanted to engage in this because I don’t want to get into an argument about me being more accomplished – but I will if it comes up again.
Couple other examples. I invited Sam to drinks after work, he agreed. On the day he cancelled because he was instead going to the pub the following day with others and didn’t want to go twice.
He’s also given my boyfriend the cold shoulder on a couple occasions and whenever there’s been other work friends there, ignored him and make the convo not very inclusive (eg inside jokes).
This is a weird one as Sam can be on an individual level, caring and supportive. But I am now feeling more excluded, invalidated and frustrated by our friendship. I think moving forward I am going to try and keep our friendship at work, for professionalism and leave personal life at home. This is not an easy decision as I don’t have many friends and struggle to make new ones (yes even with clubs and hobbies). I wonder what others think or if they’ve experienced similar mixed-toxic / non-toxic friends?
Sorry it’s long. TLDR long term work friend doesn’t include me in socials, is jealous of my promotion and invalidates my feelings.