Tl;dr: My friend who never explicitly confessed they like me as a result is causing strain on our friendship. Their recent behavior has me a bit hurt and confused and wondering if our friendship was genuine to begin with or they only wanted something more and now that they haven’t gotten that, they care less about being friends. I’m debating how I should move forward as they are a good friend to me and I don’t want to lose them but I don’t know if the friendship is serving both of us well right now.
Like the title says, I have a friend who I know used to like me but they never explicitly face to face confessed to me. This has made our friendship come to the unfortunate point of where its at right now and as a result has me feeling hurt, frustrated, and confused. This has been weighing me down and has caused me rethink about what friendship means to me and the friends I want to surround myself at this point in my life. I feel like if things continue to be and feel like this (which I’ll get into) I’m wondering if maybe we’re just better off not as friends anymore 🙁
For background, we’ve been friends since hs and while we are not best friends, I do consider them to be a pretty good friend (although feeling a bit different now) and I enjoy our time together. We don’t talk and hang out a whole lot but over these recent months we’ve been doing so even less. Forgive me if what I write comes out jumbled because honestly I’m feeling pretty mentally jumbled right now but I feel like it’s different between us now. It’s unfortunate because I thought we were becoming better friends and I was even maybe starting to catch feelings for them (although now I’m thinking it might just be more of an attachment which is something I struggle with) but now I don’t think I feel the same way with how things are going.
A few months ago I felt like things were just kinda cold from their end so I brought this up to them and they apologized and basically said it was not their intention to come off that way and everything was good. But fast forward to now, I just feel like it still feels like that but now lowkey even worse? I do tend to feel things really deeply, probably more than I should which is not always helpful when it comes to separating my emotions and logic but I have no doubt that my friend is acting the way they are, whether they’re aware of it or not because of the feelings they had for me and me not feeling the same at that time they liked me because how was I supposed to know they felt that way if they never communicated how they truly felt to me and made me feel like I was no different then any other of their female friends.
Fast foward to just very recently we hung out and wow the energy I got from them was just not the best. This really sucks because I wish things can go back to how they were beforehand, when things felt more lighter and enjoyable but I know life just doesn’t stay one way forever. Back to when I saw them though, what really made me feel uneasy (not just this though) was how they seemed to be rubbing in my face indirectly that I am not the person they like anymore. I’ll spare the exact details but they made comments that specifically hinted I am no longer the person they like several times and it lowkey stung but I tried to play cool about it. Of course I want them to be happy but just the way they went about that made me feel like its kind of a shitty way to act? I’m not sure how to exactly label how I felt they were acting towards me, maybe a little petty? On top of that I’ve started to feel like what I say isn’t good enough for them, that they’re judging me, and it makes me feel stupid. And it sucks because I feel like I’m the bad person, like its my fault for how they feel and their behavior. I try my best to be nice and fun to hang out with but I feel like this has all been affecting me to where I don’t even feel like my best self and fun and happy when we’re interacting which is just not ideal.
It sucks that I felt like we were becoming better friends and now their energy feels like they don’t really give a shit anymore which leads me to wonder if they even wanted me as a friend to begin with because I guess when they did like me is when things felt great between us but now that they no longer seem to like me it seems they don’t have much interest in our friendship as much even though I still do and have always been acting like I do.
This has happened to me before and I hate that I’m experiencing this again. Wish my friend could have been upfront about how they felt in the beginning because now I just feel a bit used and maybe that our friendship wasn’t even genuine in the first place?
I feel bad and like everyone hates me (not getting into this because I’ve already written so much but one of his friend who I might add is a girl seems to hate me too) and feeling like I care more than I should as usual. I guess it was silly of me to think we could always be good friends but apparently I was wrong and though I really don’t want to lose my friend, as of now I’m wondering if it serves us both to continue our friendship. I feel very confused on what to do because it feels like whatever direction I choose to go, it probably won’t end well. I feel bad because I hate to bring it up and make it a whole big ordeal when I know they’re doing fine and just living their life as usual and maybe I’m just making too big of a deal of it and need to stop caring so much but idk.
I appreciate it if you’ve read this mess of a paragraph this far and can offer any advice on what is the best way I can move forward. Thanks a lot.