Content Warning for briefly mentioned abuse and self harm.
Hello, Reddit! I am in a bit of a situation. So I [19M] have been friends with Kyle [18M] since we were 15 and 14. The context of our relationship is very important to this post, or at least to me. We met online, as neither of us really get out much, and we pretty immediately came to like each other. We related to each other very quickly and soon became very close friends. He would come to me with all of his issues and I would do my best to help him out. I enjoyed it. It felt good and I liked the idea that we were becoming better people through our interactions. We both had our fair share of issues (we both come from not-the-best households, he was with an abuser at the time we met, I was so socially anxious I couldn’t talk to people in real life. etc.) and I assumed that for both of us it kind of felt like breathing fresh air to talk to someone who got it and cared and had the same interests and sense of humor and all that.
Sometime in early 2023, Kyle made a new friend, Stan [19M]. I was happy to hear that Kyle was making new friends because trusting others is something that he has historically had issues with and it made me happy to see him forming healthy new relationships. They were attached at the hip for a while, but I foolishly assumed that it was a situation where their constant need for each other would wane over time. Instead, they just became closer. Even when all three of us were having conversations, they would be cracking inside jokes with each other and leaving me out of things. I started being able to talk to Kyle less and less because of how he was so excited to talk to Stan all the time. I used to have conversations with Kyle for 8 hours straight and for the first time in the years that we’d known each other he was blowing me off for someone else.
I tried not to take this too personally, because I know that Kyle has a disorder that causes him to become inordinately attached to people very quickly and he can’t control that. I thought I had things under control until the two of them announced that they were actually dating now. It’s not that I’m jealous because I want to date Kyle. It’s that every time I go onto any of Kyle’s profiles I see their anniversary date and it feels like he’s screaming “Someone better has replaced you!” in my face every time.
Right after they started dating I blew up at Kyle, blocked him on everything and relapsed on self-harm for the first time in over a year. I have no clue what happened but everything has been bad. Stan had to angrily message me telling me that he was mad I did that and now I haven’t been able to go two weeks without cutting myself. I don’t know. Colors seem duller, nothing seems fun, life just genuinely doesn’t seem worth it when I’m only talking to Kyle for 10 or so minutes once a day.
TL;DR: My best friend got a new best friend who I was jealous of. Then they started dating and it made me feel like my life was over.
Is there a good way I can fix this relationship? Or at least get the fuck over it?
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2 comments
this sounds to me like a psychiatric issue that you need to seek help for. i am sorry that you are suffering so much, and you don’t deserve to. i’m glad that you aren’t mad at kyle for finding someone to date, but you don’t have to feel like this. with the help of therapy, it’s possible to have more normal feelings towards friends finding other friends and not want to hurt yourself over it.
for now, i think that you should apologize to kyle and stan, let them know that it’s not their fault that this happened, and stress that you’re going to seek help for what’s happening and that you know something is wrong. then, when your therapist and you both feel it’s okay, you could try reaching out again.
Uhh, OP. You either had feelings that were not just platonic, or you were codependant on Kyle. Possibly both.
But either way, it’s either time or therapy. And given you’re cutting, you probably want to try therapy.
It’s not going to be immediate, but having someone that sees you is going to help with the anhedonia.