I know this post is going to be a little long but please bear with me as I would like to share all the important details. This is really upsetting me so I would appreciate it if we hold back the judgmental comments towards both me and the other person involved in this situation.
Last summer I met my friend’s sister and we instantly got along. We had so much in common and we started to build a great friendship with each other. A few months in, she started to hint that she possibly wanted, either now or in the future, something more than a friendship. She was making some flirtatious comments and was talking as if we would end up together at some point in the future. To preface, she is two years younger than me, and since I am off at college we didn’t get to see each other that often. After I noticed she was starting to develop feelings, I was very careful about moving forward since this was in fact, my friend’s sister. I liked her a lot, but for obvious reasons, I didn’t think the timing was good for something more than a friendship.
The flirtatious comments ended after a while and we just continued on with the great friendship we had. Everything was great for a few months, and we were talking pretty much every day. About two months ago, I noticed that she was starting to distance herself from me. She started taking a long time to reply to my texts and we just weren’t having the same depth of conversations that we were having before. I asked her if everything was okay. I simply told her that I noticed we were drifting apart recently and asked her if anything was wrong. She said that it could just be hard sometimes with the distance between us, but she said she was sorry and that she reiterated how much the friendship meant to her. The conversation ended on a great note, and we began talking regularly again.
A few days later, she stopped responding to me while we were in the middle of a text conversation. I gave her a few days to respond, but after a while, I contacted her and referenced our conversation from a few days ago where we seemed to work things out with one another. I was just confused how she said I meant a lot to her but wouldn’t respond to me. She got very defensive and said that she had been very busy with school and friends, and wasn’t checking her texts that much. I responded and just tried to explain how I was feeling without being too accusatory, and she completely ignored me. She made it seem like I was the one who was expecting too much from her, even though we had been talking regularly for months.
I gave myself a few weeks to really think about what happened and understand how I wanted things to play out with this relationship. I decided to reach back out to her before I came home from school to apologize and see if she would be interested in working things out. She was completely receptive when I reached out to her and said that she was also sorry, and that she wanted to work things out too. Since I was coming home from school soon, we both agreed to meet in person when I got home to talk about everything.
When I got home, I texted her a few days later to see if she wanted to grab lunch soon to talk about everything that happened. We made plans for a few days later.
The morning we were supposed to meet, she texted me and said she had started talking to someone, and she didn’t think we should get lunch together, as it wouldn’t be appropriate. Having committed to work things out multiple times, I totally thought she was going to want to meet and not completely bail on the last minute.
I decided just to text her and say how much I missed out friendship and explain that I didn’t really know what happened between us that led to the relationship fading away. I tried to be honest and kind and just explain that this whole situation was bothering me. Her response was harsh and she basically stated that she was fine not being friends.
My friend, this girl’s brother, noticed that we weren’t talking anymore and asked what was going on between us. I filled him in but I asked nicely for him not to say anything to her. Apparently the topic came up at their house and he and his sister talked about everything. He then made plans for us to all get lunch together and work things out. Although hesitant, I agreed, as did she, and we had lunch a few days ago.
The lunch was fine, and it was great for the three of us to catch up since we hadn’t seen each other in a while. At one point, her brother stepped away so I asked her if she wanted to talk about what happened. She got defensive and shut down, and basically said that she felt we were getting too close but didn’t know how to express it. Her brother came back and we weren’t able to finish the conversation. As I was leaving, I asked if she would hang back a few minutes to finish our talk, to which she said she didn’t want to. Her brother also tried encouraging her to do so without any luck. As nice as it was to have lunch with the two of them, it ended on a bad note.
This friendship seems to have run its course for whatever reason, and I’m honestly heartbroken. Although I didn’t want a relationship with this girl at the time, I certainly valued her presence in my life and potentially saw us being together in the future. I cared so much about her and to see that she no longer valued me near any level that she used to makes me feel sick. The worst part of it all is that I am going to have to keep interacting with her as she is my friend’s sister. I’ve thought about removing her from social media to get her off my mind and deleting any trace of our friendship, but that just seems so petty.
This situation is clearly affecting my friendship with her brother as well. He knows that we were very close and wanted us to work things out. I now find myself avoiding him slightly because he is a constant reminder of his sister and the memories we had together.
I know I could have acted differently at times during this relationship and I know I “just need to move on”, but it’s so damn hard to do it. I don’t need to hear that I’m soft and just need to “let it be” because I know that.
From this point on, I just don’t know how to interact with her. She’s caused me so much pain and sadness, but I still can’t overlook the great bond that we shared. I constantly wonder if she misses the friendship at all, and is solely focused on moving on, or if I was just purely male attention for her. I’m stuck inside my own head and I need help getting out. Any and all advice would be much appreciated, just please be nice.
TLDR: I became extremely close with my friend’s sister. She developed feelings at one point. We remained friends but she eventually cut me off. I must keep interacting with her, but she hurt me pretty badly. How do I save my relationship with her brother and treat her now?
3 comments
She found someone else and you were likely just a placeholder. Sorry.
You’re kinda glossing over the fact *you* were also causing her pain and sadness by being unavailable. While you have every right to that choice, she also has every right to walk away because trying to be friends with someone who won’t reciprocate is one of the worst feelings in the world.
I’m so so much older than you, but your post caught my eye regardless and I’m so glad I read it, because it showed me one more time, some things don’t change no matter how much experience we squeeze in our lives. The joys and pains that only real and deep friendship brings are one of them.
Sometimes we form deep connections in life. These connections, at least in my life, don’t seem to come from any one set of rules or correlations. They don’t necessarily form with a certain gender or sex or background or age… And they go deep, deeper than any romantic relationship I’ve ever been in. When I was younger and didn’t know myself as well, sometimes I mistook them for falling in love. And found out soon enough that for me, at least, they really were not the same thing as falling in lust or wanting to become life partners with them. I love them, deeply, to the point their opinion of me forms a very healthy portion of my definition of self. But it’s not the same thing as being in a place where I want to have sex with them, or have kids with them, or decide to share a life strategy with them. In fact, the person I ended up marrying, who, I realize more so day after day, helps me grow and become more of “me”, is NOT one of them. He is my beloved, he is my joy, but he is “other”, and weirdly, his otherness helps me become a better person.
Not to digress, I also found out, much to my neverending pain and heartache, that for most people, these connections are what they consider to be their love interest… Their partner to be. Their sexual and romantic and life partner all in one. Most people do not and cannot have more than one significant connection in life – and for them, it’s unnatural to do so. Their life’s journey doesn’t seem to cater to the need to grow or more importantly, share with more than a single person at any given time. They almost always seem this one significant connection as their romantic relationship.
I would dare to venture that she was/is in love with you – the connection you share/shared is, for her, necessarily a romantic one. It was clear you weren’t going to act your part in her love story, so she is/was looking for someone else, or actually found them.
I could take the easy road and say that at her/you age one finds such emotions overwhelming and hard to verbalise let alone vocalise, hence her seesaw reactions.
She is hurt and angry with you because you are not pursuing a romantic relationship and yet being so nice and close and mature and interested…
She is hurt and angry with herself because she can’t let you go but can’t seem to just be friends, either.
Seems like there’s nothing for you to do but to suffer in silence until she decides who she is… Which might take decades…
Unfortunately, the worse news is, I’ve found, it doesn’t matter what age people are. If you’re anything like me, you will find that you have a lot to give, a lot of yourself to share… And the capacity to connect at a much deeper level than most people, with more than just a single connection at a time … If you’re lucky, like me, you’ll also find some one you actually want to share your life with. However, most of those other connections will think this is the one, the only one for them. They will “fall in love”, get hurt, then get angry… At you. Won’t matter how honest and open you were. Won’t matter how clear you made your boundaries.
The good news is, we’re not alone… For once in a lucky while, you will also meet people who are just as capable as you to totally love and accept you back, and still manage to keep up their own lives, lovers husbands wives and children included. They will keep on adding to you and yours, just like you will keep on adding to them and theirs.
I know it hurts, I do. And it will probably hurt for a long time if not ever… She matters. So much. They all do. But hang in there, maybe she’ll grow back into the friendship, maybe she won’t. You were able to create this connection once, you will do so again with others.
Or maybe I just wasted our time, and you are actually one of the majority, and will one day soon realise you want her as your SO. And if so, all the good karma to you, I hope it works out.
Long story short, life is beautiful, and no matter how painful it can be, just the fact that you can love people the way you do means your life is going to be just that much more beautiful. Hang in there 🙂