Six months ago, a former friend ended our friendship over me being selfish. She said that over the space of a few months, she’d been giving me support, and not feeling reciprocated.
While I would understand this if it were the case, I’m not sure how true it was. I was there for her multiple times, we’d spoken, hung out, played games together, etc. In the two months leading up to this ending, she began pulling away. Every time I’d ask her how she was, she’d say “I’m fine,” or “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I did try to be sensitive, and be there for her anyway, offering comfort and support when she seemed low, but she mostly stayed quiet. When she seemed fine, we sometimes would speak about things going on in my life.
I’m just wondering if by not pressing her more, I was doing something wrong. She suggested that my other friends think I’m selfish too, but when I spoke about this with them, they refuted that claim. When I tried to dig deeper, and suggested that maybe she didn’t want to feel bullied or taken advantage of by friends due to other experiences this year with toxic friends, she said I “didn’t ask enough to make that assumption.”
She has done this a few times where she lashes out at friends in a particularly nasty way, her exes had both reached out to me with messages outlining how she’d been incredibly cold and distant for seemingly no reason.
Honestly, I’ve always been the one to have to apologise to her when we have a fight. But I didn’t do so this time, and we haven’t spoken since.
Where could I improve here? Please be as honest/blunt as you like.
2 comments
Without getting too far into the weeds, from everything you’ve presented it doesn’t appear that you did anything wrong. Perhaps you didn’t provide what your friend needed, but she doesn’t appear to have felt comfortable communicating that non-confrontationally
I don’t think you were being selfish or did anything bad based on what you wrote. I was on the other side of this situation a few months ago, so I’ll just suggest that maybe she was going through something and needed emotional space to figure out her feeling or feeling judged/criticized by others and choosing to keep quiet because of that.
By pressing further on a subject she said she was okay on, it can sometimes feel like a personal attack because it feels like the other person is saying “You’re not sharing what I want you to share/acting in a way that I want you to act and so I’m confronting you on it/questioning you about it.” Offering unsolicited advice/opinions on someone’s else’s problems can also be taken as criticism too(even if you don’t mean them to be) because it can feel invalidating
I’d say the best way to help people like your friend is to ask how they are and let them know how much you care for them, and let them know that if there’s anything they need to talk about you’ll be there for them. A simple, “I’m here for you.” is great. Ask a little, but know that forcing a person to open up on their feelings doesn’t go well.