2.5 years ago I relocated for work to a new town where I knew no one. After a few months I became close friends with a colleague who had also relocated (a couple of years before me) and, apart from her DP, seemed to have no close friends in the town either. For a while I thought we were 'best' friends but about a year ago she downgraded our friendship to catch ups over coffee at work. I assumed she had other stuff going on and occasionally told her I was sad that we didn't hang out as much as we used to, which always got dismissed as me misremembering things.
The friendship deteriorated more and more (I wasn't an ideal friend either and we both had some stressful stuff going on) but I still thought of her as one of my closest friend, just that we were going through a rough patch. Then about a month ago she told me that we should stop being friends as we'd had too many disagreements to continue. Her behaviour towards me also changed, when we are in meetings at work she can barely bring herself to speak to me, or even look at me.
I know I need to go out and make new friends (meet up groups, hobbies etc) but I'm still really sad at the end of the friendship. I'm trying not to hope that we will sort things out as it's now gone beyond that point, but this feels worse than being dumped by a boyfriend.
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Relationships
How to get over being dumped by a friend
dumdumdumdum · 03/10/2015 09:56
I'm sorry to say this but I think you may be expecting too much from this friendship.
When this person scaled the friendship back to coffees at work, you knew that she was stepping back for some reason but you made it clear that you felt sad about it. I don't think that's something you should do if someone is trying to step back. It will only make them want to step back more. Sadly, if someone wants to back off, they can.
It wasn't a very old friendship really and 'best' friends is a label that children tend to use. If an adult has a best friend, it's usually because they made that friend in childhood. The fact that you labelled it that way and pressed for the initial intimacy against her wishes makes me wonder if she stepped back because you were expecting too much.
Again, the term 'going through a rough patch' is more for relationships than a two year old friendship. If she wanted to see you less and there were areas of strain when you met up, I wouldn't see that as a rough patch that was likely to resolve, although of course it could.
You acknowledge that the friendship had become rather 'toxic' which is a very strong word to use. I also would not be trying to resurrect a relatively new friendship in those circumstances. I would withdraw, especially if I felt the person wasn't really heeding my boundaries.
Caring about her presentation at work so deeply also makes it sound as if you're over-invested. I think you need to move on and work at maintaining healthy boundaries going forward. The end of a friendship is very sad and you need to go through a process of grieving. But try to learn from this and expect less from the next friend. 
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