Is there more to being a friend than a title?

Speaking for hours on the phone every day, seeing each other 4-5 times every week and texting constantly, regardless of whether it's a male or female friend, is pretty suffocating. And I'd say unsustainable during a relationship - how the hell would the poor guy even have time for a girlfriend if you're taking up that much of his leisure hours?!

I don't care if my DP has female friends, but I'd find it weird and off-putting if he was talking to anyone, male or female, for hours on the phone every day, and seeing them multiple times a week, and constantly texting them.

I suspect your friend has actually realised that it was all a bit much and is using his girlfriend as an excuse to taper off the friendship, to be honest.

Again, I’m not talking about your specific, formerly intense friendship, I mean other acquaintances, colleagues, friends of friends etc who might become closer friends in time, but either way you’ll start off with small talk. I think your intense friendship with one person has both skewed your idea of ‘normal’ and eaten all the time you could have been using to make and see other friends.

It might’ve been platonic but he was using you all the same. Just an ego rubbing, someone he can dump his shite on daily, relieve his boredom etc. He hasn’t even noticed things have changed and if he has he’s certainly not bothered.

Also, why the fuck would a mate be cleaning out his fridge? Bet he wouldn’t have asked a male friend to do that, and they certainly wouldn’t have offered.

I know you think it’s all cool and you’re above the “mn taboo” about M/F friendships. But you’re not. This is why it matters, we’re fundamentally different. You thought you were actual friends, good mates, best mates. But he was just using you as a vessel to dump his daily briefing into. You didn’t matter like you thought you did.

It happens all the time, but rarely is it a woman that is so brutally unattached

But that’s literally not what anyone has been telling you. What people are saying is that your definition is far too prescriptive, if you think friendship necessarily involves lengthy daily conversations and almost daily in person contact too.

I wonder if this is a case of how most men prefer get their emotional needs met by women. I've no problem believing in platonic M/F friendships but I think he's gone from getting his emotional needs met by you to getting them met by his girlfriend and he doesn't need you in the same way.

Flux is very normal in friendships and adaptability is good but I think a large shift like the one you describe is harder to deal with.

This Previously we saw eachother 4/5 times a week. Spoke on the phone for hours every day and text constantly

Were you spending all your working hours on the phone, or finishing work and speaking till bed?
That's way more than a 'friendship'!

I think you saying neither has more feelings actually is not correct. Either he HAD more feelings and now he is in a relationship they have gone or he believes you have feelings for him and out of respect for his relationship he wants to just be friendly so he does not lead you on. The fact his new gf checks his phone is a bit strange however he has made it clear that you are not in fact friends just colleagues and right or wrong you need to respect that decision.

Yes, exactly.

If you're as close friends as you suggest, wouldn't he have introduced his girlfriend to you by now? My DH knows all my friends and I know his. If he was going and meeting up with a friend and he never introduced me to that friend, I'd find it odd.

I have a very similar friendship with someone I first met at work too - the issue is the controlling girlfriend and him allowing her to vet all his interactions with other people, not your understanding of friendship.

My friends & I have known each other for 10 years, we talk a lot about work & non work things. Once he met his partner we hung out less, in part because they've since moved further away. But we are still friends and still make time for each other when we can - I went to their wedding last year, when he's in London we'll often have lunch or a drink after work. He's got other female friends from school & uni that he will also see independently of his wife. We've all met her & get on, she just is happy to accept that he has friends accumulated from throughout his life that he'll want to hang out with from time to time & he does the same for her.

I don't know if he's clearing every interaction with his wife or showing her messages (ours would be 45% early 2000s pop music/45% quotes from Succession/10% work). One part of me wouldn't care because I know there is nothing for her to worry about, one part of me would be sad that he could be in a relationship where there is so little trust.

I have lots of friendships; some I speak to once or twice a week, some once or twice a year. With a lot of varying degrees in between.

Your idea of friendship seems quite prescriptive.

I’m not talking about your friendship with this guy, but the contrast between your intense former friendship with him and the way you talk about not talking to other people outside of work or feeling other people in your life aren’t friends because you wouldn’t call them for support or to tell them a major life event. That’s what I mean by ‘all or nothing’. You seem to think friendship is a very full on affair.

Friendships don’t need to be all or nothing. Of course Alison from Accounts is going to taken aback if you’ve barely spoken and you suddenly call her at 3 am from A and E. But you might see her for a drink after work, and later on it might develop into something closer, or it might not. It’s also nice to have less close friends who are just around to have fun or pursue a hobby with. My point is that you start small, and that some friendships aren’t ’ride or die’ is fine too.

And it sounds as if your formerly intense friendship ate up all the time when you could have been making other friends. You put all your friendship eggs in one basket and that basket has bailed.

Successful friendships require a significant degree of flexibility as inevitably people’s lives are in a constant state of flux. It is up to you whether you still consider this a friendship. I would maintain the friendship because all throughout my life my friends and I have had to adapt to the many changes in each others lives.

Being adaptable has saved friendships and the ones that were not capable of adapting inevitably dropped off.

Whoa she checks his phone - ugh couldn’t be having that.
His fondness for you probably hasn’t changed but his circumstances have. I certainly have friends where for whatever reason contact is much reduced - that doesn’t mean I don’t care for them anymore, and when we meet up it’s like we never left off.
If you see him at work can you arrange some lunches?

You seem to be very ‘all or nothing’. Like either it’s endless daily phone calls and seeing one another four or five times a week, or it’s nothing. Are you sure this previously intensive friendship hasn’t been actively damaging to you, both by taking up all the time you would have had available to make and nurture other friendships or a relationship, and by giving you skewed ideas about what constitutes usual levels of contact between friends?

Doesn't really matter if your friend is male or female, once a friend enters a serious relationship then their time with other friends is going to drop off a cliff. It's almost like you become a long-distance friend overnight, only seeing that person once in a blue moon. It hurts for the one who is left behind but unfortunately 'that's life' as they say.

OP you're going to have to give him a bucket load of grace and leave him to get on with his relationship otherwise if you keep pushing it you'll lose what's left of the friendship. Time to shift your focus elsewhere and accept things, because you can't change anything by getting angry about it.

Ultimately the definition of the friendship is irrelevant though. You (and he) can describe this relationship as you see fit, it doesn’t matter how others see it.

The question is whether it’s working for both of you. Only you and he can answer that.

The friendship has certainly evolved. Friendships do change over time. Some recover and become stronger, some don’t and fizzle out. Its not clear which category this falls into.

But I can promise you that guilting him about how he spends his time when he’s in a new relationship isn’t going to go well for anyone. You need to accept that your friendship has changed. Honestly you probably need to start giving it less headspace.

I simply don’t think your friendship as it was before his relationship was in any way ‘normal’ — not because it was M/F, but because you talked daily on the phone ‘for hours’, texted constantly, and saw each other four or five times a week, which sounds obsessive and unhealthily over-dependent. It’s not clear to me how you could fit that around work, other friendships and life in general, far less either of you being in a relationship.