What Is Up With My Friend?

[Soffit]

I have been friends with her since we were teenagers. We were definitely best friends but as the years went by, we became increasingly distant. She has always been kind and a good listener but has the typical upper middle class 'English reserve' so not much spontaneous emotion on show.
She started dating much earlier than I did. Even when she chose to lose her virginity, it was clearly more about completing a rite of passage rather than emotionally engaging. She went through breakups without expressing any emotions even though she never instigated these. She always stated that she hoped for a serious relationship but she has not changed her approach towards them. Arranging dates is always done as though it is an administrative procedure. This has become worse since she immersed herself into OLD.
She works in different cities around the world. Typically, she will go onto dating apps just before relocating and set up dates and she is usually intimate with a new person within a week of moving. However, as I said, there is no sign of excitement or unbridled passion. It is all about filling in a timetable efficiently and establishing (in a consistently rigid ratio) her work-entertainment-chores-friends-dating balance.
She always obliges wrt consummating the relationships even when she feels it is hopeless and is also emotionless in the way in which she relays this.
Once she allowed a guy back simply because he stated that he had parked near her flat as they left the restaurant because he had paid for the meal and she thought it was fair to award him a shag for it even though there was no spark or prospect of another date. She will oblige every time in a dutiful drab way like old married couples. Her ratio of time allocated to the relationship doesn't change through time either. The guys invariably dump her and she is nonplussed in her reaction and immediately gets back on the apps in robotic fashion. Consequently, her 'number' is now huge even though she is a well-spoken, cultured, demure sort.
She still maintains that she would like a serious relationship but everything in her approach and demeanour seems wrong (unless this is normal and I have misunderstood her. It bothers me to such an extent that I now question whether she is even emotionally engaged as a friend or simply going through the correct motions. What could it be?

'I’m slightly amazed at the responses here. I think OP writes sensitively but pragmatically about a friend she clearly cares about. So she may be saying negative things about her friend - but it seems clear the friend kind of agrees with this assessment.'

'However, when I find myself smudging the house with sage and pouring cleaning liquids down the loo after she has visited from abroad at Christmas because I am grossed out by it all then I question whether there is any point left to being a long distance ex-best friend'

How about now? Are you still 'slightly amazed' 🙄now?

Thanks to the posters who offered constructive advice. I think that this thread is now heading in a different direction where people who are not well informed about lifestyles different to their own would take the opportunity to have a laugh or undermine what they do not understand. I'll leave it there.

OP I find a lot of the posts on here more judgy than you are being. Yes perhaps you exaggerate, or your friend does, and perhaps part of you is jealous, or prudish - but giving you the benefit of the doubt, you're just trying to 'think aloud' about an old friend who has a very active but by her own account frustrating dating life, and wondering why she won't change strategies so as to find the long-term partner she professes to want.

But I don't have much that's constructive to say on what may be up with her. I have a friend with similar experiences: she has no problem at all to locate partners for flings, but all attempts at long term have gone south, often painfully.

I tend to think from what she has shared about her relationships that, even though she appears very composed and confident initially, she loses her sense of self-worth somewhere along the way into bed, if that makes sense, and 'sells herself below value' (to use an unpleasant but useful description). What is particularly odd is that there appear to be men who go after her as if she had 'shag me, then dump me' written on her forehead. They seem to have a nose for it.

Covid has kept us apart for some time now, but last I heard my friend hadn't resolved her dilemma either. I suspect it's something very deep-seated. To me, it doesn't sound like your friendship has to end. Your friend can probably do with someone to vent to. And maybe remind her that she really isn't obliged to sleep with a guy even if he paid for dinner.

‘ Thanks. Other than the one incident I mentioned upthread which was not taken seriously, I don’t believe there was. She had a dream childhood in a really gorgeous house in central London and did reasonably well in terms of education. Her parents were serious but kind, cultured and liberal and adored one another more than their children ( that’s what she felt). She never completely went off the rails. There were a few episodes when she used drugs for a time recreationally but she never turned into an addict ( the typical middle class kids weekend socialising)’

You would be surprised at what happens where you least expect it.