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Original poster

Moments where you realise the friendship is one-sided

146 replies

stanleycups · 02/09/2025 19:46

I had a friend who I was close to and then one day I opened up about a difficult work situation and asked for some advice and she just completely blanked it. She got in touch several months later never mentioning it and we’re still loosely friends but it really changed the way I see her. I’d spent ages discussing things like her career issues and mental health etc which I wanted to do as she was my friend but then I literally ask about one thing and she couldn’t even take the time to say “that sounds difficult” or something non-committal. It takes me a while to open up to someone and be honest about what I’m struggling with so I think that’s why I found it hurtful.

I can’t be the only one who’s had this kind of thing, would anyone else like to vent?

OP posts:
PauliesWalnuts · 02/09/2025 19:53

Ooh let me think:

  • said “oh wow sorry” on a text when I told her my sibling had died and then didn’t hear from her for two years
  • Didn’t get in touch for my 50th or even send a card
  • Didn’t let me know her new address when she moved and THEN…
  • added me last year to a random WhatsApp group of worm I don’t know for the hen weekend for her last wedding without even getting in touch to say Hi, and then left the group leaving me to correspond with the MOH. I then got put on the 2 week cancer pathway for cervical cancer and decided to leave the group as I couldn’t deal with all the inane chat and she didn’t even ask why. Thankfully haven’t heard from her since.
TammyJones · 02/09/2025 20:40

I think they are called ‘Fair weathered friends’

SitOnHisFaceIfHeDiesHeDies · 02/09/2025 21:12

TammyJones · 02/09/2025 20:40

I think they are called ‘Fair weathered friends’

Nah. They're just cunts

SmallOrFarAway · 02/09/2025 21:30

Ooh the time I met her for dinner and told her that I was divorcing my horrible (now ex) husband. We finished up our evening as normal, then I never heard from her again. We’d been friends for about 4/5 years. No idea why she ghosted, she wasn’t friends with or related to my ex!

Enko · 02/09/2025 21:31

Our daughters went to different secondary schools and she stopped needing lifts. Then stopped making contact.

iirbRosb · 02/09/2025 21:35

I was on the brink of a breakdown and I tried to talk to a friend, she spoke about me for about 3 minutes and promised she’d do something for me then returned to moaning about her relationship for the next hour and has never asked me how I am since. She also didn’t do the thing she said

Original poster
stanleycups · 02/09/2025 22:20

PauliesWalnuts · 02/09/2025 19:53

Ooh let me think:

  • said “oh wow sorry” on a text when I told her my sibling had died and then didn’t hear from her for two years
  • Didn’t get in touch for my 50th or even send a card
  • Didn’t let me know her new address when she moved and THEN…
  • added me last year to a random WhatsApp group of worm I don’t know for the hen weekend for her last wedding without even getting in touch to say Hi, and then left the group leaving me to correspond with the MOH. I then got put on the 2 week cancer pathway for cervical cancer and decided to leave the group as I couldn’t deal with all the inane chat and she didn’t even ask why. Thankfully haven’t heard from her since.

Bloody hell, that puts mine in perspective. I hope everything is ok with your health 🙏

OP posts:
KelsCommemorativeSausage · 02/09/2025 22:30

I was hospitalised and sectioned, and missed sending her birthday card because I couldn't get out of the hospital. I messaged and said happy birthday, sorry I couldn't send anything etc and explained what had happened.

She replied a few days later saying she was very very hurt by not getting her usual card and present but was willing to overlook it if I started putting more effort in!

For some reason I didn't tell her to fuck off for another 6 years.

crossstitchingnana · 02/09/2025 22:34

I always called, always made the arrangements to meet. Started to feel resentful so left it to them to make the first move (there were two of them). Reader, that was 30 years ago.

Superfoodie123 · 02/09/2025 22:38

Never asked about my child when she was child free. Fine, I could understand that she didn't understand my life anymore.

6 years later she got pregnant and I asked her all the time how was her child, how was she coping etc etc. He's almost 2 and I realised she still never asks me about my children. In fact if I speak about them she seems jealous. So it wasn't that she was childless she was just a crap friend

BexBissell · 02/09/2025 22:44

SmallOrFarAway · 02/09/2025 21:30

Ooh the time I met her for dinner and told her that I was divorcing my horrible (now ex) husband. We finished up our evening as normal, then I never heard from her again. We’d been friends for about 4/5 years. No idea why she ghosted, she wasn’t friends with or related to my ex!

I think some women perceive newly single women as a threat.
I was widowed at 35 and my friends trampled each other in the rush to abandon me!
Maybe you becoming divorced made you a threat in her eyes.
People are weird.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 02/09/2025 22:50

Issued me (and others) with a specific list of items she wanted buying for her first baby having bought absolutely nothing for anyone else’s baby, ever.

Didn’t have the time or money to visit me when I was ill but had the time and money to support another friends trivial endeavour further away

Thought it was acceptable to ring my Mum and tell her private things calling it “looking out for me”

No longer a friend

Titasaducksarse · 02/09/2025 22:55

Having a 14 hour day driving to my mother's, with whom i have a very difficult relationship, working at hers all day, then taking her for a dementia appointment. Driving 2 hours home, saying how tired I was to get a 'me too' response.

Same situation I then comment how I then also had to, after going home read papers as was in court the next day.....
Again got a 'so am i' reply.

All I wanted was a moment of empathy for the first time of having a difficult moment after listening to their 'stuff' for 17 years.

Having challenged said person they then won't meet to discuss things instead imposing on me a 6 month contact break!!!! Well we're now on month 9...they can go fuck themselves.

Trinity69 · 02/09/2025 22:59

Worked together, became friends, met up quite regularly. Supported her through the horrible death of her partner one Christmas, contacted her to meet up the following Easter and then left the ball in her court. Haven’t been contacted since unless she wants something.

Fionasapples · 02/09/2025 23:00

The person whom I thought was my best friend. I supported her through work difficulties, illness and a philandering husband. I was always there for her.
My aunt died suddenly. We were close, I was closer to her than to my mum. I rang my friend to tell her my aunt was seriously ill and she ignored me. When she died, I told her and she said nothing at all. That was the end of the friendship really as we still met up but then it just fizzled out.

Xmasbows · 02/09/2025 23:05

Lack of reciprocation.

AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 02/09/2025 23:07

When my dad was terminally unwell and at one point it looked like it might be the end. I sent a text asking about her life & work and explaining what I was going through at that moment...took 3 weeks to get a response.

A few weeks after he did pass away I went to her house to visit and her partner had a go at me for not visiting more often because she had been having a bad time at work and "needed a friend". Friend just stood there and watched it happen.

Texting me on my actual birthday after ignoring all my messages offering to go out to tell me what a brilliant time she'd been having with her other friends celebrating one of their birthdays.

It wasn't always like this and I took way too long to step away (we were childhood friends). Now I just wish I could repair all the damage I allowed it to cause myself.

Liketheclappers · 02/09/2025 23:17

I've just ended a 33 year friendship and it hasn't been easy at all. It's a long story but the short version is that I finally woke up and realised that it was all on her terms. She stopped speaking to me for a while because I went away for the weekend with another friend and then phoned me to tell me that I needed to make more of an effort with our friendship. Laughable really because it was always me that did the running, made the arrangements, drove over to her house etc. Honestly there's too much to type but you get the idea. I still feel sad but I know I've done the right thing for me.

dizzydizzydizzy · 02/09/2025 23:18

SmallOrFarAway · 02/09/2025 21:30

Ooh the time I met her for dinner and told her that I was divorcing my horrible (now ex) husband. We finished up our evening as normal, then I never heard from her again. We’d been friends for about 4/5 years. No idea why she ghosted, she wasn’t friends with or related to my ex!

My Women's Aid support worker told me
That a lot of women lose friends when they leave their abusers. I actually lost my 2 best friends. One made up a massive lie as I was about to move house telling me that my new block of flats was really a brothel and a drugs den. Nothing could be further from the truth! When I revealed to her that I knew she had lied, there were only 2 options for her (1) apologise or (2) attack me. She did the latter, saying I had hurt her because I didn't realise she was only trying to protect me <massive eye roll>.

Other ex-bestie has just become strangely distant. No idea why.

Messycoo · 02/09/2025 23:20

Yes I’ve dropped a few “good” friends when I’ve realised it’s a one way exchange. Over the years.
For me home life wasn’t brilliant and it’s taken me up until now 57.to realise I invested a lot of emotion and energy into friendships and was blind to the one sidedness of some of them.
Again it’s about what they can take, not what they give.
sorry OP it’s shitty for you, just put it down to life lessons.

fivetriangulartrees · 02/09/2025 23:25

Friend at university who I got on well with, went on holiday with a couple of times. A few nights out in our 20s, but then somehow we accidentally lost touch. I messaged and he didn't get the messages, and we only had a couple of mutual friends, who also hadn't heard from him. He didn't use social media and I only had his old phone number from years previously, so I had no way of getting back in touch. I imagined he had lost all his contacts when he'd changed his phone and didn't know how to reach me either.

Years later, I bumped into his best friend, who was delighted to put us back in touch and gave me his current phone number. Of course, it was the same number I'd had all along.

Dabberlocks · 02/09/2025 23:34

I rang a friend for a chat and she was quite abrupt. She asked me what I was calling for and what was it I wanted. She said she was busy and couldn't talk to me for long, because she was getting ready to go out with her friends.

Up until that point I thought we were really good, close friends, but it turned out that although I thought she was my best friend, she did not think I was hers.

ChiliFiend · 02/09/2025 23:41

PauliesWalnuts · 02/09/2025 19:53

Ooh let me think:

  • said “oh wow sorry” on a text when I told her my sibling had died and then didn’t hear from her for two years
  • Didn’t get in touch for my 50th or even send a card
  • Didn’t let me know her new address when she moved and THEN…
  • added me last year to a random WhatsApp group of worm I don’t know for the hen weekend for her last wedding without even getting in touch to say Hi, and then left the group leaving me to correspond with the MOH. I then got put on the 2 week cancer pathway for cervical cancer and decided to leave the group as I couldn’t deal with all the inane chat and she didn’t even ask why. Thankfully haven’t heard from her since.

"oh wow sorry"? I would find it hard to ever speak to her again. That is truly awful.

coxesorangepippin · 03/09/2025 01:45

Mate started opening her mail when I went round for a brew

I mean, come on!

JesseGator · 03/09/2025 01:55

I’ve recently been in hospital, she knew this and didn’t bother messaging to ask how I was. This is a woman who cut off another friend for not being sufficiently devastated enough for her when her ancient dog was put to sleep. Apparently a text saying “sorry for your loss” didn’t cut it.

I’m binning her off, not sure she’ll even notice as I was always the first to initiate any meet ups. She’ll probably realise when she gets fuck all for her birthday next year.