I’ve known this friend since we were 8, and we were best friends throughout our school. At age 19, I went through something traumatic and ended up isolating myself from everyone, which abruptly ended our friendship. During this time she would reach out to me, but I couldn’t bear to face certain people so I ignored her. We didn’t speak for many years, though we’d occasionally see each other due to mutual connections. Those interactions were always polite but surface-level. My ‘ghosting’, felt like the elephant in the room.
A few years ago, I reached out and asked to meet, with the sole intention of apologising for how I handled things back then. She accepted the apology and said that while she hadn’t understood at the time, she had since experienced her own trauma and now gets why someone might withdraw. It was a vulnerable and emotional moment between us. I didn’t have any specific outcome in mind, I wasn’t expecting us to go back to how we were. But she said she missed me and wanted to have a friendship again, and I was open to that.
Since then, I’ve made an effort to rebuild a friendship, not aiming for childhood-level closeness, but still something less-surface and more genuine. Over time, though, I’ve started to feel like the dynamic is really one-sided.
She’ll occasionally suggest we meet up, but it’s always months in advance and comes with very limited availability (for context, we are both child-free). Even then, she’s vague and non-committal, which makes me wonder if she truly wants to spend time together or if it’s just something she says to tick a box. When I suggest a meet up it’s the same kind of energy, I’m so busy, I’ll let you know when I’m free, and then I don’t hear from her for a while unless she wants to offload on me or needs me something (sometimes as a back up for fallen through plans). Meanwhile, I see her out regularly with other friends having fun, which makes me feel like I’m just not a priority. I don’t expect to be her bf (she is not even mine), but over time it becomes a bit grating.
She also reaches out for hours long phone calls now and then, usually to talk about her life, especially her dating woes. I listen and offer support, but the few times I’ve opened up to her, she’s come across as disinterested, dismissive, and even judgmental. I don’t open up often, so that really stung. It made me feel like my role in her life is to be her emotional sounding board, but when it comes to supporting me, or even just showing up, she’s not really there.
We recently happened to be in the same country and spent pretty much the whole together (because her plans fell through). When she needed help, I was quick to offer it. But when I needed something, there was always an excuse. It brought up memories from our younger years, I used to feel like I gave so much more to the friendship than I received. There were many times that she will show up for other friends, but when I needed her, I got a bunch of excuses, and that would really hurt as I was supposedly her best friends. And then extra hurtful flr
me seeing her do for others, after telling me she couldn’t do for me for whatever reason. That dynamic on this trip was shown to me clear as day, and this made me reflect on why it was so easy for me to walk away from the friendship all those years ago.
I’m left wondering, does she actually value me, or am I just someone she turns to when it suits her? Am I overthinking this, or is this a classic case of a “pocket friendship”? I’m not necessarily looking to fix or force anything. I just don’t know if this friendship is something I should keep investing in, and maybe I should distance myself as I don’t feel like I get anything from it.