Is there more to being a friend than a title?

[Suns1nE]

Since my best friend began a new relationship last April the contact we have/allowed to have has drastically changed/diminished. Previously we saw eachother 4/5 times a week. Spoke on the phone for hours every day and text constantly. For clarity this is a Mumsnet taboo friendship F/M. I knew and understood that the level of contact would change… that was obvious and understandable. First the in person stuff died off to the point that I’ve seen him once in 12 months and that was to help him clean out his fridge. The calls had become less frequent and shorter and dropped off completely around 6 months ago. Texts became shorter and more abrupt. We work in the same job in the same industry but not together. We bumped into eachother one day at work and I asked if I had done something wrong and was told no but his girlfriend checks his phone so he doesn’t like to message anymore about anything other than small talk/work.
I said that to me if we weren’t allowed to see eachother, talk on the phone and now even text then IMO we aren’t friends. We are work colleagues that were friends. He disagrees and says “nothings changed”.

Who is right? Is there more to being a friend than just someone saying you’re friends? Or is someone a friend just because you give them the title?

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

I’ve never said has to be daily lengthy chats but I do think it should be more than small talk. If you don’t speak to someone who is a friend for ages and the conversation is the same as you’d have with the checkout operator in Tesco, to me, it’s not friendship. If im asking how someone is and what’s new I want to know the truth not just “all good” … you might be all good but if you’ve not spoken for some time you’d give details of all good “x did y, we’re doing this or going there”. I never expected how it was before to continue, I posted it as contrast to show it’s gone from frequent, in depth contact to sporadic practically non existent polite chit chat.

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.

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.