To feel sad I was right about friendship?

[French69]

I left my home town about 15 years ago. I was determined I wouldn’t lose touch with people or let things drift, and indeed, I’m still in regular contact with my two closest friends from home.

I had continued to see one of my friends pretty regularly when I went to visit my parents. It was usually me making the effort to organise it, but I figured that was part and parcel of my being the one who’d moved, and she was always keen to come out. This wasn’t a couple of token meet-ups before things tailed off; we were in contact for years.

Anyway, a few years ago now I took a trip with her and another friend - and frankly, she was a pain. She upset our other friend, and everything had to be done her way. Nothing seemed to make her happy. If we were doing a lot of sightseeing, she wanted to know why we couldn’t just “chill”. Yet the day after we had a long lunch and a couple of drinks after, and she complained we hadn’t done enough with the day. I felt like I needed a bit of a break, so perhaps wouldn’t meet up with her for a while.

After that, I started to realise it was always me doing the organising. As I say, I thought that was just down to logistics, but even though I wouldn’t have expected her to invite herself to visit me, I realise she’d never once even suggested coming to me; nor had she even enquired when I’d next be in town. She was happy to meet me if I said when I was coming and suggested what to do, but none of it was ever proactive.

I decided to conduct a bit of an experiment and not be the one to get in touch or plan anything. This was seven years ago. I saw her once after that trip. Once. And that was when a mutual friend invited us both to her birthday party. “Friend” acted just the same as ever; you’d never have known anything was wrong. But from that day to this, she’s never made any attempt to arrange a meet-up. For the first time since moving, I didn’t arrange anything that Christmas - and even though she knew I was in town, neither did she. And nothing ever since.

I’m only thinking about today as I saw a Facebook post from her for the first time in ages. We’ve never “fallen out”; at one stage we still sent birthday and Christmas messages. But now we’re both just names on a list.

Normally I love being proven right 😄 Who doesn’t like feeling vindicated? But in this case, I really wanted to be wrong. I didn’t want to think a friendship of nearly ten years could end just because I hadn’t messaged in a while. As much as I suspected things would tail off a bit if I didn’t organise anything, I was hoping that, at some point, I’d get a “So when are you next in town?” or “Any plans over Christmas?” message. But no. Leaving the effort up to her meant never seeing her again.

I don’t really know what I want from the thread; just venting really. Has anyone else had this happen to them?

It's awful isn't it when one person expects others to do everything. You are not their social secretary and they need to make an effort. Friendships are two way .
I think if I were you I'd have said something. Otherwise she'll probably think it was you. Or maybe your not bothered now..

I’m 1/3 of the trio that is the one that makes the effort. One of our best friends moved away, she comes back a few times a year and I always offer to go and visit her so it’s definitely a 2 way street. Our other friend who lives 20 mins from me has never made the effort once in the 10 years since she moved away, it was always me suggesting to visit her and subsequently me doing the 4 hour drive to see our friend, not once did she offer to drive. Friend who moved away has given up like you and only suggests a meet up to me. I find it extremely sad but it’s ’how she is’ which I struggle to accept as a reason anymore.

We usually get a text once a year to say sorry she’s been distant/a bad friend etc but nothing ever changes… it’s very sad to chuck out a long friendship but I can’t keep making the effort with no return any more.

YANBU but also it’s really important to remember that this probably isn’t personal. She may behave this way with everyone she knows - eg she NEVER is the first to make contact. She’s probably just a lazy person and a shit friend to everybody.

Some people are just quite "out of sight out of mind" - busy with the here and now at home and another year rolls by. I don't think it is personal or means she doesn't care about you - she isn't a planner as you have found so meeting her meant arranging it.

Then she'll have to accept she might end up with no friends then.

I think it's pretty normal for friendships to fizzle out over time. Sometimes you get along really well with someone at one time in your life but things just change - people change, circumstances change, lives change - and friendships aren't always right for you any more.

You obviously didn't get along very well on holiday, and she will have been just as aware of that as you were, so why would you expect her to want to get in touch and carry on pursuing a friendship, really? I probably wouldn't be chasing someone I'd had an awkward holiday with for meet-ups either.

I think this just isn't as deep as you think it is. You haven't had a big falling out, and again - that's normal. People drift apart naturally with no hard feelings all the time. There's no need for conflicts and fallings out.

This is very common. Lots of people simply can’t organise a simple thing and are passengers who turn up to other things friends have organised.

It is even worse amongst men.

It happens, OP. I don’t think being the one who has to do the legwork every time is a great basis for a friendship. Do you think you might be falling victim to something of a sunk cost fallacy here? That you made all that effort and the friendship still came to an eventual end? I think it’s OK to be a bit sad, just as it’s OK to let it go.

I suspect it's more a case of her filtering out the friends she's not actually that keen on. Which is fine, really. Nobody is obliged to stay friends with someone they've long ago grown bored with.

That’s right. Widowers becoming isolated because their late wives were their personal secretaries is really common. That’s the risk OP’s (ex?) friend is taking; by not making the effort she’s risking alienating people.

I think you and @LostittoBostik have a pretty good idea of what she’s about. If I look at who she’s pictured with on Facebook most often, it’s all people she’s known for years, but who live very close by. So it’s not that she can’t maintain friendships - it’s that the maintenance level has to be pretty low.

Meh.

I don’t get why you feel vindicated when the definition of a friend is someone you can meet up with and it’s like you saw them yesterday when you haven’t but it doesn’t matter. If it matters to you, fine, you wanted a certain friendship and she was happy with how things were. And some people are organisers, others arent, some people have anxiety, depression, jobs that don’t lend itself to them meeting up, family issues, money issues, yada yada yada.

Agree with this. You just drifted apart.

Your friend didn't have the enthusiasm to initiate meet ups.

I have some friends like that and I am not sure what to do about it. I went 10 years without contact except cards and then we met and said must make more effort but it always feels like me who makes the effort. I’m the one who always goes to visit. What’s galling is when we do meet up they’re always going on about their busy social life. Which ironically makes me think he can’t really value this friendship that much can be bothered to make contact to organise things

Yes, it’s happened to me.

I had a friend who I shared quite a bit with in person and online for many years. I eventually realised it was always me that was contacting her. Always. She always responded warmly but never initiated contact with me. I would send Christmas cards and birthday cards for which she thanked me but would say “so you know I don’t do cards“. And then when I contacted her she’d say things like “I haven’t heard from you for ages!“.

I stopped the cards. And then I decided to stop initiating contact. Nothing. So that that’s how I’m leaving it. .

I was going to say this. Sometimes one person is simply less bothered about maintaining a friendship than the other person.

My best friend from school went straight into full-time employment while I went off to university. In the beginning we’d meet up whenever I came home for the holidays but over time I realised that we actually didn’t have much in common - my world had grown exponentially larger and I had a bunch of new friends with similar interests/ambitions to me, whereas she stayed in the same town where we grew up and basically just wanted to find a husband. If she suggested meeting up then I would go along with it but I would never reach out to her first because frankly I just wasn’t fussed about seeing her. My hope was that our friendship would gradually fade without any drama but she was persistent - probably because she didn’t have many other friends - and in the end she had a massive go at me about my lack of effort and we stopped talking. I felt bad about the way our friendship ended but also relieved that I didn’t have to pretend anymore.

But that’s not what this is like. We all have friends we don’t see as often as we’d like, but whom we can very quickly pick up with when we do see each other.

I felt vindicated because it proved what I’d suspected - that the friendship was surviving because I, not we, worked at it. As I said, I wish I’d been wrong.

For the last few years, always met a friemd on black Friday to start Christmas shopping. Last year, Dh was off that day so didn’t contact her. Not heard from her.

Also stopped messaging two people in January. Never heard from them either.

I don't believe that everyone's capable of texting and asking how you are and can they pop round or can you pop round and see them.
They obvs haven't got any passion, want and desire for friends.

You didn't feel like mentioning the messaging works both ways?

That's typical to say haven't heard from you when hen they've done nothing.

If you hear nothing you have your answer leave it.. op had it too. Am drifting from one its all one way efforts now. It cant be one person keeping it all going in friendships

Why in earth should she? Why is it her job to maintain the friendship entirely on her own and ‘question’ her friend about it the dynamic.

OP, I’m in this situation because hormones and age have done something to me and I’ve decided not to chase people anymore. Where I would previously worry about offending people I can honestly say I do not give a fuck anymore.

I’m down to barely any friends but I’m trusting the process. I’ve been a complete doormat, in all honestly. Driving people about, treating people, cat sitting, lifts to and from hospital. Even in the depths of migraines and personal crisis.

When I became unwell I noticed said friends never offered to come visit me or help me in any way at all. In fact one got angry at me for not being in the helper role any more. One friend stopped reaching out the moment I pulled back, just like yours. And I never heard from her again. When 7 years later we messaged her responding was ‘well you never reached out either’. Laughable!

I can say truly that I feel free now in a way I haven’t before. It feels empowering to decide you don’t want to be in that role or dynamic anymore. Other people won’t respond to your boundaries in the way you want. That’s ok.

The trick is to try and let your brain and thoughts catch up- they ruminate- why didn’t she reach out? Were we really friends? Replace those thoughts- I made a decision that was right for me. Move forward xxx

I used to make the effort with someone like that. Last time I saw them was several years ago and I realised she had never really matured and her partner was obnoxious. When she didn’t even visit our new baby I knew that was the end of the road.