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?

If you don't care about other people's opinions then why ask for them? You can just ask ChatGPT to validate and sympathise with whatever you say.

We're you hoping that we'd all pile on and agree that your ex friend is a horrible human being?

I said I didn’t care how you think I come across.

I very much dislike the view that if you move away, you should do all of the running.
it should be a two way street.
During the last meet up with my family I recognised it was always on me to visit. I invited them to my home, which was declined with reassurances of ‘next time’. I decided not to initiate rearranging and I haven’t seen them since lol
Wheb people show you they are, believe them 👌

Mr Net Curtain has a friendship since he was a teenager with his mate. They are still friends now and they've never fallen out.

Do you think it's different with men?

Agree. Always should be a 2 way thing. It's draining for one person to do all the work. As said before it's a flaw in people when they can't arrange a meet up. Other people are not your social secretaries.

Yes it needs 2 way efforts. My friend moved away but we hoping meet her soon and one has elderly parents some wends. So not easy to plan it. Op maybe the meh comment was you fed up of the friendship. I felt that way too at times. You get tired chasing people

Does she go on holiday with friends though? I ask because I feel the same way as your friend about long distance relationships of any kind. They don't work for me, however fond I am of the person. I only holiday with a partner or family. I never holiday with friends, I don't even spend entire days with them, I find more than a few hours to be too much.

So I wouldn't want to waste my annual leave and hotel money visiting a random town in the UK for a weekend just so I could spend a few hours with a friend for a couple of days. I find driving long distance tiring so I wouldn't want to meet up the same day I'm travelling. And I'd need to feel I'd had some time off to properly relax, so I'd need a day either side of travelling to spend at home alone. I'm an introvert and need recharge time after doing anything.

That's 4 days annual leave and 3 nights hotel costs. It's a lot of time and money just to hang out for a few hours with someone who's basically not in my life any more because they moved away. To me, moving a long way away is a goodbye. Although, like your friend, if they came back and wanted to meet up I'd be more than happy to do so.

This is where I'm at too OP. Except it's not hormones for me, it's life experiences.

Several times I've lost my friends because I've gone through life altering circumstances and have kept to myself while adjusting. I'd have responded if people had reached out, but they never did because I'd always been the main planner and organiser. When a year or more goes by and I noticed people hadn't been there for me at all during my hard time, it changes how I feel about them. I don't like to lean on people I just like to maintain the fun side of friendship as a distraction, so it's not that they've shied away from providing support because I haven't wanted any. In a lot of instances people haven't even known about the difficulties, because I've felt unable to reach out and they've not bothered to get in touch at any point either, so it can't be anything do do with not wanting to think of others' troubles etc if they didn't even know about them. I'm left to conclude that they just don't care that I faded from their lives, so having had that thought I don't feel like getting in touch myself, even though things are better with me, and the friendship is just over.

Now I don't pursue friendship after those experiences. It's a lot of effort for people who probably don't really care much and won't be there for me, because they don't even notice my absence from their lives. So I don't bother. I've become one of those people who never initiates but will accept an invitation if it comes and it's something I want to do.

If someone did invite me I'd start to invite them in return and give them a chance, to see if they're the kind of flaky person to mess me around or not (don't like those!), but I won't be the one always reaching out again. That isn't likely to happen at this point in my life because I'm currently not living a sociable life where I meet people.

I'm in a phase of quietly doing my own thing at home and seeing only a couple of friends who do reciprocate. It's very peaceful and I like being able to focus my energies on doing what I want, instead of feeling like I'm always chasing someone or other, trying to pin down mutually convenient dates and organise things. I was only putting that effort in because I cared about these people and thought they'd be by my side forever, but now I know that isn't likely to be true, I just CBA with those who don't reciprocate or initiate. I deliberately create space with new situations and wait to see if the other person steps into it, so I know if we've got a 2-way friendship or if it's only surviving because I'm doing all the running.

The other thing I'm doing is being boring. My current friends obviously don't think I'm boring and we have good chats. I don't care if others think that though. I used to, I used to try to be the best I could be. Always conscious of the other person and if they're feeling comfortable, a bit of a people pleaser at times I suppose. I didn't want to do anything that people might think made me a bad friend.

Now I'm just no-effort me and I don't care what people think about it, if they want to spend time with me they can and if not, no worries. It's a far more relaxing way to be. Now if I meet someone and find I don't have anything to say to them, I don't see it as a personal failing that I need to rectify, I just let it be what it is and wonder if perhaps we're incompatible, without really caring about the outcome.

You sound very much like my friend. Except I’m the introvert and she’s not.

and yes she goes on holiday with friends too. Girls only weekends away three times a year. A holiday away this year in Europe with friends for a week. So all these holidays all over the place, most further distance than I am. But won’t see me. (I got sent a random text three days ago calling me BFF but doesn’t feel like it).

a few years ago now I thought we were going on a weekend away together. it had been discussed and I saved up to pay ( still not sure why I had to but it’s always been like this). Then I heard nothing at all so I was eventually forced to enquire about when she wanted to go and i was sent a tirade of awful messages for days and then ignored for months. I’m still very unclear what I did wrong. So I never had the weekend away, I tried to make myself book it to go alone but I felt too upset by then.