...to feel used and discarded like an old shoe...

[echoButNoBunnymen]

Namechanger as just want opinions based on the facts of the case. I probably am BU, and am quite happy to be told so, but I would also like some advice as to how to deal with this, as am at a total loss. I have no-one in RL I can run this by.

I have a friend who has been a very close and good friend, who I saw several times a week at a particular activity that we both started doing together about a year ago. We were both recovering from bad relationships and we supported each other. We did other things together, had coffee, went out for lunch, tried all sort of things that we had never tried before, but we finally settled on this particular activity that we both enjoyed.

Friend got together with a chap at this activity, just before Christmas, who she didn't know from Adam... one day she just liked the look of him, the next day she was seeing him every day..and yes... you've guessed it...I never see her at all now and hear from her very rarely.

When she got together with him, I was very upset, not that she had got with him, but at her immediate 'dumping' of me as a friend. I went to this activity on my own last night, and she was there with chap. She said hello and I never saw her again, chap totally blanked me. She texted me to say sorry she hadn't seen me to say goodbye, but said chap had picked her up and she had to leave with him.

I just felt like texting back to say 'whatever'.

I feel as though this post is pathetic and moany and that IABVU. But I need to know how to play this.

Okay ladies...hit me with it....

YANBU, but i think sometimes you have to shrug your shoulders and let her get on with it. Some friendships fulfil a need for a while, and i guess thats just what your friendship did, iyswim.

Yes, it hurts, but i wouldn't loose sleep over it - if she can drop you like this so quickly, is she really the type of person you want as a friend?

agree with Deemented,YANBU, but nothing you can do other thank keep your cool, and note for future reference she's somewhat of a fairweather friend.

YANBU......have had the same hurt in a 'friendship', taken me a few months but I'm over it now, I can relate to your statement Deemented completely!
You are not pathetic or moant just hurt and probably confused.

yanbu - no doubt she will back when 'weirdo who blanks people' drops her.

Hopefully by then you will have shiny new friends who aren't so pathetic they drop the people they love to make room for a new shiny penis.

Yes I do feel confused. We had talked about meeting men, obviously, as she had been in an abusive relationship, as had I. Both of us were very wary of leaping into anything quickly, and I am, just totally gobsmacked at the speed with which she has launched herself into this.

Was quite shocked about it actually. I feel bad at myself for being upset, but also a bit worried about her. She is quite a big loss to me, as we had seen each other quite alot. I have decided to stop going to our joint activity as felt totally humiliated last night. Am going to do something else instead.

YANBU

Please don't let her stop you doing the things you enjoy. Is there anyone else you're friendly with there, or that could come with you?

She is obviously in the first flush of romance and wants to be with him every minute.

If she had to leave with him, maybe he will turn out to be very bossy and then she will want a friend to support her.

I would accept that I was annoyed and hurt by how she has dumped you but think about whether you want to try and salvage the friendship or finish any contact with her completely.

I think she sounds like she needs someone ATM to boost her self-esteem. First is was you, now it is him. Obviously, he is going to be more of a confirmation of her self-worth because basically he is a bloke and he fancies her.

I don't think you are being unreasonable, because I think you need to shrug your shoulders and just accept that this is what people do while in the first flush of a new relationship. Note: it does not reflect on you as a person!

I was once in an awkward situation where an old friend and I picked up because she was newly heartbroken and I was single. We'd go out 'on the pull' together lots and obv. discussed our wish to meet someone new a lot. I then met a gorgeous, witty, amazing guy (now my dh and tried to keep her in my life but she seemedreally resentful of me and seemed to throw every attemp i did to include her in my life back in my face. I know this because I heard some of the things she said about me to mutual friends .

What I'm trying to say is that it's an awkward situation for both of you, and I hope you aren't taking her 'dumping' you too much to heart. She did text you so she's probably conscious that she doesn't want to abandon you.

RE his ignoring you - perhaps she has underplayed your relationship to him? She may not wish to go on to him about the heartbreak hotel that you set up together as it may just make her look a bit sad. And that would be a bit off-putting, non? Either that or he's a bit weirdy and possessive.

But you are certainly NBU. I do think women that dump their friends for men are a bit pathetic. I would still give her the benefit of the doubt though.

Hope this makes sense, stream of consciousness flowing with my red wine I'm afraid.

YANBU, just remember this when it all goes wrong and she wants you back in her life to lean on...the word you will be looking for is NO

You could be describing an exfriend of mine, EBNBM. I'll call her Marge.

There was a group of 6 of us and we were all good friends. One of the, (I'll call her Doris) was married to the Marge's cousin.

All of us except Marge were in a relationship, though one of us (Paula) split up with her husband while we were still friends with Marge. Anyway I digress. We were always happy to go out regularly as a group, and whenever Marge was at a loose end, one of us was always there to listen to her woes of being a single woman.

Then she met this bloke (will call him George). George has recently divorced his cheating wife, who bore a resemblance to Marge. We're all over the moon for her. Only she is less likely to go out with us, and only 2 of us, Doris and Paula actually met him and he was very standoffish. To cut a long story short (I hear you all breathe a sigh of relief!). Marge played a mean practical joke on her cousin, Doris' husband. He vows revenge - and sends her this huge black dildo for her birthday!
She absolutely hit the roof. And blamed Doris and Paula for it. And when me and my other 2 friends tried to sort things out she told us where to go to.
I would like to point out that Marge on her previous birthday fellated a cucumber in the middle of a pub for a laugh.
In other words it was a big excuse to drop the lot of us. Turns out that George was a controlling freak who cut Marge off from all her friends.
She finally finished with him a few months ago - apparently he belted her one.
But none of us we'll have anything to do with her, because in falling out with all of us, she also caused a huge split in Doris' DH's family.

I hope your friend is just shallow and is not datign a guy like George....

I had a similar thing done to me by a friend I had known since primary school. She came to stay for the weekend ( I had moved away from our home town by this time) and we had a party at flat was sharing with now DH. She met a friend of his and left halfway through the party to spend the rest of the weekend with this man she had never met before!

I felt really let down and used as we were very close friends and I had put a lot of effort into making sure she had a good weekend.

Interestingly, she had recently split up with a long term boyfriend and had been dumped by her dad at age 6 and only saw him again on her 18th birthday! So i think that a lot of this behaviour has to do with a need to feel loved by someone to replace her dad.

That said, I never invited her back and we drifted apart. Whatever happens to you in your childhood, you have a choice in how you behave when you are an adult. No one needs friends who just take from you when it suits them.

Thankyou so much for all your replies. I have tried to ask her out etc but she has actually been telling me lies about why she can't see me. That made me feel very bad. I wish she had just been straight about seeing this chap. I have no problem with her having a chap at all.

I hope they are very happy. But I feel with the lies she has told me about why she cannot see me, even to do the activity that we started together and did about three times a week, she has some insight into her behaviour towards me.

I have never said a word about him..not had the chance as I have only had one conversation with her since she started seeing him! I just feel really stupid to feel so sad. As if I have been an idiot and used.

My teenaged daughter was having problems with her friends last week and I was telling her to ignore them! I'm so pathetic.

Mooseheart, why do we have to accept that people just "do" this when they are in a new romance? I never have, i value my friends too much!

Echo, you are not the pathetic one. Please don't change, hope you have some true friends who value your loyalty.

YANBU

But nothing you can do.

You said that she came out of an abusive relationship. When this happens either you learn the lesson and next time you go for the completely opposite type of man or you enter another abusive relationship.

Unfortunetely many women do this. From what you describe i m afraid to say that maybe your friend has found another controlling man . And as we all know these men cut you off your friends-but in a very sneaky way...

I hope i am wrong, but if i m right there is nothing you can do, dont enterfere or talk to her about it, just be there for when she will need you.

She is clearly much more needy and insecure than you and more desperate for a man. I think you should feel sorry for her and try to be pleased that she has outed herself now as a terrible friend because at least now you are free to meet people of a slightly better calibre!

She probably feels threatened by your strength and ability to cope alone and wait for a proper relationship - therefore it's easier for her just to blank you.

Personally, I think you should take it as a bit of a compliment though I know it doesn't feel that way at all.

I say keep going to your activity, don't let her put you off. Show her that not only are you strong and coping, but that you don't have to go everywhere in a 'pair' and have the social skills to talk to more than one person at a time!!

good luck

Sorry if I've got this wrong but she sounds like someone who is all or nothing. She might be one of those odd people that doesn't really get to know someone before she's committed and then falls for the same type of bloke again and again. What do you reckon?

Why are men so much more important than female friends? I think that I'd be hurt too. FFS this relationship of hers might lead nowhere and then she's dropped a good friends for nowt. Be cool, don't show her you're upset and leave her to contact you.

A friend once told me that people are in your life for

a reason a season or
a lifetime

I think it's very true and people and relationships and circumstances change over time.

Your friendship did you both good for a while. YANBU to be upset with her but don't hold it against her for long - life is too short.

Some women are very needy and they have to have a man in their life - it is very important to them. As soon as they find one - and it barely matters who he is - everyone else becomes very secondary. It's sad but I have seen it happen time and again. Make friends with some men, they don't seem to have this tendency