Please help me make sense.. best friend of 28 years turned on me and now not speaking

[Metabigot]

I went out to a pub (garden) with a friend I've known since teenage years the weekend before last. I got talking to some people at another table who had passed us by and been friendly , to cut a long story short they then came over to our table to get my friend to come and join them (I didn't ask them to as i knew she wasn't in the mood for befriending new people due to covid ) and she rudely told them to f off - yes she's covid-paranoid but could have said it in a nicer way... anyway one of them then came back and said wtf is wrong with her she needs to get a fing life and I was pretty mortified and didn't intervene... I was quite embarrassed by her rudeness and didn't think that merited me jumping to her side.

She then called me over a few minutes later said she was annoyed at me and some insulting words before flouncing off. I asked her the next day what I had done to upset her and I wasn't happy with how she'd been to me but let's either discuss it or forget it and move on.

She then texted (refused to talk) saying she was appalled that I'd 'sat there slagging her off with a bunch of strangers' and whenever I tried to give my view, she said I was lying and unless I accepted it was all my fault then I was choosing to end the friendship.

We've never fallen out before in 28 years. It's like a different person has taken over her body. Every time I tried to say my version of events she said I was lying and trying to argue with her and blame her. I feel I'm being emotionally blackmailed into taking responsiblity for a situation of her making, whilst she can swear at everyone and get off scot free.

I would leave it at that but we've been friends forever and this is a real shock to me. To say I am devastated is an understatement. How can she just change like this and blame me for everything. She literally said 'it's all your fault and you can't accept what you've done so I can't be friends any more in case you do it again.'

I haven't spoken to her since the text discussion/argument last week and suggested a time-out but where the hell do I go from here?

@Quartz2208

I wonder if the problem is OP you still arent actually sorry and dont seem to think you have done anything wrong and that came across in your apology.

So what you hoped would sort it has made everything worse.

I dont think it is salvageable now because I still dont think you actually see what you did wrong

A good way to determine that is what I'd do if I had the luxury of a time machine. Honestly? I'd leave the new folk alone as I'd see she was not up for socialising/covid para and not even engage with them when they initially came over.

Amazing what 3 hours of training on here can do...

Are you my mum? She will go and talk to strangers in the pub and ignore us. I find it really bizarre, not to mention very rude. No matter which way you spin it, you appeared to seek out the company of these others (you went over to her, so you’d obviously left her at some point).

Is it something you had a habit of doing pre Covid and this and Covid has sent friend over the edge. Major upset is usually triggered by an event but often it’s the straw that broke the camels back. Just a thought. As some else said maybe you didn’t sound very apologetic. Not sure what you can do now except wait and see if friend calms down and try again

But that is still blaming her? You are both so entrenched in the other being wrong rather than accepting fault on both sides that it is unfixable

Actually the way you keep describing it as 'Covid paranoia' is a bit grating.

If she was truly 'paranoid', I'm guessing she would be staying home, out of the way of potentially infectious strangers, but she wasn't, she was out with you.

Yet you repeatedly refer to her as paranoid when perhaps she's being understandably cautious.

The way you speak about her and the tone you use is a bit sneery and dismissive. Like you think she's ridiculous for feeling a bit cautious.

It sounds highly possible that your attitude towards her is a big part of the problem.

I'd hazard a guess that this incident isn't the only thing that's ended such a long friendship.

Oh do one with your “covid paranoia” - so irritating

From your more recent posts I’m beginning to get a definite sense that you see yourself as the life and soul, that you felt her company was a bit boring and that you were out to have a good time - which in your eyes meant being part of a larger group who weren’t ‘covid para’. You’re not that sorry.

You don’t know what the man said to her (I bet I can guess the tone of his persuasion) and you seem to know a fair bit about the group (not leery /gay) from only spending a few minutes saying hello.

Yeah - you’ve done similar before and she’s just had enough.

[quote KormasABitch]@Bluntness100
Where did you get that idea from?

To be clear they came over to our table initially just being friendly and then when i went to the loos I passed them on the way back and got chatting for a matter of minutes before the guys went over to try and persuade my friend to join -they were gone before I could stop them.[/quote]
She’s written it in her posts.

I’d hazard a guess here that if the friend posted there would be a different slant to this totally, that she told them to fuck off for good reason and that she was left quite a while on her own, in addition what occured when they were being abusive about her so she could hear.

I’d also be very surprised if this wasn’t about a bloke.

Did you actually see and hear what led up to the fuck off?

@Bluntness100

I’d hazard a guess here that if the friend posted there would be a different slant to this totally, that she told them to fuck off for good reason and that she was left quite a while on her own, in addition what occured when they were being abusive about her so she could hear.

I’d also be very surprised if this wasn’t about a bloke.

Yep. The fact they said she needs to get a ‘fucking life’ tells me all I need to know about what they probably said to make her tell them to ‘fuck off’

After your friend left did you stay in the pub with your new friends?

OP have you asked her what they said to make her tell them to fuck off? is she usually quite blunt?

@JorisBohnson2

Dared to come back and update you all.

OK so I did as some suggested and emailed a heartfelt apology for the leaving her when I was at the table, which wasn't long BTW as the guys went over to her pretty soon after and then shit went south....

I said I can't apologise for slagging you off as I didn't do that but apologised for being passive/inactive when the scene occurred.

She spat it all back in my face and doesn't want to accept the apology, which I accept is her choice, but she was pretty nasty about it despite me trying to be as apologetic as I could bringing up how I should have apologised earlier etc and criticising/blaming again.

So I've come to the conclusion our friendship was not as strong as I thought. This wouldn't have been a deal breaker for me after an apology from the other person but I generally like to give people 2nd chances and realise not everyone does.

Im out. I know some of you will say I thoroughly deserve it but I really do appreciate the more balanced viewpoints and those who have seen that whilst I wasn't an angel the punishment doesn't fit the crime.

You apologised, if she hasn't accepted it, leave it. I wouldn't end a 28 year friendship over something like this, but she's choosing too. I wouldn't really give it any more headspace, you can't change what happened and you can't keep apologising for it.

@rainbowstardrops

I'd hazard a guess that this incident isn't the only thing that's ended such a long friendship.

I'd hazard a guess that no one is actually reading the OP's posts properly, or if they are, they are thinking immediately of THAT FRIEND they once had who used to piss them off by flirting with anything in sight rather than talk to them.

Nope - not here.

I actually can’t perceive a situation where some randoms were hurling abuse at my friend, publicly, whilst she sat alone, and I sat with the abusers and said nothing, thinking she deserved it, and not leaving their table till she requested me to, when I don’t even know (apparently) what was said to cause her to tell them to fuck off in the first place.

I honestly can’t even imagine doing that to a woman who was a stranger, never mind one I called a friend.

Well I think your choice of the word "hurling" indicates that you have painted your very own picture of this scene. It certainly doesn't match mine, nor, as far as I can see, anything OP has actually told us!

@KormasABitch

Well I think your choice of the word "hurling" indicates that you have painted your very own picture of this scene. It certainly doesn't match mine, nor, as far as I can see, anything OP has actually told us!

The friend could clearly hear them slagging her off. Argue semantics all you wish, it’s abuse and it was designed to be loud enough for her to hear. Re read the op.

And personally if I saw a woman alone being abused I’d try to stop it.

But you do you.

We’ve only been allowed to stand and talk to people in a pub since last Monday. It’s a novelty.

I’m a chatter and a mingler and if I’m going to the pub it’s to chat and mingle. Fortunately all my friends are of the same mind.

OP I can’t see that you did much wrong, apart from not backing her up when it went to shit.

Some of the responses on here are batshit as usual. Particularly that one poster who seems to hang around AIBU just to stick the boot in on every single thread. Just ignore.

@Bluntness100
OP spent the evening drinking with her friend, not carousing with a table of strangers who hurled abuse at her friend.

OP has explained she didn’t slag off her friend at all. She just didn’t jump to her defence when someone came back from her table shocked that they’d been told very rudely to fuck off. Because there was no call for it (she felt “mortified”).

These are people who had, earlier in the evening, “mingled with” both OP and her friend at their own table. Towards the end of the evening, OP stopped to chat for a few minutes with them on her way back from the loo, and that’s when the friend was invited over and told them nastily to fuck off.

Knowing her friend was feeling antisocial, OP, given a chance, would have protected her from this social encroachment (“they were gone before I could stop them”).

OP then gets sacked by friend who storms off and later won’t engage with any apologies, responds nastily, and presents a distorted view of what happened. Maybe you choose to believe her version, but OP’s account of a night out in a beer garden post-lockdown sounds perfectly normal to me. Towards the end of an evening drinking with your friend at a separate table, people who’ve been friendly with you both earlier chat briefly again in passing and wonder if you both want to join them for last drinks.

This happens all the time, no? I think by the end of an evening’s drinking, most people’s social boundaries are softening a little (that’s the whole point of alcohol, surely?) and especially now, after lockdown, it’s exciting to meet other people. Sounds as though OP’s friend is terrified of it, and “COVID paranoia” could well be to blame.

It also sounds as though the “friendly crowd” was dead set on making as many new friends as possible that night, and OP was piggy in the middle, having to deal with a surly friend without being rude to people who had been friendly with them earlier. People talk about OP’s friend feeling humiliated, but the OP clearly felt humiliated too and so would I in that situation.

“I was embarrassed at the time she'd told these friendly people to fuck off. They were just being friendly and whilst she didn't have to engage with them she could have said 1000 better things than fuck off.”

I can’t believe I’m brave enough to lock horns with the legendary Bluntness! 😋😉 But that’s my penny’s-worth.

Wow that's quite the take @KormasABitch

You really should take up creative writing.

@Clymene

Wow that's quite the take *@KormasABitch*

You really should take up creative writing.

Why, thank you

Maybe OP, if she ever dares set foot in here again, can let us know if this bears any relation to the lived experience!

I’d be more interested in hearing if the OPs friend thinks your creative writing offering bears any resemblance to reality - but sadly that’s not going to happen.