Friendship advice - do I just stop being me !

[UniqueOpalSwan]

My best friend was always including me in social events but since Covid this has become less and less however she is very quick to ask for things from me ( I get generous perks from work ). I have always given as I get a great deal of delight from helping people and being generous. An example is when I was in a shop the other day and I saw something she would like I bought it for her. However, I am starting to despise the fact that she no longer includes me in the social events but occasionally invites me for dinner which consists of pizza and chips.(!) and feels that is her way of saying thank you and enabling her to ask for a perk. I also find that when I’m having said pizza and chips the conversation is very one-sided and she never says oh I’ve booked a theatre next Saturday and I’m going to see XXX I literally just find out on Facebook and I find that quite upsetting as I feel that it’s a big secret.
I therefore decided to have this out with her and ask why? I’m sure you can guess that the blame was put back on me and I can’t even fathom how this happened. Anyway, the big question is do I just stop with the perks as I know this will end the friendship or do I just carry on being a good old me! At the moment ( and I know some of you will think I’m very stupid), it is all leaving me very depressed and very lonely.

Free perks is one thing.

But why buy her things when out shopping? You don’t need to buy friendship. Friendship should not depend on getting stuff.

And it may be ‘good old generous you’ but buying people stuff to keep a friendship going is also quite manipulative.

My aunt does it. Very generous. Then makes snide comments and blames people who do not reciprocate. But they didn’t know they were entering into a bargain or transaction.

This bit about the wedding is making me wonder about your ideas about friendship, OP.

I think people-pleasers like you, who try to trade services or benefits for friendships, are often seething with unconscious resentment, when they feel they’re not getting enough back, or aren’t included in ‘fun’.

What do you bring to this particular friendship, apart from the work perks you mention? It’s just that you sound very passive in it, as if this woman is supposed to include you in her social life, tell you about her social plans etc, but you don’t ever make reference to telling her about your social plans or saying ‘I’m thinking of going to see this play with X and Y — do you fancy it?’ You say she’s your ‘best friend’!

Be honest with yourself. If she’d said she was going to the theatre, would you have expected an invitation? Why do you think she didn’t mention the wedding? Might it be because you would be wistful and be visibly wishing you’d been invited?

You say you don’t have a partner, but do you have other friends, OP?

I do have other friends , I guess it’s just once upon a time we literally did everything together, for example had Christmas Day together, randomly ring each other and say fancy breakfast, a lot of ad hoc things. Now I have nothing planned in but what I might get is the odd invite to pop round for dinner which would consist of pizza and chips not a special dinner.! I said a couple of days ago let’s plan something in for the next two weeks and got told she was busy every evening with things that had been planned in over time and I guess my upset comes from no one thinking oh I would like to go and see that or should we invite me? I think this thread is always gonna have mixed views as people view friendships differently and for me it’s hard being part of the inner circle so to speak and suddenly being on the perimeter and watching someone else be on the inner circle.

It just sounds like a friendship that has drifted and become less close over time. It’s happened to us all at some point. Sometimes we’re the leaver, sometimes the leavee. And absolutely, it can be painful. But it happens quite often in longterm friendships, and it’s obviously not possible to isolate a past period when the friendship was the way you liked it, and timetravel back to it. People change, and relationships change.

It sounds to me as if the perks are a red herring here — that she does still have regard for you, but not in the way you want. It sounds to me as if you’re trying to buy back the old days by giving her things, while resenting the fact that she doesn’t invite you for ‘special dinners’, only pizza and chips, or want to spend Christmas together. It’s not going to work, OP. It’s like an ex sending you flowers and looking reproachfully at you at parties because you got engaged to your next boyfriend. Stop offering her things. Stop buying her things. Stop focusing on the other people in her life.

That’s why I asked about other friends. You describe yourself as lonely. It sounds as if you would benefit from focusing on other friendships for now. You say you’re not married and don’t have a partner — would you like one?

Yes I would like one , hard to meet someone at 62 sadly , I totally agree with what you say about friendship drifting and I guess I’m grieving because it wasn’t my choice