Conversation
Person 1:
Hey so i just wanted to be completely honest with you about how i feel rn because it’s kinda making me anxious. Anyway I have been feeling weird about our friendship for a while and it’s nothing that you did on purpose to hurt me or anything but I just don’t feel like we have a genuine friendship right now and I also don’t know if that could be fixed quickly. I think you have changed a lot and your perspective on life makes me a little uncomfortable to be around. I just don’t hear you say many deep or genuine things anymore and the things you do say are often negative or self centered. I do not judge you for this because I understand that you’re going through a hard time but it is really hard for me to be around sometimes. It has just gotten to a point where I’ve lost that trust to express myself with you because of how you do react to everything. I would like to talk to you about my life and my relationship without having to worry about upsetting you. The overall feeling of our conversations recently is that I have to be very cautious with my words which leads to an uncomfortable feeling. This may seem selfish to you but it is a real feeling that I have and I genuinely hate keeping this a secret especially from you because I do care about you a lot. I don’t know what the answer is to fix it but just saying this is honestly a big step in the right direction for me.
Person 2:
sorry it took me a while to respond, i wanted to think about it before i said anything. honestly though this really threw me. because i genuinely thought every time we’ve hung out or talked recently has been fun and normal, so this felt really out of nowhere. i think what hurts is you describing me as not genuine, negative, or self centered, because you know how hard i’ve been trying the past couple months to grow and become a better, happier version of myself, to which i truly believe i am such a genuine amazing person to those around me and i can say that with my full chest, and i know anyone who actually knows me as a person would agree. hearing someone i care about say they see me that way was honestly heartbreaking because that’s so far from the person i try to be every day. i completely respect your feelings, but i also think a lot of what you said about my character was unfair. i would never intentionally make someone i love feel uncomfortable or unable to express themselves, and it sucks that this is how you've been seeing me. i guess i’m just sad that instead of talking to me sooner or trying to understand where i’m at in life, and what i truly think, you let yourself build this version of me in your head that doesn’t really feel true to who i am at all. i'm not entirely sure if your goal was to let me know, or to fix it, or to end our friendship or what, i just feel really confused about this text tbh.
Person 1:
My goal wasn’t to end our friendship at all but I also didn’t want to say anything because I was giving you the space to figure it all out with the (boy) stuff at first.
My goal of that was to be honest that’s all.
If you’re confused and want specific examples I can tell you but I also think that seems unnecessary
And I think you should reread what I said because I never assumed you were intentionally doing anything wrong
Person 2:
you told me that the way i thought made u uncomfortable and that everything i say or do is no genuine or deep... that's attacking my character. so yes i reread it multiple times. it's okay to grow apart from how i am and i'm sure there are a lot of things that we think differently but i would have never sent u a long text abt how i thought u weren't a good person just because we were growing apart
examples do feel necessary because this sounds like you've been feeling this really negative unfair way for a while and havent said a single thing to me no indication or prior conversation and then on a random day off you send me like a friend breakup text? even though u never INTENTIONALLY assumed i did anything wrong u attacked literally who i am as a person and a friend and if u feel that way that's okay but it definitely wasnt a kind way to put it
Person 1:
I will find a better way of explaining how I feel because that’s not really accurate to how I feel but I’m sorry for being unkind
Person 2:
i want to understand what u mean but like it just sounds like u dont like me as a person if i didnt do anything intentional to u or anything wrong then idk what your goal was. u just don't think i'm the type of person u want to be around which is fine i didn't do anything wrong and i've been trying to live my life the best i can this is just so crazy and random. u don't have to reword anything if thats how u feel i just am super thrown
if u can give me examples or would have told me in the moment i could have stopped
Person 1:
Yeah let me get back to you I’ll address all of that I just think you’re taking it the wrong way
I understand now why my message felt like a character attack, and I’m sorry for wording it that way. I don’t think you’re a bad or ungenuine person. I was trying to explain how I’ve been feeling in the friendship, not define who you are as a person. I should’ve said these things earlier but I wanted to give you time to adjust to your new life and the breakup etc. When I said negative or self-centered, I didn’t mean that’s who you are overall. I meant there were moments where I started feeling emotionally disconnected or uncomfortable expressing myself honestly.
One example is when I got engaged. I wasn’t expecting you to be super excited but I noticed that you said something about it being near your birthday and that seemed a little selfish to me. Another example I keep thinking about was when I suggested having a girls night out (to make you feel better) and you said we couldn’t because guys would come up to me instead of you. I know you probably meant it as insecurity and not in a malicious way, but moments like that made me feel uncomfortable because instead of feeling connected or relaxed, I started feeling like everything became filtered through comparison or validation. It also honestly hurt my feelings that it was said in front of (person 3), because it put me in a really uncomfortable position and made me feel awkward and guilty for something I never wanted to be compared over in the first place.
Person 2:
i feel like these are all reaching for things i didn't really do to justify why we're growing apart. its okay that we're growing apart but it doesnt mean that i've done anything wrong with it. the first example, i understand but i congratulated u and supported you so much leading up and i was so obviously happy for u and i made like a single joke. i'm sorry it came across as selfish, but that also just feels like something very minor for a very big thing u accused me of. i also feel like i would have never said the second thing because going out to me has nothing to do with men, and if it was it was a very small comment that seems ti have been taken way out of context, i'm not jealous and never ever compare myself so that doesn't seem like me at all either. i'm confused because these examples just feels like u trying to find things i've done wrong but like i said there's nothing wrong with the fact that we just grew apart. i also feel like neither of u have given the new version if me a chance. i've been GROWING so much this past year, and u guys actually don't even know me as a person. i feel like if u both changed ur mindset u obviously have always had on me u just never told me, you might have really enjoyed the new version of me. i havent even fully healed and become the person i'm supposed to be but u both are giving up on me before we can even grow together. i understand growing apart but the way u did this was so unnecessary and uncalled for. there are many things i know i've done wrong in our friendship and we've always talked abt it. this whole situation feels exactly like what (boy) did to me because he was never willing to grow with me as a person. which i understand u don't want to and that's okay but i genuinely think u never tried to even get to know this version of me and that's where the tension came from to begin with. i feel like i was just changing really fast and u didnt recognize me and expected me to be ur best friend from high school but i've been through a lot of shit and heartbreak so it's natural that won't be who i am anymore. i understand feeling uncomfortable and i'm sorry i've made you feel that way. with how hard i've tried with u guys and u both have just seen me as someone you'd much rather not see, not only is heartbreaking but also super unfair because i would ALWAYS choose to support u both through ur growing phases, and i would have addressed tension because it was a relationship i cared abt. but i cannot make decisions for others. i hope u have a good birthday tomorrow and i'm always here for u if u need me.
Person 1:
I feel like a lot of your response focused on defending your intentions instead of understanding the impact certain things had on me over time. Even if something felt small to you, it still affected me. I’m not saying you consciously tried to hurt me or that you’re incapable of growth. I believe you when you say you’ve changed and been through a lot. But growth also means being able to hear when someone was hurt by your actions without immediately minimizing it or explaining it away as being taken out of context. This was never about trying to “find reasons” to justify growing apart. I brought up specific moments because they contributed to how I felt in the friendship. Intent and impact are different things. You may not have meant certain comments the way they came across, but they still affected me. I also don’t think this is only about us “not knowing the new version of you.” Friendships naturally change, but part of why this became painful is because I felt like there were repeated moments where my feelings or experiences were dismissed. I do appreciate the good parts of our friendship and the support you’ve given me over the years. I just needed you to understand why I felt hurt too. You sound very caring on the surface, but after a long message defending yourself , it also feels like you want emotional closeness without fully resolving the problem.
Person 2:
okay, i'm sorry it came across as defensive. i'm sorry i have made you feel that way because it obviously has hurt u and i'm genuinely sorry i did not try to do that. however, i'm not defending i'm simply explaining the truth and being honest about those situations. i also am sorry you've felt like your feelings have been dismissed i feel like i've tried really hard to always make u understand that i hear u and i'm supportive of you, and i'm sorry u don't feel like i've done a good job. i also still feel like this is so unfair because yeah, i'm trying to fix a problem that i didn't even know either of u had with me. you've been creating narratives and situations out of things without that intent and ik it's subconscious but it's not fair. i'm sorry you've been hurt and i do really care about you so it's not just surface, but this still feels very much like i genuinely have made like a couple mistakes or misspoke (which everyone does) and u already had this idea of who i was in ur head that it just reaffirmed it. i also don't understand what u mean by the last sentence, but how am i supposed to fix a problem i never even knew u had with me unless u tell me?
i was okay with growing apart. we don't need to hangout regularly or talk all the time, but you've hurt me too, so it didn't need to be like this. there have been many times i could call u out for similar things but i ignore them because i give u the benefit of the doubt because its what friends do when they care abt each other
Person 1:
That’s exactly what I’m doing right now, giving you the benefit of the doubt, you just won’t hear me. You keep invalidating my opinions. I’m done with this conversation right now.
Person 2:
im not invalidating anything i was genuinely apologizing.
(In group chat)
Person 2:
this is all i'm going to say and then i genuinely have no desire to reach back out to u again for a while. what hurts me the absolute most about this whole thing is you guys have obviously been talking about me like this behind my back for a while and never thought to have a conversation with me until it was obvious u both had completely made ur mind up about me. good friends would have tried to work through them with me or tell me in the moment or communicate better. i always thought u two were those kind of people but u ended up talking about me and creating a narrative about me all on ur own behind my back, to which i feel is significantly skewed based on the mindset you've both had on me, but its not my job to create ideas for either of you. any defensiveness shown is also valid given that the tone of any texts have already given i have made my mind up and u have no way of changing it. so no the benefit of the doubt was never given to me. whether i'm the worst person around or not, thats always how our friendships would go, but it stopped being a friendship to both of u IDEK how long ago, i was just too broken and naive to realize it, and neither of you had enough respect for me to tell me to my face. i would have never done that to either of you. i would have tried. you guys are genuinely so wrong for the way you did this and i did not deserve for you guys to do this to me and blindside me, no matter how uncomfortable i might have made u without intent. this is going to set me back a lot in my healing and really has, because it just proves yet again that people who always say they'll be there for u really aren't, and this is supposed to be 10 years of love. but when i do become the healed version of myself, she will be wonderful. i'm really grateful for (person 4) and she's been really helping me through this so i 100% will be okay. this is just really hard for me. i wish u both the best and if u really need me i am always here for you, because that's the friend i've always been and always will be.
Person 1:
Honestly I think you read my tone wrong I never really said or meant that I made up my mind about you being a bad person. You kinda took that out of context and I tried to explicitly tell you that but you still read between the lines and assumed things. I still feel like my initial problem wasn’t addressed at all but it’s okay if you need some time away to think. I understand why it’s hard for you to hear from both of us but believe it or not we have come up with opinions on our own and haven’t been feeding off each other to form our opinions. When you say that we created some sort of narrative that’s simply not true. And you saying that kind of shows me that you don’t actually care about the real reason I wanted to bring this up in the first place. This was not supposed to be some kind of serious friend breakup for me I just had a lingering feeling and was hoping it would go away eventually. When I realized it probably won’t, I decided to tell you.
(A month later)
Person 1:
So are you like trying to prove a point by unfollowing me on instagram and removing me from your private account? If you don’t want to be friends anymore you can just say that I’ve been waiting for a response from you.
Person 2:
i dont have any point or agenda. the way you treated this and the perception you built of me, and the way you communicated it and all around the lack of respect has made me extremely uninterested in any contact with you at all (which i said in my text) i'm only responding to this honestly because i want u to know i have no bad intent at all but what u did hurt me a lot and the way i perceived it is that was already u saying u were done being my friend so idk what you really expected from me.
my account has always been private i just feel like that belongs to people who deserve to know who i actually am and actually care about me. even the way you sent that text was like so accusatory. like you hurt me
Person 1:
Okay and I also have no bad intent either. All I will say is that I said all of that because I really still want to be your friend. I wanted really bad to be honest with you because I care about our friendship. I wanted to let it out in the open so that we could talk it through and I could understand you better and so that you could understand why I’ve felt uneasy. I am sorry to have hurt you but things you’ve said in the past about instagram has lead me to assume that you unfollowed me so that I would be jealous that your still following (person 3) and feel bad. That is my perception of you sometimes and I know that’s not really you which is actually the whole point of that conversation I wanted to have. I’m just overall really confused about you sometimes because of things like that and it’s hard to explain. And I completely understand why you wouldn’t want me to see your private account but you’re still allowing me to see your public account so what was the reason of unfollowing me on that? And of course I really don’t care about that I just want to understand your thought process
I just know that you care a lot about who is following who on instagram so it feels significant to me
Person 2:
i honestly havent been keeping track. i probably just did it on one account because ur name popped up or u viewed a story. i don't have the energy to go out of my way to do negative things towards others. i definitely removed (person 3) from a lot as well, because she hurt me just as much. there is never any jealousy or comparison to anyone in my life. so the way you obviously have taken an unfollow on instagram this way, is just more evidence how you perceive me as a person.
Person 1:
Yes exactly and I’d like to talk about it.
But if you don’t that’s okay I can accept that
Person 2:
i honestly don't right now. maybe down the line
Person 1: ok
Person 2:
i do love and care about you and always will, but i dont think we're aligned in our values right now and that's okay. maybe one day we will be again