Realisation I have been a terrible friend over the years

[whomoon]

I was having a scroll through my old WhatsApp chats today and I still have some old chats from friends throughout the years. I read through them and realised they ended pretty much because of me.

Without giving you my life history, I thought I’d give the scenarios as to how these friendships ended, as I wanted to understand if there is a pattern and what I can do to work on this.

friend 1 - best friends through school, lost touch over uni years then became reacquainted early twenties. Approaching our 30th birthdays, friend had gone through a recent divorce and moved cities, starting a whole new life. I remained in our home city, owned a house and had a new boyfriend. Our 30th birthdays were coming up, she ignored mine and I was petty so I ignored hers the following month and didn’t go to a party she had arranged. She blocked me and that was that, no discussion about it. I didn’t attempt to contact to resolve.

friend 2 - met on a friend app, had lots of nights out and weekend away. Fun friend, good to talk to, we were both in the dating world so mostly talked about men and dates. I was dating someone, she was getting over someone, and I asked to move a day we had planned to meet (although no plans yet) to go and see this man. She said friendship over, I don’t want a friendship when I get dropped for a man (very fair). I wanted friendships that understood and supported dating with intent not just for fun (bleugh, but mid thirties I was very focused on finding future husband and having a family). Both agreed to call friendship quits, no drama.

friend 3 - again met on a friend app, casual friends and went for walks, occasional meet ups at houses. A few years in, she has a rocky end to her marriage, the same time I fall pregnant after years of fertility treatments. I was there as much as I could be before pregnancy got hard and traumatic birth, so didn’t see her again from week 17ish of pregnancy. She congratulated me on birth but we never met up again. I asked but I didn’t get anything back, which is fair as I went into the next stage of life and she was struggling through divorce and rebuilding hers. I had no capacity to try as I had PPD and time just went on. Not spoken since.

friend 4 - met a few years ago at fitness class. Only saw each other at class but became friendly. First time saw each other outside of class was after had baby then again when baby was about 6 months. During this second meet up she told me a couple of confidential things. Told me not to tell anyone, i didn’t as had no inclination to as I was going through PPD. One year later we meet again and she continues to talk about the same confidential things but I completely forgot it was confidential and talked to DP about it and broke her trust. Told her, she’s obviously not happy and we haven’t spoken since, mainly because I don’t know what to say and feel like it would hang over us that I broke the friendship trust.

So my friend pattern is having casual friends, I don’t like drama, I don’t like relying on people, I’m easy going with meeting up so if someone cancels on me, that’s fine.
But I look back now and see I am too easy going and didn’t put much effort into caring for their feelings, or keeping their trust, or keeping in touch in general. I think I find it too much hard work? And that’s why I don’t have many friends now? At points I have blamed them for the ending of friendships but now I’m seeing my part in them too.

does this resonate with anybody?

A couple of things resonate:

-People drifiting apart generally, including when one friend has a baby. You have different lives and priorities. Some friends stay around and others don’t

-People feeling generally more sensitive and stressed during times such as pregnancy, postpartum and divorce.

I think it does all sound a bit dramatic and a bit immature in places though, like blocking after not attending parties. Annoyed is one thing, but i wouldn’t end friendships over things you’ve mentioned.

I don’t know if part of it is meeting friends on apps and therefore just not having that close bond it’s a bit forced.

thank you for your insight, I do agree.

Your point about meeting friends on apps is fair. It is forced, but can be viewed as the same as online dating which is where I met my DP.

I feel I don’t care as much by the friends I met via the apps, but there is still sadness only school friend and always wonder how she is. Perhaps we’ve just both been too stubborn to reconnect and resolve.

Re friend 1: she ignored your birthday - I'm assuming she knew/remembered the date? if so, yeah ignoring hers back was a bit petty but not a relationship ender for me.

Re friend 2: you wanted to move a day you'd planned to meet & she completely dropped you? Doesn't matter why - for a man, for anything, that's insane, not "very fair".

Re friend 3: that all sounds just unfortunate to me. You were both going through heavy life stuff.

Re friend 4: again, an unfortunate mistake. People take a risk when they tell friends stuff "in confidence". If the confidence gets broken, it's not always in malice, and it wasn't in your case. And it's not as if you blabbed it to a stranger, this is your DP so he can be told, sorry I wasn't supposed to share that, so please don't pass it on.

I don't like it when friends tell me stuff in confidence tbh. I tell them, if I get a chance, I don't have secrets from my DP so I'd rather you didn't. In any case, it often turns out that they have in fact told several other people, and the info in question eventually gets back to my DP and then I look like I'm being less than honest.

Secondly, it forces you to have dishonest conversations with others. You tie yourself in knots; you need an excellent memory to be a liar and, like you, my memory's not great - especially when you can't see what needs to be so secret about what they've told you.

But overall, I don't see a pattern. Only with friend 1 could you consider yourself "at fault". Friend 2, you're well rid of. Friend 3, you could try to reconnect. And Friend 4 too, with an apology. I think you're beating yourself up a bit here, OP. Myself, I'm very aware that it's gotten really hard to maintain friendships these past few years. People will chat on text but the minute you suggest catching up IRL, it all goes quiet. Not your fault; a post-Covid societal phenomenon.

I wouldn’t say any of those endings were your fault at all. Life happens, I think maybe in each friendship neither of you were bothered enough to do anything about it, which is fine.

But if you are going to ruminate on it and feel bad then it’s okay to delete the chats too, especially the one who blocked you. If, in the future, any of these people contacted you again, would you recognise them from their profile picture? If so, that would avoid the ‘who is this please?’ that happens. I had that message once from a friend I hadn’t seen for about a month, and it very very much changed how I saw her!

What strikes me here OP is that you've not behaved in a particularly terrible way with any of these people but that the ties that bound you to these friends were very flimsy and so it didn't take much for the friendships to fail.

Not sure what the answer is here to be honest. I think as you move through life and out of your more formative times this becomes more inevitable when trying to make new friends. I'm at a point where I'm prioritising things like proximity and lifestyle compatibility when it comes to friendship. Maybe it feels a bit manipulative thinking like that but I don't think you can realistically maintain friendships without those things.

I think the secret to long lasting friendships is learning to love and accept every version of that person as they navigate through life.

I’m married with two kids and I’m not the same person I was 5 years ago (it’s quite remarkable actually). I’m far from the person I was at 16. Yet my closest friendships are with the women I was close with at 12/13. There have been times where I’ve had to pull the weight of the friendship, and times where they have.

What strikes me about your post is the acknowledgment of being in different places in life. One friend is starting a new life while you’re staying put, one friend is getting over someone while you’re dating, one is getting divorced as you get pregnant etc.

You don’t need to be in the same place as your friend for the friendship to endure, but you do need to build a solid foundation to your friendships so that they have a chance.

You have said that you think you are the problem but then written every scenario in a way that suggests you want everyone to reassure you that you are not the problem. Who knows what the reality is?

Yes absolutely to your first point, @WhatNoRaisins . These are very tenuous friendships that don't seem able to bear the weight of any slight conflict, disagreement or change of circumstances.

OP, the way you write about these friends is weirdly blank and a bit transactional. Only one had a longterm history in your life -- what about other childhood or university friends? What was it that made you choose the friendship app friends out of anyone else you might have matched with? It's just that you don't mention liking or valuing these people, or say anything about what drew them to you, or you to them. You write about them like colleagues at a series of shortlived jobs, where it's pretty much inevitable you won't stay in touch afterwards because you never really bonded. Friendship requires actual mutual liking, not just people happening to want friends and going on the same app at the same time!

I mean, 'friend' 4 is just someone you used to see at a fitness class. If I'm reading correctly, you only saw her three times in total outside of the class, with six months between the first and second meetings, and a year between the second and third, at which you fell out and stopped seeing one another. That would only register for me as 'casual acquaintance'.

I'm also struck by you saying you 'don't like drama'. Yet your post describes far, far more 'drama' than I've ever had with any of my friendships, some of which have lasted for 40 years, since school, and many since university.

I think you've answered your own question. You aren't actually that interested in friendships because you experience them as too much effort. It has nothing to do with being 'easygoing', you just don't care enough. Which is fine. Some people just don't do friendship.

I can see a pattern that you care more about men than friends, you drop your friend to see a man, you can't be bothered when you're pregnant, you tell your husband things you've been told in confidence. Yeah, that's the pattern- that you care more about men than female friendships and other women

Where I see you at fault is changing a planned meetup to meet a guy instead, that was poorly done, and for "forgetting" you told the friend you'd keep her stuff private. The other 2, casual friendships where life events intervened.

So not a ride or die, but not the worst either.

Did friend 1 deliberately ignore your birthday or benignly forget?

@whomoon it looks to me as if you don't find friendship very important? I mean that's fair enough, but I wonder why it's bothering you now.

I also wonder about the ignored birthday - was that deliberate?

@dinoderry sorry to go on didn't but I can't help being curious about this remarkable change - what is it that is remarkable please? I have a friend who was just a seriously grumpy gamer with no drive for anything until he became a dad - it was ironic because I was a bit concerned about how he'd cope with it. He blossomed!

Friend 1 - did you ignore invite/ just not turn up? Yes it was crap she forgot your bday but you were a bit mean although blocking an old friend is a big reaction. Fault 50/50
friend 2 - massive over reaction on her part. Fault 90% friend 10% you
friend 3- no ones fault you were both struggling
friend 4- whilst telling your dp weren’t great she’s had a big reaction. 70% her 30% you

So id say if anything your issue is not recognising warning signs these friendships aren’t in you best interests until it’s too late

Honestly my life just revolved around work and binge drinking! I’d be out socialising 4/5 nights of the week, sleeping in till midday at the weekends etc. Just living entirely for me really.

Since having kids my life turned upside down (in the best way!). I hardly ever drink (couple of times a year maybe), obviously I’m up and about at the crack of dawn. Instead of spending my weekends at nightclubs I’m spending them at country fairs, farmyards & parks. My perspective on life, and my priorities just changed completely.

@dinoderry thanks
I don't know what I was expecting, but not that!

This just sounds like a bit of navel gazing.

Every story has 3 sides - yours, theirs and the truth. Your descriptions don’t sound like things I would end a friendship over which tells me there’s likely more to it.

The only pattern I can see is that yes you don’t see value in regular base touching and you immediately relinquish a bond and don’t try and repair. So as soon as friendship doesn’t serve you, even if it would serve them you abandon it.

It’s not necessarily doing anything wrong but it’s not going to net you long term friendships.