I think I need to finally close the door on this friendship...what do y'all think?

[angel_in_view]

Hi everyone. I've not visited here since July, but I wanted to come back to pose this question. I know I can always get good advice/comments here.

As the subject line stated, I'm think I'm about to close the door on a friendship. Frankly speaking, I'm ready to put this person in the "see ya when I see ya" category. Before I start, I'm sorry if this ends up running long. I will try to keep it as brief as possible.

I have a girlfriend that i've been friends with for about 10 yrs. I moved away & came back about 2 yrs ago. When I first moved back, things were great! It felt as if we just picked right back up from where we left off. She & I have so much in common..that's what made us become friends from the jump. We never went out a lot outside of work when I lived here b4, but this time around we started doing things on the weekends. It wasn't every weekend. We would meet up once a month for meals or shopping. About a year after moving back, I noticed things started to change. We'd go 2-3 months w/o talking or seeing eachother. I would text or email to see how she's doing. She would get back to me, but it would take a month for her to do so. The first time it happened, I attributed it to the fact that things were crazy @ work bc they'd lost several people (including me) & she was just too tired to talk. Well, the time w/o hearing anything from her just kept getting longer and longer. I finally ended up having a lunch date w/her 4 mo after not hearing from her. We were happy to see eachother, but it just felt strange. It felt almost like running into an old classmate that you hadn't seen in 15 years. The warmth of the friendship was gone. It just seemed like we were following an agenda: How are you? How's the family? What's going on @ work? It saddened me, bc I walked out of there that day feeling like i'd wasted an hour. Hmm...that was 5 months ago. I've heard from her twice since then. She "promised" she would contact me so we could arrange a "girl's day" but I didn't believe her. IMO she should have just kept that comment if she has no intentions of wanting to do it. I guess I just feel side-swiped by the whole thing. I could understand if I'd done something deceitful or nasty to her, but I've done nothing. I asked early on when this first happened.."are we okay?" "Something seems different. Did I do something?" She stated back then that she was just stressed from work and tired bc she's a single parent & busy. Okay, seeing all that has happened now...I can say I don't buy that for one minute. My sister thinks she's "hot" bc I left the company we were working for. I told her that never entered my mind bc she isn't that type of person. I could never see her being petty like that. People leave jobs everyday. My sister(bless her heart) is pretty hardcore though, & is sticking to that theory. She said she feels like that bc my friend didn't start acting "funny" until I left the company. I'm thinking maybe I thought too much about the friendship. Maybe she just thought of it as a "work friendship" and now that i'm not there, I'm in the "out of sight, out of mind" category. I am not one to keep running up underneath somebody in order to make them my friend. Forget that. As much as it hurts, I think i'm ready to just stick her in the "see ya when I see ya" category. That means, if I see her out somewhere, I will talk to her, but I will NOT try to take it any farther(no offers for lunch, movies, shopping, etc).

I'd appreciate any opinions/comments.

 

[Trent]

see ya when i see ya

is clearly one or two steps above "see ya in hell"

i've got a few of those

move on before it goes there

 

[nerdygirl]

I don't know the girl, but I do think it seems unlikely that she's angry you left. However, that probably plays a pretty important role in the decline of your relationship. If you used to work together, then I'm assuming you saw each other at work. Seeing somebody for a moment here and there every day and then hanging out once a month is very different from only seeing this person one day a month.

As for the single parent part, that can certainly contribute. My daughter takes up a huge part of my day, whether we're together or not. At some point, I might think, "Oh, I really should call Jennifer after I do this," but something will distract me- and yes, I have been distracted for months at a time!

If you're normally the sort of person who keeps to yourself, as it sounds like the two of you are, it's very often unintentional when you neglect relationships. They're simply not as high a priority. Life can make you forget. I do think you should consider her a "see ya when I see ya" kind of friend, but I also think you shouldn't take it personally that she hasn't been very good at keeping in touch.

 

[Montreal Skye]

I had a friendship similar to that - not in length of time, but the way you describe things. We met on blogs and became quick friends. It was great, daily contact for over two years. We started with email, then chatting on instant message platforms, then letters, phone calls and eventually plans to meet up since we lived relatively close. We had so much in common I felt like I knew her for years. But then she stopped the phone calls, no more letters, the emails were shorter...our "chat" days were Sundays. She announced on her FB page that she was now having "no net Sundays". So our main time for communicating was shut down, without warning to me.

I held on way too long...she was giving me all the hints, but I didn't pay attention to them because I couldn't get over the idea that I didn't do anything wrong to have her treat me that way, plus I'm not good at relationship stuff so I probably didn't even get the hints at that time. I was hurt because it seemed as though we'd be friends for the long run. But some people aren't very honest and maybe realize they don't want the friendship afterall. Or they want a friend of convenience...who knows? I also asked her "are we okay" type of question...her answer was "yes of course", but it wasn't really yes of course.

My opinion is to save yourself further hurt and let go, that's what I should have done much earlier on with this girl. And worse? When I did finally say something to her and let go, she came back and said our friendship meant a lot to her and I gave her another chance to be friends...she did the same thing again! This time much quicker! I got a postcard from her recently and I actually considered writing her back. I finally learned my lesson though and tore up the postcard.

 

[Trent]

I had a friendship similar to that - not in length of time, but the way you describe things. We met on blogs and became quick friends. It was great, daily contact for over two years. We started with email, then chatting on instant message platforms, then letters, phone calls and eventually plans to meet up since we lived relatively close. We had so much in common I felt like I knew her for years. But then she stopped the phone calls, no more letters, the emails were shorter...our "chat" days were Sundays. She announced on her FB page that she was now having "no net Sundays". So our main time for communicating was shut down, without warning to me.

I held on way too long...she was giving me all the hints, but I didn't pay attention to them because I couldn't get over the idea that I didn't do anything wrong to have her treat me that way, plus I'm not good at relationship stuff so I probably didn't even get the hints at that time. I was hurt because it seemed as though we'd be friends for the long run. But some people aren't very honest and maybe realize they don't want the friendship afterall. Or they want a friend of convenience...who knows? I also asked her "are we okay" type of question...her answer was "yes of course", but it wasn't really yes of course.

My opinion is to save yourself further hurt and let go, that's what I should have done much earlier on with this girl. And worse? When I did finally say something to her and let go, she came back and said our friendship meant a lot to her and I gave her another chance to be friends...she did the same thing again! This time much quicker! I got a postcard from her recently and I actually considered writing her back. I finally learned my lesson though and tore up the postcard.

typical user (she was)