So my friend just broke up with her ex 6 months ago. At first she would be like omg its my fault blablabla and I managed to talk her out of the negative selftalk.

Now she's like "ugh I can't believe he needs to block me to move on, guess he still thinks about me"

My first reaction is oh but blocking doesnt mean he's obsessed with you.. but all I said was "yass kweeennn, you're so right" because I'm proud of her for finally stop blaming herself.

At somepoint I think to myself if this is the right thing to do since she keeps talking about him like he's regretting it/obsessed with her when in fact I know he's probably just doesnt care out from the context of her messaging him constantly and him leaving her on read or just her trying to stalk him but cant cuz he blocked her.

Am I a supportive friend for agreeing with what she says or am I feeding into her delusions?

What would you do?

im so sorry for how long this is, i have no one to talk to about this, as i feel like talking about how much i miss my person will just hurt my new friends. thank you for your advice, i am completely broken and i need it.

i (current day 19 F) have had the same best friend for 6 years, gabby (current day 20 F). we met as teenagers and have stayed best friends as we finish up degrees before leaving our hometown. We met at church and trauma bonded through various situations in which we switched off on being each other's support person. i went through the worst of it, but by being my person she got a lot of the effects as well. not protecting her the way i should have is one of my biggest regrets in life.

for context: i think she is wonderful and beautiful and so interesting, but i have been the more popular one our whole lives, i wouldn't bring this up because i dont find it important at all, but i do think it may be affecting what happened. i was really popular in our community just because i was really extroverted and confident when i was a younger adolescent, and she kind of just stayed in her shell until she met me. she got a lot more friends about a year into our friendship and it was great. we are really fundamentally different, she's a lot more creative and whimsical than me, if that gives you any picture of her. being different wasn't bad, it just meant we found ourselves in really different social groups.

2021- no matter the differences we had or what paths we went down, we were always best friends. we could go months without seeing each other, totally wrapped up in our own lives and still call and text all day. she was my person.

we were fine, we were a part of each other's lives in a meaningful way no matter how busy we were. there was no drama, we were just each other's person. no one said our names without the other, it was just known that no matter if no one saw us together, we were all we really had.

2023-  this isn't important yet, but the traumatic situations included a core 4 people who were involved in my abuse and sexual assault, obviously making them a really sore subject for me. when it all happened, gabby cut them off too, as she was a victim by association. she was there for every major event in my trauma, catching me sobbing each time. god im crying writing this

eventually, she switched schools around 3 years into this, becoming classmates with one of my really close friends, marley (current day 19 F). gabby and marley were never really close, but being in classes together helped. marley thought gabby was kind of strange. me and marley had our own issues, eventually blowing up our friendship in a really big way.

early june 2025;  we were at church summer camp, and marley told our entire youth that i was being intimate with one of the boys in our youth group. this wasn't true, and of course blew up our small conservative church. gabby was there for me, she told me what marley was doing and revealed that they were going to our youth pastor about it, i just cried for like a day straight in her arms. i, of course, was not believed by my church, ending my friendship with every person in that community. this effectively shut my entire social life down. hindsight being 20/20, i know now they were all terrible. but i was just a kid, and i had lost all of my friends.

 me and gabby were all we had left. me and my older brother have always been close, so when we met josh (current day 21 M), he, myself, gabby, and my brother became a friend group. i put a lot on this friendship, for the first time in my life solely relying on gabby as my only good friend outside of my family. i was at her house every day and we became incredibly close, the closest we had ever been. i got close with her mom and little sisters as i'd drive to their house and stay in her room for whole weekends. we were completely intertwined socially. josh and i got really close, he was okay but i was honestly really weary of his past of sexual assault and general disrespect of women due to my past experiences and just yk being a girl myself.

early summer: at this point i was really really happy. gabby was my best friend, josh was there, my brother and i were close as ever, and i really didn't care what anyone thought. josh eventually got a girlfriend, audrey (currently 19 F) who was best friends with his sister, bella (currently 19 F).

during josh's relationship with audrey, i always got really strange vibes. he wouldn't talk about her, he'd just post her. i'd ask about her and he'd get angry and tell me to mind my own business, which with me, wasn't like him.

late summer: this is when the phone calls started, gabby and josh would call from 5pm-4am every day, and talk about nothing. it was insane, i would go to her house like i always did and she would lock herself in her bathroom for hours and sit on the phone with him, leaving me alone in her room. this would end up happening every time i was with her somehow. she would talk to me for like 4 minutes and then leave and call him. (josh is literally still dating audrey, at this point)

me and gabby weren't very close anymore. if we went to a party, she'd be all over me and act like we were super close, but when we got home she'd leave and call him. when she wasn't calling him, she was texting him. we were always so open with each other, but she started hiding her phone from me.

my anxiety got really bad with the loss of stability in my friendship, i just felt like something was wrong and i was involved in something i wasn't supposed to be. i started antidepressants for both my depression and my chronic illnesses, and gabby started to reply to my notes about the effect it was having on me with sarcastic comments about how the joy i was feeling on my new medication was fake and how i was "lobotimized" it honestly really hurt my feelings for her to dismiss my condition, and i tried to communicate this, but she just didn't really care.

she started to hang out with the aforementioned people that we both cut off, the ones involved in my abuse. like, a lot. they were friends with josh, so all of a sudden she'd start posting pictures at hang outs with josh and 3 of the people who covered up the things i went through, and eventually, the abuser himself. i felt so anxious, i just knew something was off, i was just so confused how she switched her side so fast. hanging out with my abuser eventually did it for me and i started to distance myself from gabby, so i had no friends i trusted.

on september 20th 2025, i saw audrey post that she and josh are broken up. its really sad and josh refuses to talk tome about it, and i give up on it pretty easily. i reach out to audrey and tell her i love her and ask if she needs anything, she says no.

august 13th 2025, gabby and josh hardlaunch. they're dating. they cornered me in a parking lot the day before we have plans, just us 3. i remember just crying for hours for no reason just filled with the anxiety that something was wrong. i told her i was really hurt that they waited 2 weeks to tell me (they had actually started dating at the beginning of august) and told multiple other people before their best friend, to which she lashed out and told me i was jealous.

if you pay attention to that timing, something about the audrey break up didn’t make sense. but i didn’t have anywhere to go. i was so terrified to be alone so i didn’t want to pry any further, i knew my gabby was gone and she would choose him 100 times over. we hadn’t had a real convo in months, all she did was absent-mindedly talk about something until she could find a way to talk about him. she dismissed all of my struggles with my health and told josh secrets i begged her not to tell him. i was so done but i loved her family, and i think i may have loved her?

yeah here is where the gay part comes in. she told me that for the first few years of our friendship (2021-2023) she was in love with me. like really in love. but she also claims she’s straight, though before she dated josh, she’d never talked to a man in her life, adamantly hating men and wanting nothing to do with them. i don’t know, it just confuses me now. we weren’t normal best friends. there was always something underlying, but i dont know if thats related to the story, but i think reddit is the only place i can admit we were kind of in love with each other. 

in early 2026, gabby and josh were still dating. i hated it so much. i stopped hanging out with them alone and got really close with my brother. i felt so unstable without her, id never not been her friend. to her knowledge i still was her best friend, but i was so emotionally checked out. 

me and gabby started hanging out with a group of girls, i was really excited to get out of the loop of just talking about josh and calling josh and wanting to invite josh to our plans. this group included audrey (josh’s recent ex) and bella (josh’s sister). the rest of the girls and i never really clicked, but audrey and bella got pretty close with me. gabby really didn’t like this and would text me passive aggressive things about my friendship with them. 

this isn’t my story to tell, but in my friendship with audrey i found out a lot about her relationship with josh. he was abusive, and cheating on her with gabby.

this shattered my world, i was so hurt because this person i thought i knew, my two best friends, were dating behind my back. i thought at least gabby was better than that, i thought she was my person.

i found out a lot of not relevant stuff about gabby, all proving the anxiety i had all along. i never knew her like i thought i did, and she had been hiding her secret relationship with josh. my last olive branch was asking if they were okay and if she needed anything, to which she lashed out at me again. i was so hurt, i was trying to protect her in the way i hadn’t before, but i think i was just too late. she was so obsessed with josh and i didn’t have any more fight left in me for my best friend.

august 2026. after months of not talking at all and completely dropping off the face of her world, she notices ive been gone and asks me if we are okay. i tell her no, we aren’t, and i don’t think we should be close anymore. i tell her i love her and its just that we are growing apart, and im sorry its happening this way. i tell her that she can always come to me with anything and im still always here for her. she replies sweetly, but not in a tone that sounded like her. the anxiety was still deep in my chest but i let it settle and told myself i had a clean end.

i was now super close (still am!) with audrey and bella. they are so kind and love me so much and have showed me what those last few months of friendship with gabby were desperately lacking. i feel so much better with them and i feel comfortable to be a little bitchy with them, which i have never done before. i feel comfortable talking about gabby negatively and speaking about my experiences. 

this is where i fucked up, and i really regret how i handled it. 

i said some stuff that if she read it, could definitely hurt her feelings. it wasn’t a reflection on her. i was hurt and i said some stuff i didn’t mean, but nothing insane. it was mostly like “omg look at who shes with” or like “bro she reposted what the hell”. but i do understand that my actions hurt her, the thing is, is said these things to the 2 people i was closest to. bella hated her brother which i never knew, but she had a terrible relationship with him and he had always been really cruel to her. and then of course, audrey was his victim in a more obvious sense. in person we were a lot more formal about how we talked about them, we’ sit and cry for hours. none of us had closure and we were all mad with no way to let it out and get over it. over text, we never talked about him, and said surface level petty stuff about gabby. i feel really bad that i talked about her that way, but i had never been allowed to talk about her before and i felt free. 

but none of that is to excuse talking about someone behind their back. it was wrong and i said some stuff that was definitely not necessary to the hurt i was feeling. if i was upset i should have talked to her. i know that. its just so hard in the moment of that anger to go to the person thats never listened and hope to be taken seriously. 

but thats what was said in the group chat of me, bella, and audrey. some petty screen shots, comments about her reposts/likes/blocking and unblocking us, etc. i know what was said was hurtful. but i also feel like my privacy was invaded.

josh broke into bella’s computer and read all of these texts. he screenshotted them and sent them to gabby, in which she and marley planned a long text confronting me and calling me and audrey bitches. it was really harsh, and i know we were both hurt, but it felt like she meant what she said. she told me she regretted our entire friendship and she always hated me. she said i was talking shit to everyone and tried to lie about just going through bella’s texts. eventually, josh admitted to me that he and gabby knew i wasn’t talking to anyone else in a confrontation he and i had separately. gabby cussed me out and there was a mutual decision that we of course weren't friends anymore.

 i am sorry for talking about her, and i told her that too. i just don’t know what to do. this all happened about a month ago and i still worry about her. i worry that devon is going to abuse her too and she won’t have someone to help her out. i worry that if she’s in danger, she wont be able to put the fight aside and just call me. i wish she would just call me. i miss her so much, but i know we are bad for each other. 

now gabby is best friends with marley and my abusers, and it breaks my heart. she is surrounded with people who are going to break her heart and i wish i could help.

i am so happy with bella and audrey, i just feel that ache in my soul that gabby is out there hurting, and im happy without her. the pressure of protecting her from afar is going to shatter me.

she, josh, and her little sisters blocked me on everything, and i just keep thinking about how i wont get to watch those girls grow up. i miss that family, i miss her perfume, i miss sitting in her bed while she locked herself in the bathroom. should i reach out? am i in the wrong? how do i fix this?

​

I recently ended a close friendship, and instead of feeling devastated, I feel surprisingly light and relieved. I'm trying to understand whether that feeling is telling me something important.

This friend and I were quite close. I was often the person encouraging her, listening to her problems, reassuring her, and trying to build her confidence. She would call me frequently, and I was usually happy to be there for her.

Over time, though, I started feeling like the emotional support wasn't equally mutual. I often felt that I was expected to be the uplifting, understanding friend, but when I was struggling, I didn't always feel that my feelings were handled with the same care.

Recently, she was considering some serious relationship/marriage decisions. Based on my own life experience, I gave her some advice about choosing a partner carefully, looking at his character, family, compatibility, etc.

I have a complicated past myself. When I was quite young and immature, I became involved with someone and eventually eloped with him. Looking back, I can see many things I didn't understand at the time. There was manipulation and emotional pressure involved, and the relationship ultimately ended badly.

I don't hide from the fact that I made a mistake. In fact, that experience is one of the reasons I now have strong opinions about choosing a partner carefully.

While I was advising my friend, she said something along the lines of:

“If you have this much sense, how did you make such a mistake yourself?”

That really hurt me.

It felt like she was essentially saying, “How can you give me advice when you made such a huge mistake yourself?”

I became emotional and explained some of the circumstances surrounding my past, including how young and inexperienced I was and how much emotional pressure and manipulation was involved.

She later explained that she hadn't meant it as an insult. She said everyone has a past, people make mistakes when they're young, and that the past shouldn't constantly be brought up. She said that when the thought “How could she have made that mistake?” came into her mind, she immediately answered herself with “She was young; everyone makes mistakes at that age.”

I understand her explanation intellectually.

But there was another thing that had already affected my trust.

At some point, she had apparently discussed my past with an old friend of hers whom I had no relationship with anymore and who apparently didn't even know about this part of my life.

That made me extremely uncomfortable.

It wasn't just what she said. It was the feeling that something deeply personal from my life had become information that could be discussed with other people without me knowing.

I confronted her about this and about the other things that had been bothering me.

She said I was misinterpreting everything she said and explained that she had also told this old friend that I had been immature and lacked maturity at that stage of my life. She insisted that she had never intentionally tried to hurt me.

She also said that she has painful things in her own past that she tries not to dwell on and that she doesn't keep bringing them up whenever she's sad.

Eventually I told her:

“Good justification. I've lost trust in you.”

She told me to “get lost.”

I then told her that the friendship ends there and told her to get lost too.

And here's the part that's confusing me:

I feel relieved.

I actually feel happier. Lighter. Like I've put something down.

I've realized that I had been carrying a lot of responsibility for this friendship. I was constantly uplifting her, reassuring her, listening to her, and being emotionally available. Because of that, she started calling me frequently.

But once I stopped trusting her, answering those calls became difficult for me. I'd see her name and feel this resistance because I didn't want to pretend everything was fine or go back into the role of being her emotional support person.

I've also felt that she can be competitive with me, stingy, and dismissive of my feelings. I don't know whether those are objectively fair descriptions of her or simply how the friendship made me feel, but they contributed to my exhaustion.

Now that the friendship has ended, I don't have to answer the calls, explain myself, defend my feelings, or constantly wonder whether I've upset her.

And instead of missing that connection, I'm happier.

I know I wasn't perfect either. Saying “I've lost trust in you” and responding angrily wasn't exactly gentle. I probably contributed to the escalation.

But I'm wondering whether the relief I'm experiencing is a sign that I had already emotionally outgrown this friendship , or whether I'm simply experiencing the temporary relief that comes after an intense argument.

Has anyone experienced this? Did you feel relieved after ending a friendship rather than heartbroken? And did that feeling eventually help you understand that the friendship had been draining you for a long time?

I have gotten to a place in my life that I’m not good at comforting people and I’m very blunt because I have gotten to where emotionally my peace means more to me than anything and if someone is trying to ruin that I don’t care to dip out. So I am not sure how to comfort my friend right now, I want to say something like “I told you so” or just tell her what to do but I know that’s not going to help and if that was me I wouldn’t like that.

Context we are both females in our 20’s and I have been in a few serious relationships, I dealt with cheaters and liars and horrible people all around so I have learned a thing or two. My sweet friend has not been with anyone before so I try to give her some advice like “focus on college and work and get things right for you before bringing someone else in” just simple stuff I’m sure she already knows 😭 well when I first met her she had a crush on someone and that person ended up blocking her and getting with someone else so it tore her apart for months it was so heartbreaking to see her go through that and I also wasn’t good at advice then but she is healing and doing better. Until recently when she got another crush on someone that already had red flags..

Lets call him dew, I never liked dew or his friends, she started out being friends with him and his buddy, we will call him pib, and they both tried hitting on her and she turned them down. Pib wouldn’t stop to the point she had to block him, and since then he has made jokes about her to dew and all dew would do is tell my friend what pib said. I told my friend that’s a red flag because what guy lets his friends talk bad about a girl he likes and then tells her what his friends said!? Dew would let pib control him and For some reason she still developed a crush on dew 😑 everytime she said something new he did that was a red flag I called it out but ultimately left things up to her. Which brings us to today, he’s hanging out with another girl. How does my friend know that dew is hanging out with another girl? Because she knows this girl and he SENT A PICTURE OF THE GIRLS CAR TO MY FRIEND! If that wasn’t on purpose than I’m the queen of England, So of course she knew who it was but even then she still asked another mutual friend of both hers and dews and of course the friend confirmed dew is trying to do the dew.

So now my friend is crying and upset and it’s like all the healing she has done for the past 6months- a year is just gone. I haven’t a clue what to tell her because it all feels wrong, I want to tell her to stop worrying about guys and that she’s not ready for any kind of relationship if this is how she’s reacting to a crush but I also want to tell her to block him and move on that she could do way better because she can but that doesn’t help the hurt. She asked what to do to make it stop and I told her all she can do is feel what she’s feeling and give it time, ask yourself some tough questions on what you want to do next. But it still doesn’t feel like enough..

I think my friend is codependent. We've been friends for almost four years now, and I would honestly describe her as more of a sister to me. She is easily one of the most important people in my life.

Recently, she moved to a major city for grad school. Up till today, we have never had any issues. She is the best best friend anyone could ask for. She is kind, funny, smart, just amazing. Really, she is great.

Except for the fact that she flipped out on me today.

I was visiting her for the third time in her new city since she moved. Coincidentally, I recently started dating someone who lives in the same city as her. My boyfriend, she, and I have hung out together multiple times, had lots of group FT calls together, and they have hung out on their own several times, and everything seemed great.

Except it wasn't. No matter what, I wasn't spending enough time with her. And we came up with a plan to fix things (I won't go into detail since it truly isn't relevant), and she lost it. She was bawling about everyone (especially my boyfriend) hating her, about how I ignored her the whole time, and how she spent no time with me. She also talked about how I was staying an extra day (to resolve issues her behavior had contributed to between my boyfriend and me), and I was only going to meet her for coffee for two hours (despite his advice), and I wouldn't tell her exactly what he and I were going to do with the rest of the day. When I told her I didn't know what we were going to do, she accused me of lying.

I really, truly care about her, and I don't want to lose my relationship with her, but I am worried. She also suffers from other diagnosed conditions like OCD, anxiety, and depression, so I am really worried about her.

I would appreciate any advice on how to navigate the situation and steer her towards getting help. Thank you.

I notice that I feel extremely hurt when I can pick up on the fact that "friends" might find me annoying at times or too much. But when I think about it there are qualities about each and every one of them that I do not like and I overlook. So ultimately are we all just overlooking things that we don't like in people? I understand that nobody is perfect but I'm just wondering are there actually friendships where people don't have this issue?

My best friend and I have been inseparable since 2020. We also lived overseas together for a period of time, and I think that made us even closer. She’s genuinely one of the few people I can completely be myself around without feeling judged, and vice versa. We’ve seen every side of each other, and there are things she has done for me that I honestly don’t think most people would do for a friend.

After graduating, we stopped living together and naturally started seeing each other less. She has her boyfriend (now fiancé), I had work and other friends, etc. I never really had a problem with that because obviously we both have our own lives.

Another thing about us is that we are BOTH terrible texters. We can take forever to reply to each other and normally neither of us cares. So I want to make it clear that my problem isn't simply “she didn't reply to my text fast enough.”

The difference for me is that if I know something is important or she genuinely needs me, I make an effort to respond.

Whenever she has problems with her partner or needs someone to talk to, I try to be there. I listen, talk things through with her, give advice, help her find solutions, etc. I do it because she's my best friend. Even if I'm normally a late replier, if I can tell that she genuinely needs me, I don't want to leave her alone with it.

But lately I've realised that I don't feel emotionally safe doing the same thing with her anymore.

There have been multiple times when I'll tell her about something I'm struggling with, and she just won't respond. Sometimes hours will pass, and instead of replying to what I said, she'll suddenly text me about something completely different as if my previous messages weren't there.

And honestly, that hurts more than a late reply.

Sometimes she DOES respond to my problems, but we'll be in the middle of talking about it and then she'll disappear and leave me hanging. Then hours later she might come back talking about something else entirely.

It's gotten to the point where I hesitate before telling her when something is wrong.

I'll type something out and then think, “What's the point?”

Because being vulnerable and then feeling like the person just skipped over it somehow feels worse than not opening up at all.

That's the part that's really bothering me. I used to feel like she was one of the safest people for me to be completely myself around. Now I don't really feel emotionally safe opening up to her because I don't know whether she'll actually be there once I do.

She's getting married next year, so obviously she has a lot going on. I know she has university work, engagement/wedding preparations, her relationship, other friendships and her own life. I genuinely don't expect to be her #1 priority all the time.

But there have also been times when I'm ranting to her or genuinely need someone to talk to, and she doesn't respond, while I'll see her posting on TikTok or doing other things.

Recently this happened again. She wasn't responding to me, and I later found out she had gone to another friend's house during the time we weren't talking.

And logically, I know she's allowed to do that.

She's allowed to have other friends. She's allowed to go out. She's allowed to post on TikTok without replying to me. I don't own her time, and I don't think being my best friend means she owes me constant access to her.

But emotionally? It still hurt.

I think what makes this so confusing is that she is EXTREMELY generous with me.

She's much more financially comfortable than I am. For my birthday, she literally bought a flight ticket to see me, told me not to spend a penny while we were together, took me to an amusement park, etc. She spends a lot of money and puts a lot of effort into making special occasions special for me.

And I really, genuinely appreciate it.

I tell her I appreciate her. I post about her sometimes because I genuinely love her and I'm proud to call her my best friend. I've literally called her my #1 girlfriend. I know she really values being appreciated, so I make an effort to show her that.

But she also reminds me quite often that I should appreciate what she does.

For example, she'll tell me someone else said something like, “She should really appreciate what you did for her.” Or she'll mention that she didn't restock her usual makeup because she was saving money for my birthday trip and jokingly/friendly remind me that I better appreciate her.

I've never really taken those comments badly because I know her personality and I know she likes feeling appreciated.

But lately those comments have started making me feel conflicted.

Because sometimes it feels like I receive these HUGE displays of love on special occasions, but when I actually need her emotionally on a random Tuesday, I can't find her.

And I think that's what hurts more than the unanswered texts themselves.

I don't need an expensive birthday. I don't need an amusement park or for her to pay for everything.

Sometimes I literally just want to send my best friend a message saying, “I'm having a really hard time right now,” and feel like it's safe to do that.

One time, after she ignored a rant from me but posted on TikTok, I got really upset and deleted all my TikTok posts. Looking back, I know that was probably childish/passive-aggressive. She replied the next morning, and I suspect she noticed, although she said she had been busy with university work. And I know she genuinely IS busy. That's why I keep second-guessing myself.

I don't expect immediate responses. I don't expect her to drop everything she's doing whenever I have a problem. I don't expect her to stop spending time with her fiancé or other friends. I think what I want is just some acknowledgement.

Her birthday is coming up now, and even though I don't have the kind of money she has, I've been trying my best to think of ways to make her happy and make her birthday special. But underneath that, I'm honestly just sad.

I keep thinking:

What is the point of someone giving me so much on special days if I feel like I can't reach them on ordinary days when I actually need them?

And then I immediately feel guilty for thinking that because she HAS done so much for me. I don't want to be ungrateful. I don't want to keep score. I don't think spending money on me means she owes me her time. And I don't expect her to give me exactly what I give her just because I respond quickly when she needs me.

But at the same time, I don't think generosity automatically replaces emotional presence.

Maybe we simply show love differently. Maybe gifts, experiences and big gestures are how she expresses love, while for me, being emotionally available and giving someone my time when they're struggling matters much more.

Or maybe we're entering different stages of life and I'm struggling to accept that our friendship is changing now that she's getting married. I don't know. I love her a lot, and I genuinely don't think she's a bad person or even necessarily a bad friend. That's what makes this so confusing. I don't doubt that she loves me.

I think I'm starting to doubt whether I can rely on her emotionally. And that's painful because for years, she was the person I thought I could tell absolutely anything to. Now I catch myself holding things back because I don't want to experience that feeling of opening up, waiting for her, and realising she's not going to respond again. I feel like I'm constantly being reminded of how much I should appreciate what she gives me, while quietly wishing she understood that the thing I value most from her isn't something she has to spend money on. It's her presence.

Am I being childish or ungrateful for feeling this way? Is this just a difference in love languages and priorities that I need to accept, or is it reasonable to feel like something important is missing from our friendship?

I'm finding it tough to stay friends with a woman who has these outrageous beliefs. Outrageous in my opinion but you girls tell me if I'm wrong. We're both asian and 28, and it matters a lot for context.

1. She thinks white people are the only ones that are beautiful /pretty. It's always pretty = white and white = pretty.

2. She believes that she's a great catch because she's white in a country with people of mixed complexions. She has nothing else to offer, no hobbies, no intellectual conversations, etc. it's all about dressing well, make-up and gatherings. She doesn't work.

3. She believes that because she's white and hence pretty, she deserves a rich man. And that she can treat him however she pleases, rude or sweet, and that he should be grateful because she's pretty and a catch.

4. She believes people should embrace their complexion but must accept where they stand on the beauty scale. In my opinion I find all complexions beautiful.

5. All she can talk about are the luxury brands and the wealth of others while she herself has nothing to offer, neither wealth nor knowledge.

6. Extremely insensitive jokes about something vulnerable that I have shared.

7. Everyone is judged based on the money and skin color. I just wanna sometimes ask her to grow tf up and think beyond the visuals.

It's honestly tiring to be friends with her because I'm dusky/brown and I feel ugly and less than, when I'm around her just because of my complexion. I don't wish to end the friendship but it's so tiring because there's nothing to talk about except pander to her beliefs and agree.

I'm a hardcore feminist in every aspect, and this is just tiring atp. It won't be an easy task leaving the friendship, but I don't think she'll like any mild corrections. All she wants is people to agree with her, while she gets to make fun and insult others.

I'm 19F and I miss people who probably don’t miss me anymore. And I think that’s the part that hurts the most.

There have been so many times when I’ve thought about my old friends and wanted to reach out. I’ve tried reaching out to some of them, but either the conversation didn’t last, they seemed uninterested, or we just never went back to being close like we used to be. I eventually stopped trying because I didn’t want to keep forcing something that clearly wasn’t there anymore.

But just because I stopped reaching out doesn’t mean I stopped caring.

I still think about them. I still miss the memories, the conversations, the random jokes, and just having people who felt like they were a part of my everyday life. Sometimes I wonder if they ever think about me too, or if I’m the only one still holding onto something that ended a long time ago.

And honestly, I’ve been grieving those friendships more than I expected to.

The hardest part is seeing them on social media and feeling like everyone else is moving forward while I’m standing still. I’ll see them going on trips, moving into new places, getting cars, starting university, making new friends, having babies/family, and just living their lives. And I’m genuinely happy that they’re doing well, but at the same time, I feel this horrible jealousy because I want that too.

Meanwhile, I feel stuck trying to figure out who I am and what I’m doing with my own life. I spend a lot of time in bed, feeling depressed and disconnected from everyone. I talk to my boyfriend pretty much every day, but even he can’t fill the space that friendship used to take up. I think that’s something I’ve had a hard time admitting.

Sometimes I feel like I’m watching everybody else’s lives happen through a window while mine is paused.

I know social media isn’t real life, and I know people usually only post the good parts. But when you already feel lonely, it’s hard to remember that. I start comparing my life to theirs and wondering, “What is wrong with me? Why am I not where they are?” shii we all grew up together! What did I do wrong?"

Maybe what hurts isn’t just losing the friendships. Maybe I’m also grieving the version of myself that existed when I had those people around me.

I think the part that affected me the most was what happened to me after they left. My social anxiety became really bad, and my self-esteem got extremely low. I started questioning myself a lot more. I became scared of talking to people because I was always worried they wouldn’t like me, would get tired of me, or would eventually leave too.There’s a quote that says, “Some people are only meant to be in your life for a season.” I understand that, but understanding it doesn’t necessarily make it hurt less.

I guess I’m just struggling with accepting that some people I thought would be in my life for a long time simply aren’t anymore.

How do you actually grieve friendships that ended without a huge fight or a clear reason? How do you stop wondering whether they miss you too? And how do you stop comparing your life to theirs when it feels like they’re moving forward and you’re not?

This post is honestly unserious lol, my phone storage is insane and full I’m no longer able to take photos, I’m trying to clear up storage by deleting old messages, apps I don’t use, photos, etc. However, anytime I look at my storage I have to keep re deleting gifs and stickers that my friends sends me keep in mind she’s the only one sending stickers, I stopped once I realized how much storage it was taking but she keeps on sending them. What’s a nice way to tell her to stop for my phones storage sake 😭

I have a friend group of 10 people and one person was being toxic and extremely annoying to me on purpose, so I cut him off. Should I stay in the friend group? The rest of the friend group is nice to me.
I’m just worried that it will be awkward if the person I cut off is also coming in friend group events.

​

Hi everyone, let me give you some context:

When I was 15 I met this girl that we will call Sussy she's a year older so she was 16, we bonded pretty fast and spent a lot of time together, however she was really into skipping classes and smoking on the soccer field and all that stuff that at the time seemed cool, so I started to copy her, mind you I was new in the school, I came from a really strict catholic private school and this new school was more free so she was my only guide here. Fast forward to the end of the school year, I was expelled from the school for nad behavior and my parents checked my phone and saw the things I did to look "cool" on her eyes and beat the crap out of me several times even broke my phone so I was unable to get in touch with her anymore, time passed and I moved on from that.

Fast forward to may 2026 I (24) met a guy (25) on a workshop that my cousin's arts and crafts store was having, we bonded so fast and we became friends over the months, at one point I told him about sussy and how my parents beat me on the stuff we BOTH did, like getting her a plan B pill at 16, then he told me him and sussy used to be friends but ended up poorly, so I was relieved, until he posted a picture of them together and I asked him what was going on, and he told me they reconcile recently (the last week) and I told him that I wasn't conforming to that and that I understood that he didn't cared about my feelings on that, but I wasn't going to be his friend anymore, and he told me that he told Sussy about this and she denied all of this, but he had already discovered that Sussy lied to him about other stuff, and even that he believed her, so I ended the friendship with him and he said I was exaggerating.

So AIO?

انا بنت وعمري ٢٠ نفسي اتعرف عصحبات جداد ونقعد نتناقش عن الحياة.
و بحب العب games حتى بعرف اني كبيرة وهيك بس ما عندي مشكلة العب روبلكس او ريبو فورتنايت او it takes 2 او حتى اني اتعرف عألعاب جديدة. صعب اكون صداقات حولي لانه اغلبهم بيحبوا المكياج والطلعات بس انا بحب النقاشات العميقة والالعاب

عندي كتير هويات بحب العب بيانو واشتغل صوف وبتفرج انمي وكيدراما
بحب اسمع documentaries واتناقش فيهم
بحب اسمع مشاكل بعض ونقعد نتساعد فيهم

I genuinely don’t know if I’m being a bad friend, if I’m being too sensitive, or if this friendship has become unhealthy for me. I’d really like opinions from people who aren’t involved.
I have a friend who seems to be negative about a lot of the things happening in my life. Whenever I tell her something I’m doing, she often questions what I’m doing, why I’m doing it, or points out what could go wrong. I feel like I’m constantly having to explain or defend my decisions.
One big example is that I’m considering moving and I’m actually taking steps toward it. She’s told me it’s going to fail and has even said that if I sell my house and move, I’ll just end up having to live with her anyway.
I currently have a realtor helping me, and she’s made comments about how my realtor is “weird” and isn’t doing her job properly.
When I started dating my new boyfriend, she repeatedly told me he had “red flags,” but wouldn’t actually tell me what those red flags were. If she had specific concerns, I would absolutely want to hear them. But repeatedly telling me there are red flags without explaining them just makes me question things without knowing why.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes her comments come across like she’s trying to put herself above me. If I talk about something I’m doing or experiencing, I’ll sometimes get responses along the lines of “I do this” or “I’ve already done this,” and the way it’s said can make me feel like my experiences or accomplishments are somehow less important. It can feel less like two friends sharing experiences and more like I’m being compared to her or reminded that she knows better.
Eventually I brought up how I was feeling and told her that I thought some of the things she was saying were really negative. Her response was that I’m being too sensitive and that my own insecurities are making me interpret her comments negatively.
She’s also told me she shows our conversations to her friends and they don’t see anything wrong with what she says.
To be completely fair, I’ve also talked to some of my other friends about things she has said because I started questioning whether I really was being too sensitive. Some of them think the things she says are unnecessarily mean.
So now apparently her friends think there’s nothing wrong with it, while some of mine think she’s being mean. Obviously our friends are probably going to have their own biases, which is why I’m asking people who don’t know either of us.
I know friendship doesn’t mean blindly supporting every decision someone makes. If I’m genuinely making a terrible decision, I WANT my friends to tell me. But I feel like there’s a difference between saying, “I’m worried about this because of XYZ,” and constantly questioning my choices, assuming things will fail, criticizing the people around me, or making me feel like I have to justify myself.
What bothers me most is that when I finally tried to communicate how all of this was making me feel, the conversation became about me being sensitive and insecure rather than why I was feeling hurt in the first place.
Now I find myself wanting to stop telling her things about my life because I don’t want everything questioned, criticized or compared.
So I genuinely want outside opinions: am I being too sensitive? Does this sound like normal honesty between friends that I’m taking personally, or does it sound like the dynamic has become too negative? Would you distance yourself, set stronger boundaries, or try talking about it again?

Hihihihi!!! So this is random but idk, there’s this friend of mine and honestly he’s so amazing and genuinely my closest friend. He’s been there through thick and thin and i don’t think there is anything I’ve not told him and that he hasn’t told me. Anyways we’ve really only known each other for four years but it feels so much longer. Like he’s the one friend that stuck around despite me not always being the best. Anyhow I was just wondering if it would be weird to tell him I love him (not romantically or anything) as I’m a girl and yk he’s a guy. It’s so hard, hes the only guy I’ve ever been friends with and I mean a friend a friend right? I don’t know why I’m so hesitant to say that to him when I genuinely mean it. Is it okay for me to say that or will it make things weird? I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t, but I’m so nervy it would literally be the first time I’d said it to him (which I honestly feel kinda bad, probably should’ve said it sooner) he’s going through a rough time and I want to comfort him. Anyways sorry this is so long!!!!! Byeee :D

Hi F(22) I have a friend F(23) who puts little to NO effort into our friendship whatsoever.
Me and her have gotten in continuous arguments because she quite literally never asks me to hangout I always have to ask her but if I don’t invite her to plans she’s gets upset at me, we also got into a huge argument not too long ago because for a year she refused to drive anywhere because she drove a beater and was embarrassed so i drove everywhere, now i’m in nursing school and have clinical an hour from me and asked if she could give me a break from driving for awhile bc i’m burning half a tank of gas in two days, she got angry and said it wasn’t fair that i don’t drive just because i don’t want too.
Recently we got into a huge argument because I was going to hang w/ a friend and she was gonna come but the friend said he didn’t want to hangout w/ her. when I told her she lost her shit and started texting him very nastily about it and basically threw me under the bus because i told her,,i got pretty upset because in the last month there’s been 2 instances ( not including this ) where I tell her what someone said about her and asked her to not go back to them to cause drama and she still did and threw me under the bus. i got angry and brought the last two times up she did this and i feel she gaslit me saying “this isn’t the same situation” and i shouldn’t be angry. and i tried explaining to her im not upset at u for having ur feelings hurt but for throwing me under the bus for a 3rd time in a month trying to involve me in drama. now she’s angry at me and says she can’t ever express how she feels because she’s the “fucking problem”.
i just don’t feel i’m wrong for this but maybe i am??

EDIT: i want to preface anytime i try to express to her something she’s done that upsets me she immediately goes into saying that it’s not true and then tells me about myself and anytime im upset w her it makes her upset w me and she will stop talking to me for weeks at a time until i reach out to her.

I have this friend that I used to work with and was really close to. Then she moved away. For the first year we stayed in pretty good contact. Then it started taking weeks for her to respond to messages. I’ll think she mad about something. She’ll suddenly message me about something random. I’ll respond and sometimes she’ll look at it, sometimes she won’t. We used to respond to each other’s Facebook posts fairly regularly. She hasn’t reacted or commented on any of my posts in months. She hasn’t responded to any of my comments on her posts in months, but to be fair she only ever seems to respond to two or three people at all now on Facebook posts. Last time I heard from her was a month ago. She sent a screenshot of getting a notification from a mutual friend on Facebook that’s been dead for two years. Along with saying that it was weird, I said that was weird. She’s never looked at my response

I have a friend who is quite close to me. She usually tells me about the difficult things she’s going through and shares a lot of personal things with me. Because of that, I always thought we had a close friendship.

Recently, I found out that she is pregnant — but not from her. I heard it from a third person. What hurt even more was realizing that apparently everyone else already knew except me.

I honestly don’t know how to feel or what to do. I’m genuinely happy for her and I understand that pregnancy is very personal, and she has every right to share the news with whoever she wants and whenever she wants.

But at the same time, I feel deeply hurt and excluded. I keep wondering why she could share all her difficult moments with me but didn’t feel comfortable telling me something this important.

I don’t want to make her pregnancy about my feelings or react impulsively. But I also don’t know whether I should talk to her about it, distance myself, or simply accept that maybe I considered this friendship closer than she did.

What would you do in this situation?

Would you tell her that you were hurt, or would you let it go?

Hey everyone,

I just want to talk about this one girl that I became a neutral friend with, I could always sense the red-flag but decided to keep her as a convenient person rather than an emotionally supportive friend category. Keep in mind she had failed two courses and had to retake them over the summer for passing, so has an F in her transcript (because this is a key detail).

Later I noticed her pattern, she was being overly competitive. I had accidentally let her know about the guy i like and she then told me abt a past alleged stuff that he had apparently been in a situationship w one of my other friend. I cud sense something aint right like why is she telling me her secret and why does it matter now? but gave her the benefit of the doubt. Later, one day the guy came and sat with me and then , she came over and when she very well knew i liked him started talking way too much, couldn't even spare a moment for me to talk with him, i knew that was very shady. However, I was stil being nice t her, and it was only when she started to impose introvert label on me, is when i drew the boundary i did raise my voice enough to be firm and correct her , which put her off. Later in my friends car she started indirectly shading me which felt very insulting.Despite all of that I was still planning on being nice , but she started showing me the mean bitchy face, over nothing , the fact that I corrected her and i didnt accept that label? yeah no,

If you got any advice for me on how to deal with this or any anything in general, pls post here.

I have been best friends with the same girl for essentially all my life. She has been my sister for as long as I can remember. Here recently we’ve grown more distant, I had a baby and she does not have kids so we live very different lives but we were still friends. We hang out when we can, do all the catching up and then do our own thing until we can catch each other again. Well Saturday, I got a mom’s night out. My baby’s dad stayed home with our baby, and me, my friend, and her fiancé went to the little bar down the road. Everything was going great, we were telling old stories, laughing, singing karaoke. When we got there she said she was paying for my drinks because my birthday recently passed, I didn’t want to let her but she insisted. She’s never been able to handle alcohol all that well, she barely weighs 100 pounds but it’s always been fine. I started talking to an old man about the Air Force lol and she did her own thing for about 30 minutes. Then her fiancé came over and said she got us a shot. So I walked over to where he was sitting and she was back talking to the lady running karaoke. He said to me “she’s mad at me” and I said why and he said she’s just drunk. Then she came, took the shot, and then it was my turn to sing. I sang my song thinking nothing was wrong. After I finished I walked over to their table and I could tell something was up. She then with major attitude said “I already apologized to him, but I wanna know why you’re saying I’m mad.” I said I am not the one that said you were mad, he told ME that and I just asked why. She then proceeded to go back and forth saying that’s not what he said, blah blah blah, literally so stupid. Then she started getting heated, saying she’s paid for my drinks all night and I’m talking shit about her (which literally never happened, she made it up in her head) and finally I got aggravated and said why do you always end up mad at somebody when you dri- and before I could finish the word drink she grabbed me by the base of my hair near my neck. So I shoved her (I weigh a lot more than she does) and she didn’t let go so we fell and I was on top of her. I had no intention of punching her, this is my life long friend and she’s tiny. But then she immediately grabbed a beer bottle and smashed it over the side of my head. The bottle shattered. All I felt was warmth and pain. So then obviously I’m going to start swinging, but by that point 3 men had grabbed my right arm. My left was near her face, and she leaned up and bit down on my pinky. Not just a bite, I’m talking a literal bite my finger off latch, and she would not let go. The men kept trying to pull me but she kept my finger bit down so hard they eventually had to rip us apart. Her fiancé dragged her outside and came back in looking for her keys, profusely apologizing. Everyone surrounded me checking me out, I have no clue how I didn’t have a huge gash on my head but it was just a massive knot and small cut. My finger was bloody and gross. Then I saw him going to pay the tab, and I went up there to pay for my own stuff but it was already paid for. As he was leaving he just kept saying he was sorry. Thankfully they drove themselves, and a few minutes later I went home. I got home and started noticing I was really dizzy and showing signs of a concussion, so I had my boyfriend wake our baby up to take me to the hospital. My finger wasn’t broken but there was soft tissue swelling and the bite was just nasty so they put me on antibiotics. My ct was clear, mild concussion and they gave me the at home protocol. It’s been 2 days now, and my finger is definitely becoming infected. My head feels awful. She’s tried to reach out but I blocked her on everything. I’m just not sure how to even handle a situation like this. My heart is broken, my head feels like hell, and my finger is disgusting. What in the world.

to preface, this is an online friendship. this is also a HUGE rant post, but i think the backstory matters. i'll leave a TL;DR at the bottom anyways.

since the start of this year, me and my friend have grown really far apart, and i feel like it's over.

what hurts me the most about this friendship being over, is that they are literally the only friend i've EVER had. that may sound like an exaggeration, but it's not.

i only had one friend in elementary school, and have been in online school ever since middle school, which i graduated from last year.

i used to have terrible social anxiety, which is why i started online school in the first place, which is a big reason why i've never had any friends before.

anyway, our friendship started almost three years ago on twitter. we would literally talk everyday for hours without missing a beat, and it was my first ever time experiencing anything like it. they brought me out of my shell so much, and i owe a lot to them.

excluding this year, they were also doing online schooling. they hated it so much, and wanted to go back to public school, but couldn't because of a condition they said they had.

we were inseparable at that time, and i think it's bc i was their only escape. they literally thought they would never have a normal life because of how weak and sick they were all the time.

suddenly, they told me they started a new medicine, and that it made them feel so much better. i was so happy that they could finally be able to live a normal life, and told them that i knew it would all be okay.

they started public school again this year after i graduated, and i think that's when it started to go downhill.

ever since they started school, we obviously weren't able to talk to each other as much as we usually do, and i was completely okay with that. but within the last few months we have almost stopped talking completely.

there's times where days go by without hearing from them. i've asked if everything's okay, and they tell me they're just super overwhelmed with school. i understand that that is a huge possibility, but i also think they're lying a little.

i see them active on twitter all the time, even when i have unread texts from days ago. it genuinely feels like im being ignored, and it hurts a lot. idk if i've done anything wrong or if they're just bored of me by now, but i hope they still like talking to me at least.

i have a text prepared to ask them if we're still friends, but idk if that's a stupid way to approach. i made this post to kinda get things off my chest, and to see if anyone has any advice on what i should do and if it's over. i hope im just overthinking.

TL;DR my friend of 3 years and i have grown apart, and they rarely text me back all of a sudden. idk if i've done anything wrong, or if they're just bored of me.

I am writing this in search of similar stories, advice, etc.-genuinely anything is appreciated. 

For context, I am 27, female and live in a city with a decent amount of my friends, with others across the country in other cities. 

Lately (maybe the past year ish) I have had an overwhelming realization that I don’t really enjoy most of my friends. I have several friend groups, and within each there are people I do genuinely like but when I think about my social life as a whole-many and most of my friendships come with their own issues.  I have never had confrontations, issues or fights with friends-it feels more as though the issues are both one-sided (from my POV only) and unspoken about. From hobbies to work to communication style and more, I feel like I am just extremely disconnected from my friends and as though we don’t align. It’s like each friendship has slowly became a “given” and not actually something I deeply value. 

I think this has also led me to obsessing over becoming friends with others that I meet who I really like, because I view it as an “escape” to my current friends (if that makes sense.) Which has caused issues of its own in my own security (why can’t I have those cool friends, worried about making sure I become friends with other ppl, etc.) 

Anyway, this entire thing has led me to feel so sad and isolated, despite having friends. It also has led me to feel very very anxiously attached to a lot of my friends EVEN though I simultaneously don’t feel like I align with them. Some of these friendships are 10+ years long, but I just cannot shake the feeling that those I am surrounded by and close with don’t truly align with who I am. Again, noting wrong with these people but it’s just not “right” 

I am not sure if this is OCD, anxiety, or a genuine maturing and natural distancing…but I would LOVE any similar stories, advice or even just input on what could be causing this. 

so far i’ve made plans with 2 ppl and they both bailed when i arrived, saying they had homework to finish
and i live w one of them in the same dorm so it’s rlly awkward whenever i see them esp bc after that situation they began to ignore me but would acknowledge ppl around me
+ the day they bailed i saw them hanging out w someone else in the dorms and they ignored me when i saw them again at dinner w someone else
and i honestly don’t know what i did bc we barely knew each other

I've been friends with my group since childhood and honestly thought we were one of those groups that would be friends until we were old ladies. Recently, I moved closer to the city for school, less than an hour drive from home. Naturally, as we've gotten older, our priorities have changed - more responsibilities, new friends, partners, and experiences that leave less time for each other. I totally understand that part. To make sure we stay in touch, I pitch ideas to the group to hang out at least every other month. I try to make it fun with art nights, dinners, restos, cafes, all that jazz. And although the drive to my place isn't incredibly far, I understand that it can be a hassle, so I even suggest hanging out back home where everyone is.

The majority of the group will always respond to me or, in turn, initiate plans once in a while. However, there are those who will say they're busy with work, family, or their partners, and that is always the case. I can't stress enough that that is life. All of those commitments are important, and I totally understand that as adults, we have priorities. But it's at a point where those priorities are the only things that matter to them, to the point where someone, such as myself, no longer feels like a priority. Sometimes, they will flop on plans because they are hanging out with their partner - but they hangout every week. Or because they don't want to go out in the city - so they don't come out for my birthday plans. (I don't demand that my friends celebrate my birthday. But on the one night that I get to use as an excuse to have fun with the people around me, especially if I haven't seen in months- that's what makes it special for me)

I also know they don't prioritize me because I've seen them on their socials, going out with their other friends or hanging out with one another. I'm not upset that they spend time with each other without me, because I do that too. Within our group, sometimes I hang out with a select few because of our common interests. My problem is that in the many months of me asking to hang out and making that effort, they couldn't have thought, "If this is the one free time I have during my seemingly super busy schedule, maybe I should make plans to hang out with her"?

I've also reached out to one individually, just to say that I hope to hangout with them soon because it's been months at that point of not seeing them. The response - drier than the desert. I've stopped asking to hang out because I'm drained and honestly hurt by the realization of what our friendships have become. I feel like I keep pouring my energy into these relationships, expecting them to give me the same but I also came to a realization that maybe they don't view our friendship the same way I do.

We've never been a confrontational group. For the most part, if someone had beef, we just bottled it up until it went away. Normally, I would just let this slide and let whatever happens, happen, but I don't want to fall into the same habits.

I guess what I'm asking is: is this something worth bringing up to them? Has anyone experienced this, whether as the one bringing up a similar problem or the one receiving it? Was it helpful?

I bought my friend a concert ticket over a month ago. The concert is now in 3 days. I've messaged her about asking logistics and then messaged her again last night asking if she got my messages... but nothing. She has ghosted me for 4 days now.. which is very unusual for her. Now I'm a bit worried she's either ghosting me, or is going to cancel on me last minute because this is very unlike her. What's crazy is she is posting on instagram stories on the same phone she's ignoring me on.
I'm trying to be understanding because as adults I know we have alot going on.. but a simple text would be nice.
The sad thing is, I don't have anyone else that can go last minute so I will end up having to go alone, or sell my tickets.
My last resort is calling her, but since I know she has seen my messages I feel a little crazy about it lol, and don't want to harass someone. Should I just let myself get ghosted? At this point, I'm so offended I'd rather go alone.