Friend advice needed

[TH Anonymous]

[SIZE="a"]I have mixed feelings about my best friend of 10+ years. She’s away at university and I feel like she’s been taking me for granted. it feels like she doesn’t make as much of an effort to reach out to me and stay in touch as before. And when she does it’s only when it’s convenient for her never when i initiate doing a ft/call and a lot of the time she doesn’t follow through and says she’s too tired, has homework etc. She’s also been spending most of her time with girls from my high school and some of them r ppl who I used to be really close with. and it really bothers me that she’s choosing to spend her time with the ppl she knows I used to be inseparable with and she knows I feel badly about drifting apart from them. I know i can’t tell her who she can or can’t be friends with but I don’t get why out of all the people at her school she chose the ppl who were my friends and she’s insensitive about it too she’s always talking about the time she spends with them and doesn’t recognize how her talking my ear off about all the fun she has with them could make me feel left behind and sad. (I also told her it made me feel that way and she said I couldn’t expect her not to make any connections but ended up agreeing to take it down a notch, and she hasn’t even after our conversation) sorry this is really long lol but basically even though I really miss her the fact she makes me feel like I’m not a priority anymore and the ppl she’s choosing to prioritize were my friends is making me resent her. any insights/advice on my situation would be much appreciated [/size]

[Ennui.]

I definitely understand how upsetting it can be when your friends aren't initiating as much as you are and when things start to feel one-sided. You're right that you can't choose the friends she hangs out with but I want to say that your feelings about that are valid too. It's still really unfortunate and I've had that happen to me before, and I felt really jealous about it.

That being said, I would talk to her about the fact that you are feeling like she doesn't make any effort. I wouldn't ask her to stop being friends with people, though, because that may be taken the wrong way. I'd also use "I statements" when talking to her. For example, "I feel hurt/alone/other emotion here when you don't initiate conversations with me because it makes me feel like I am not valued." This is just one example of something you can say, but you can replace it with other things you are feeling as well. Don't use "you" statements, such as "you hurt me," because this can lead to defensiveness.

Maybe before you talk to her you can write out some points of things you would like to get across. This will help guide the conversation. Of course, some things may change based on how she responds and reacts to things, but at least you will have a general idea of what things are important for you to tell her about.

If she doesn't listen to you and keeps neglecting your friendship, it's okay to reconsider if you'd like to keep her as a friend. I'm definitely not saying that you HAVE to drop her as a friend, though! Just think about what you are comfortable with. If you're okay with talking a little less, that's okay. Maybe you can also meet some new people so you don't feel as alone.

I hope this helps!

[TH Anonymous]

[SIZE="a"]Thanks for the reply! I forgot to mention we did have a discussion where I expressed both feeling under prioritized and the way I feel about her constantly talking about/growing close with my high school friends. At first she was dismissive and was kind of gaslighting me and said I was the one who didn’t want to reach out to her and told me it was unreasonable to expect her not to have any connections, she also said she felt like she couldn’t discuss anything with me and I couldn’t be happy for her ever. And that just really annoyed me because even though sometimes I have a hard time not being jealous of her I try my best not to come off like I hate seeing her happy, plus as I said it’s not easy listening to her talk about her social life at university having a blast with all these ppl i know. By the end of our conversation we agreed to both be available to each other more and she said if I wanted she would take it down a notch with the constant talk about my old best friends. Though since this conversation we haven’t done many calls and during the few we have done she hasn’t been taking it down a notch as she said she would.[/size]