I'm feeling so unwell today. It's been a year since I cut ties with a very dear friend who was possibly a narcissist but was the only person who ever made me feel like I was a part of something important, they were the only friend that made me feel like I was wanted and belonged as a friend, like I didn't have to put on a fake persona to be liked. But they also had self centered and vaguely narcissistic tendencies. I am a quiet and shy person so for a while it actually felt comforting to me to just sit and listen to this friend talk to me for hours, but everyone else in the group began to feel something "off" about them, and one by one everyone cut this person off. For a bit, I felt like I was the only one who understood them and that everyone else got them wrong, but then this friend started acting vaguely passive aggressive towards my spouse and another person we were friends with, vaguely belittling people in an almost subconscious way. This friend never did this to me, for some reason I was treated "special" in the group, but I remember the saying "someone who is nice to you but not nice to the waiter at a restaurant is not a nice person", and decided it morally wrong to stay friends with a person who personifies that saying just to stroke my fragile ego. This friend was really emotionally unavailable to their spouse and kids and everyone in my group pointed this out and it became glaringly obvious to me. Their spouse eventually filed for divorce shortly after I cut ties with the friend. I'm still on friendly terms with the circle of people who cut this friend out, all the people left that I still associate with are kind decent people, but they're just acquaintances now, like if I see them I'll say hi but we're not close. I feel a gaping hole in my heart because as an adult in my 30's I've never been accepted or chosen to belong in a group or to be someone's super close friend, I've always been really lonely and and outsider, then the only person who chooses me turns out to be a rather toxic person, it's really complex because this person was always kind to me but was unkind to others in my group, eventually became slightly notorious in the local scene we all frequented as a group, unkind to their spouse, unkind to my spouse eventually which was the breaking point...I feel like it's a reflection of myself that the only person who ever became this close to me as a friend was such a difficult and unpleasant person. I've always struggled very badly with low self esteem and it just feels like a confirmation of my worthlessness that the only "friend" that ever chose me was this kind of person. I have no social circle anymore. I have a really lovely spouse and am very lucky for that, but I don't want my spouse to feel like they have to be my entire social circle, that's too much to ask from one person, and I'd like to have a social group I belong to, which I've never had except for the time I had this toxic friend.
Does it ever get better? Am I doomed to live with a gaping hole in my heart? I'm never really anyone's first or even last choice in life aside from my spouse. I miss that friend so badly but the way they treated everyone else around me is unforgivable and I will never go back. But I miss that time so badly before the cracks started showing, when we all got along and all our families in the friend group had get-togethers and we all sat around talking for hours at each other's houses.