My online best friend of 15 years (who lives thousands of miles/km away) has been on vacation just 15 minutes from my place for 2 weeks. She didn't plan to meet. I think our friendship might be over and I don't know how to feel about it
I (M35) have had an online friend, let's call her C (F35), for 15 years. We met on a forum as teenagers and just... clicked. Deep conversations, art, music, everything. The kind of friendship where distance never mattered because the connection did all the work.
I considered her my best friend online for this whole time. She helped me a lot through a very delicate time of my life, and since that I’ve only been but thankful to her.
This whole time, C has had a partner (let's call him H). I always respected that completely, never once crossed a line, and honestly spent years encouraging her to work things out with him whenever they had rough patches, because I wanted her to be happy. H has a long history of being jealous of our friendship though (and also jealous that she used the forum where we met, jealous of our messages, etc). A few years ago, during one of their crises, he straight up accused her/us of planning to end up together, that “we have/had a plan”, which was completely false. After that, C pulled back hard silently. For a couple years we basically only talked to say happy birthday.
A few weeks ago she reached out again, out of nowhere, complimenting a drawing I had in my message's app avatar. We had some talk, and then she mentioned she and H were coming to my country for vacation, and “coincidentally” would be staying about 20km from my town. She immediately over-explained why (supermarkets, a friend's suggestion, nothing to do with me, also happens to be their 20th anniversary trip, etc).
I gave her recommendations, offered to send her photos of good beaches, stuff like that. I offered to pick her and H up from the airport, no strings attached, pure logistics. She declined in about 5 minutes (usually sometimes takes her days/weeks to even open my messages). She then said "I'd like to meet you, I don't know if the opportunity will happen this time, but we're in touch." (I think she said that probably because she felt that she rejected me in some way. But for me was weird, because to be honest, is weird to say ‘I’d like to meet you’, and then, literally after a ‘,’ say ‘I don’t know if the opportunity will happen this time').
She was avoidant like that though most messages. At some point, I genuinely thought “why did she told me she was coming if she doesn’t plan to meet?”
Said "we are in touch" the same non-committal phrase she's used a couple times now to close a conversation without committing to anything.
They landed. Nearly had heatstroke walking in 35°C heat because they didn't take a ride (the one I offered). She told me about her day, the beach, normal stuff, but never brought up meeting.
It's now day 20 and they leave the 22. My last message (sent the day August 11, as a reply to her messages) is still unread to this day. Not "seen and ignored," literally unopened. She's 20 minutes from my house and has been for almost three weeks.
I don't even want anything complicated. I highly respect they are on THEIR vacation. I just wanted to give her a drawing of her late cat that I did in the past, and say hello and thank you in person for how much she helped me. She did a lot for me when my mom died when I was a teen, and I will always remember that. Nothing more than maybe 10 minutes, with her husband there, whatever. That's it.
I keep going back and forth between "maybe there's a real reason (her partner's jealousy, maybe she's not even allowed to bring it up)" and "maybe I just wasn't as important to her as I thought, and 15 years meant more to me than to her."
She leaves in 2 days. I don't thing it's going to happen at this point. I feel a lot of sadness and like a void inside me, that friendship meant a lot for me.
Even if the case is the husband's jealousy, I feel deeply saddened about that. Literally, I never saw her in a romantic way or anything. I literally always helped her to fix things with him whenever they had a big fight. If that is the reason and they think badly about me or anything, is like a big reason for me to leave the friendship. Because I don't have (and never had) any shady intention with her. Leaving feels like the final proof that if he or they thought that, they are wrong.
Assuming the meeting doesn't happen and she ends leaving like nothing (no real explanation, just silence), is it reasonablet o significantly step back from this friendship afterward, or directly end it?
Am I being "selfish" to think that she could have some time to meet while she is on her 20th anniversary trip?
I haven't tell her straight to meet, since she was very avoidant. I think the most natural meeting thing was me offering to pick them from the airport. Also, since she ignored my message since day 11, I feel like this whole time, the "ball was on her court".
I thought about leaving the friendship if she leaves like nothing. Maybe sending a final message, or just blocking her directly after some time. For me it would feel like a fake friendship and I don't think I would be able to sustain it.
Thanks for listening to me, it means a lot since I'm having a bad time and this thing has really affected me.