u/Worried-Ad-3865

Anyone heard back from EHS and what did you apply for?

Any book recommendations that speaks about social skills and how to improve? Any tips (practical) that can be applied daily?

I struggle with maintaining conversation, usually I’m involved in small talk with others but I feel like it just ends in silence or I usually have nothing to say but I observe others being better conversationalists than me. I’m thinking a book may help give me an insight on social skills that may click in my head?

My best friend and I have been friends for almost 6 years now. Through out college. I don’t know where to start but we were first a group of 5 and slowly drifted to just the 2 of us. I feel like during the years of our friendship she would do things that were very unacceptable but I had no concept of boundaries and couldn’t stand up for myself, partly because I was in need of friendships. Some examples are her saying she casually met my situationship in public and how they stopped and talked about cars together and he tried to buy a car part of her (they share the same car type). I felt weird at the time like why are you speaking to him about your car. Later on I found out that they never spoke and she was lying from him not knowing they share the same type of car. Another example is her saying how a situationship of mine actually liked her the whole time (she introduced us) and told her this a couple years after we ended. I guess throughout the years I just built a grudge towards her and lost trust. She would give really toxic bad advice that I would listen to as I was too naive back then but now I realise it wasn’t the best. Maybe her intentions were pure but it really gave obsession/jealousy.

I’ve been distancing for the past year since graduation but she’d always come back and message and ask is there something wrong. I wouldn’t say anything. Recently I decided it’s no longer serving me and I wanted to end the friendship, but communication was not really a thing in our friendship and I consider this a very toxic friendship. I went back and forth with myself deciding if I should end it for the last 2 weeks and haven’t answered much texts from her. I guess she felt it as she was spamming my phone with messages on every social media app, calling my phone and even showed up at my house unannounced. She messaged me a pic of her standing outside my door saying "ik you’re home". Literally giving me 0 space and crossing my boundaries. I have to make it clear that our friendship isn’t the type to show up to each others houses without informing and I’ve mentioned many times before I need periods of space/ distance and she knows that.

I ended up feeling guilty/bad about ending it because I haven’t communicated the problems/ how I felt before and sent a message asking for some space and distance and even apologised for ignoring her. Since then she sent many paragraphs trying to manipulate/ make me feel bad mentioning things like how she doesn’t have siblings so im like one and how she wouldn’t have the heart to end a friendship of 7 years but it’s not even been 6 years. She even tried calling me. I think it was in panic and I feel bad but it’s draining me. She said I should speak about the personal issues with her to fix things. I couldn’t speak to her on call or face to face because she will manipulate the situation and I will feel bad and apologise. I feel like I’m stuck in this friendship and I can’t end it because she’s extremely attached but I feel like I’m suffocating and it’s irritating me. I can’t even post without her involvements. I don’t know how to communicate this because I’m not good at saying how I feel and I’m a people pleaser if you haven’t already guessed. I feel like she’s been a good friend for the past year since I tried to distance but I can’t seem to let go of the things in the past and I think it would be weird of me to mention things from 2/3 years ago. There are many more tiny issues related to her personality too which i can’t mention. I can’t teach someone how to be a friend or how to be graceful.

Any advice on how I should approach this? Any thoughts or a difference perspective? It’s giving me way too much anxiety.

My best friend and I have been friends for almost 6 years now. Through out college. I don’t know where to start but we were first a group of 5 and slowly drifted to just the 2 of us. I feel like during the years of our friendship she would do things that were very unacceptable but I had no concept of boundaries and couldn’t stand up for myself, partly because I was in need of friendships. Some examples are her saying she casually met my situationship in public and how they stopped and talked about cars together and he tried to buy a car part of her (they share the same car type). I felt weird at the time like why are you speaking to him about your car. Later on I found out that they never spoke and she was lying from him not knowing they share the same type of car. Another example is her saying how a situationship of mine actually liked her the whole time (she introduced us) and told her this a couple years after we ended. I guess throughout the years I just built a grudge towards her and lost trust. She would give really toxic bad advice that I would listen to as I was too naive back then but now I realise it wasn’t the best. Maybe her intentions were pure but it really gave obsession/jealousy.

I’ve been distancing for the past year since graduation but she’d always come back and message and ask is there something wrong. I wouldn’t say anything. Recently I decided it’s no longer serving me and I wanted to end the friendship, but communication was not really a thing in our friendship and I consider this a very toxic friendship. I went back and forth with myself deciding if I should end it for the last 2 weeks and haven’t answered much texts from her. I guess she felt it as she was spamming my phone with messages on every social media app, calling my phone and even showed up at my house unannounced. She messaged me a pic of her standing outside my door saying "ik you’re home". Literally giving me 0 space and crossing my boundaries. I have to make it clear that our friendship isn’t the type to show up to each others houses without informing and I’ve mentioned many times before I need periods of space/ distance and she knows that.

I ended up feeling guilty/bad about ending it because I haven’t communicated the problems/ how I felt before and sent a message asking for some space and distance and even apologised for ignoring her. Since then she sent many paragraphs trying to manipulate/ make me feel bad mentioning things like how she doesn’t have siblings so im like one and how she wouldn’t have the heart to end a friendship of 7 years but it’s not even been 6 years. She even tried calling me. I think it was in panic and I feel bad but it’s draining me. She said I should speak about the personal issues with her to fix things. I couldn’t speak to her on call or face to face because she will manipulate the situation and I will feel bad and apologise. I feel like I’m stuck in this friendship and I can’t end it because she’s extremely attached but I feel like I’m suffocating and it’s irritating me. I can’t even post without her involvements. I don’t know how to communicate this because I’m not good at saying how I feel and I’m a people pleaser if you haven’t already guessed. I feel like she’s been a good friend for the past year since I tried to distance but I can’t seem to let go of the things in the past and I think it would be weird of me to mention things from 2/3 years ago. There are many more tiny issues related to her personality too which i can’t mention. I can’t teach someone how to be a friend or how to be graceful.

Any advice on how I should approach this? Any thoughts or a difference perspective? It’s giving me way too much anxiety.