u/lindsey_what

I am not looking for any advice on how to fix this situation, as the friendship is very much over, but just looking for some advice if anyone has been through a similar very vague and abrupt friendship breakup, and how you dealt with it. I am struggling to cope with it emotionally even though I think her leaving my life was likely for the best in the long run.

I'll try to keep this as short possible:

My friend Lya and I met in 2018 and connected because we are both photographers and met through work. We have been pretty close the last 8 years, texting each other pretty much every day and hanging out at least a few times a month. I am child free and she had a kid four years ago and I was nervous that this would change our dynamic substantially, but I was happy that it actually didn’t and we were both accepting of each other’s choices, at least I thought.

The past year or so, Lya has been getting more into video content and started talking about how she wanted to quit her full-time job to freelance. I have been freelance for 6 years and I was extremely supportive of this idea. I would offer my advice or perspective whenever it seems relevant and I was always telling her that she was talented enough that she would be successful if she went off on her own. Whenever I lent advice I noticed it created really weird tension and she would reject everything I had to say, even when I was just trying to be helpful/encouraging. She always wanted to position herself as the expert even though I had a lot more experience. But whatever, this was something I could let go and I stopped offering advice.

The last 6 months or so she was really leaning hard into being this kind of influencer/content, creator hybrid, or whatever you want to call it. I am really not big on influencer culture, and she knows that, but I was still trying my best to be supportive in whatever she wanted to do. She started taking on this weird HIGHLY self aggrandizing persona that was new for her and 99% of our conversations became about how amazing she is. She created an alter ego with a different name and started referring to herself by that name even in personal contexts. At this point, things started feeling very odd to me.

She would send me her videos before she posted them on Instagram not asking for advice, but basically just saying "This is the next big thing“. I always found this behavior extremely cringe but I still tried my best to just smile and say wow that’s great.... but I’m sure at some point she could tell I was a little put off by her inflated ego. I’ve had success in my career doing commercial work, but I would never in a million years say the things that she was saying about herself so it started to become a big divide.

The breakdown happened very sudden suddenly about three months ago when she abruptly stopped responding to my messages and was giving me the silent treatment. I kept asking over and over what was going on and if she was mad at me, but every time she would deny it and say she was just busy, but I knew there was something going on. Eventually, after I asked multiple times if we could meet up and talk, she kept avoiding it, and then finally told me over text that she was having bigger realizations that "I don’t fully see her for who she is". I kept suggesting that we need to have this conversation in person and asking if she would be open to that, but she wasn’t. I then started asking if she could provide me more examples of specifics and making her feel misunderstood or unseen so I could do better, but she just kept reiterating her vague statements about how I don’t fully understand or accept who she is, and that I’ve been making her feel misunderstood for a long time. At the end, she threw in something I found quite hurtful where she said “I’m a direct mirror of everything that you don’t like, for example our differences in motherhood". Her having a kid and me not has never once been an issue in our friendship and I felt like she kind of threw this in as a low blow.

Anyway, that was all that happened. She basically sent me a text message refused to meet up in person or tell me what exactly she was feeling and we never spoke again. Weeks later, I received a DM on instagram from one of our mutual aqcuaintences where he said he was sorry she was doing this to me, and he theorized that I was just collateral damage for her going through this identity shift. He provided more information to me, which was that she felt like I didn't support her career to the level that she wanted. Part of me thinks she started getting all this (fake) validation online and then started expecting her real life friends to do the same. Some did and some didn't adapt to the level of adoration she required I guess. That's just now who I am though.... I love and support my friends but I don't worship them and I don't expect them to worship me (like ew?).

This has hit me like a ton of bricks though because I don't have many close friends I talk with daily and she was one. To be discarded over this is just wild to me and I'm struggling to accept it.

Anyone else had this or something similar happen to them??

I’m noticing a troubling trend with my female friends who are now in our 30s, and I wanted to see if anyone could relate. This is especially clear to me right now as I’m going through somewhat of a shocking friend break up where one of my closest friends of seven years has completely cut me off and stop talking to me over something that I would categorize as a minor argument that could be easily worked through if we were able to have a difficult conversation in person. I’ve noticed a lot of my friends saying things like “I need to protect my peace” and treating friendships like something that exists just for their own benefit. I feel like a lot of people are not willing to put in the work to maintain friendships these days and I don’t know if it has something to do with social media or burnout or what, but I’ve noticed even in arguments that people are way less repair-oriented, and are more interested in living inside of their own experience of it without much curiosity about the other person. I also notice people being very avoidant about having difficult conversations and instead, would rather just slowly disappear. I think this fits a larger pattern of “main character syndrome” that is making people unwilling or unable to have healthy mutual friendships and put in any kind of effort.

Or maybe I just absolutely suck at picking friends lol!