u/yungho2fly

hi everyone, so i’m 21 years old and last year i ended three friendships. luckily they weren’t the most meaningful in my life but they impacted me a lot. i’ve learnt a lot from them and im still learning. obviously values and morals are key to maintaining long lasting friendships but ive noticed that in me becoming more strict as a friend i’ve become more hard on myself. i’m looking for advice on how to navigate friendship challenges. i’m someone who has a lot of very close friendships. i have 14 friends but im trying to get used to having more surface level friendships as well because ive realised that not all friendships need to have the same expectations.

i’d love some advice on how to build a robust, meaningful community while not putting so much pressure on all of my friends. your input is appreciated:)

do you think it’s possible to rekindle a friendship with someone i wasn’t that close to but we were still friends. i ended the friendship somewhat cordially and agreed that if i want to reopen the door it’s possible. i also see where i played a role in things going south. the only hurdle is that my best friend who was closer to her also stopped being friends with her but my best friend was done dirty by her so they didn’t end things that smoothly. they still follow each other and wish each other happy birthday and congratulations and stuff like that so it’s not all terrible. so i’d have to ask my best friend how she feels about it but do you think it’s possible? and am i being disloyal to my best friend?

ok so i just need to know if im being unreasonable. so long story short i got to a new school in grade 8 and i asked an already established friend group if i could hang out with them and they said sure. to cut it short and skip the details i felt like i was being slowly pushed out/excluded and not wanted. and i had overheard two of my “friends” complain about how the new girls always come to sit with usand how the new girls are a problem. at first i thought for sure they weren’t speaking about me but then after a while, based on how i was treated/neglected i knew that applied to me. at the beginning of grade 10 i left their friend group and they didn’t even notice lol. i joined a new friend group and would complain to them about how my old friend group were mean girls. one of the girls in my new friend group then went to snitch to my old friend group.

i didn’t know until grade 12 but before that i felt tension between me and the girl she snitched to and at the time i didn’t know why, it just reinforced the idea in my head that those girls didn’t like me. i asked the girl why we have beef in grade 12 then she told me and at the time i deflected because i was really bad with conflict. we had to work together during grade 12 and our relationship was very hot and cold.

we ended up going to the same university together, she would be cold towards me and before i didn’t get why but as i got older i understood that she felt disrespected by the way i spoke about her behind her back in high school. so in my third year of university i apologised to her for how i spoke about her behind her back. she accepted it and said that she understood why i always resented her because of how the group dynamic made me feel shitty and how she was “bitchy, cliquey and didn’t have a kind mindset”. she said she was sad that i still held her to her old self in matric. then she apologised for her behaviour as well.

now my question is, if she apologised why did the apology make me feel angrier? like if she always knew that her behaviour was why i resented her then why didn’t she ever apologise earlier? why did me apologising years later prompt her to apologise when she could’ve done it in the time that we were working together in grade 12. like i wasn’t around for her growth during grade 10 to 12 so it was harder for me to move past the person i knew her to be. or am i being unreasonable?

I’ve mostly made up my mind about this but I think it’d be nice to gain some perspective on whether i should send it or not. I ended a friendship last year, we weren’t close but i felt it had to end. I don’t really care about what she’ll think of me after sending this message and I also don’t care for a response. It’s just for cathartic reasons. ok here’s the message:

hey (friend’s name), i hope you’re well.

it’s been a while and id be lying if i said that this message isn’t for myself to know that i at least let my feelings out there no matter the response or lack thereof.

i realised i wasn’t fully honest about my feelings last year for the sake of keeping things smooth but i felt that whenever i tried to express a grievance i was immediately made to feel invalidated or met with conditional apologies or the conversation would subtly shift to your feelings. it felt more like a way to end the conflict (as you had even stated in one of your vn’s to me that you didn’t agree with how i was feeling but just apologised to avoid going back and forth) rather than a genuine attempt to hear where i was coming from. looking back it made me grow resentful and apathetic towards you and i had no desire to make plans.

i do also think there were things that could’ve been done better on my side towards the end of the friendship. this doesn’t change what i said in our last meet up, but i guess this gives more context as to why i felt an ‘emotional wall’. i wish you the best moving forward

I’ve mostly made up my mind about this but I think it’d be nice to gain some perspective on whether i should send it or not. I ended a friendship last year, we weren’t close but i felt it had to end. I don’t really care about what she’ll think of me after sending this message and I also don’t care for a response. It’s just for cathartic reasons. ok here’s the message:

hey (friend’s name), i hope you’re well.

it’s been a while and id be lying if i said that this message isn’t for myself to know that i at least let my feelings out there no matter the response or lack thereof.

i realised i wasn’t fully honest about my feelings last year for the sake of keeping things smooth but i felt that whenever i tried to express a grievance i was immediately made to feel invalidated or met with conditional apologies or the conversation would subtly shift to your feelings. it felt more like a way to end the conflict (as you had even stated in one of your vn’s to me that you didn’t agree with how i was feeling but just apologised to avoid going back and forth) rather than a genuine attempt to hear where i was coming from. looking back it made me grow resentful and apathetic towards you and i had no desire to make plans.

i do also think there were things that could’ve been done better on my side towards the end of the friendship. this doesn’t change what i said in our last meet up, but i guess this gives more context as to why i felt an ‘emotional wall’. i wish you the best moving forward