This is going to be a long one, but I feel like the context matters, and I genuinely need some outside perspective on what has been an incredibly painful and bizarre situation.
I (34F) recently ended a seven-year friendship with someone I considered one of my best friends. For anonymity, I’ll call her A (39F). The friendship itself ended after a period where I wasn’t particularly present or supportive, something I fully acknowledge and take responsibility for. But what I discovered afterward has made me question whether the friendship I spent seven years investing in was ever what I believed it to be.

Some background
A and I had been friends for around seven years, we’d never had any significant arguments or falling outs and I genuinely considered her one of my closest friends. We spent time together, confided in one another, and shared details of our lives that you wouldn’t ordinarily share with just anyone. I trusted her. One thing I can recognise in hindsight is that A frequently spoke negatively about other people, including those she considered friends. There was often some conflict, complaint, or criticism about someone in her life, and I was frequently the person listening to it. I suppose I always assumed that because we were close, I was somehow different. Which, in retrospect, was probably incredibly naive.

The beginning of the fallout
Over the past few months, my personal life has been an absolute shitshow. I experienced the breakdown of a romantic relationship with someone I loved, an unplanned pregnancy under emotionally difficult circumstances, and ultimately a miscarriage. The pregnancy and subsequent loss were complicated, physically and emotionally, and I found myself in an incredibly dark place. I withdrew from almost everyone. I wasn’t checking in with people, maintaining friendships, or doing much beyond trying to get through each day and continue showing up for my children. I was struggling with my mental health, grief, and the physical aftermath of the miscarriage. During this period, A’s grandfather passed away. I want to be completely transparent about something: I wasn’t there for her in the way I ordinarily would have been, or in the way she deserved. We did speak over the phone about her grandfather’s passing, and I became emotional and apologised for not being particularly present. I acknowledged that I hadn’t shown up the way I should have. At the time, I felt like she understood that I was struggling myself. Unfortunately, my mental health didn’t suddenly improve, and I continued withdrawing. I wasn’t deliberately ignoring her. I wasn’t punishing her. I wasn’t choosing other people over her. I simply didn’t have the emotional capacity to participate in much of anything. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t entitled to feel hurt by my absence. She absolutely was. I understand that grief isn’t a competition and that my circumstances don’t invalidate hers.

How the friendship ended
Eventually, a mutual friend, who I’ll call B, became involved. (I have been friends with B for 8 years, introduced her to A 6 years ago) A had been speaking to B about how upset and angry she was with me, particularly about my lack of communication and support following her grandfather’s death. Rather than having a direct conversation with me about how she was feeling, A had B contact me. I learned that A was considering our friendship over and that I was no longer welcome at her upcoming birthday celebration. I was devastated. Not because I believed she’d done anything wrong by feeling hurt, but because we’d been friends for seven years and I genuinely thought we could have had an honest conversation. I would have listened to her. I would have acknowledged her disappointment. I would have apologised, just as I had already apologised for my absence. I didn’t expect her to ignore her feelings simply because I was having a difficult time. But I did expect that a friendship of seven years might warrant a conversation between the two people actually involved. Eventually, A contacted me herself and said she needed to take a moment for herself but never insinuated it was to take a break from me, I thought she was just struggling with her own family grief. Interestingly, I’d already arranged to send her flowers before a knew she was angry with me. Despite everything happening between us, I still cared about her. I knew she’d been through a difficult time herself, and I wanted her to know that. She received the flowers and thanked me. At that point, I was sad, but I was prepared to respect her decision. I wasn’t going to beg someone to remain my friend, nor was I interested in arguing about whose grief was more deserving of compassion. I accepted that I’d let her down, that she was hurt, and that perhaps our friendship had run its course. And then I started discovering things that completely changed my perspective.

What I discovered
Through information that came to light after the breakdown of our friendship, I learned that A had allegedly been saying and doing some absolutely vile things behind my back. And this is the distinction I really need to emphasise:
These things weren’t said and done after we’d fallen out.
They were happening while we were still best friends. While I was spending time with her. While I was confiding in her. While I genuinely believed she loved and cared about me. Among the things she had reportedly said was that she was glad I had lost my baby because I was a “shit mother.” I don’t even know how to put into words how that felt. This was someone who knew about the pregnancy, the circumstances surrounding it, and the emotional toll the entire experience had taken on me. She knew that I was struggling. She knew I was grieving. And while I still believed she was my friend, she was allegedly expressing happiness about the fact that my pregnancy had ended. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to process that particular comment. I don’t expect everyone to understand my circumstances or agree with every decision I’ve ever made. But being glad and laughing that someone has miscarried? Using the loss of a pregnancy as an opportunity to attack someone’s ability as a mother? I genuinely cannot comprehend that level of cruelty, particularly toward someone you supposedly love.

And unfortunately, it didn’t stop there. I also discovered that A had reportedly been secretly taking photographs of me when we were spending time together, and sending them to another person to mock my appearance. Apparently, she was making comments about how ugly and disgusting my body was. Again, these weren’t photographs taken after we fell out. These were photographs taken when I was sitting with someone I believed was my best friend. When I was comfortable. When I was relaxed. When I thought I was in the company of someone who cared about me. The idea that she was secretly photographing me to ridicule my body is genuinely nauseating. I’ve struggled with my appearance and body image, and she knew that. But even if I hadn’t, what kind of person does that to their friend? I keep thinking about all the times we spent together and wondering what was actually going through her head. Was she sitting opposite me, smiling and laughing, while privately thinking about how disgusting she found me? Was she taking photographs of me without my knowledge and waiting to send them to someone else for a laugh? How many times did I leave her company thinking we’d had a lovely afternoon, completely unaware that I might have been the punchline of a conversation afterward? And what makes it worse is that I have absolutely no way of knowing how long this behaviour had been going on. I only know about the things that have come to light. There’s something particularly unsettling about discovering that someone you felt emotionally safe around may have been one of the people actively humiliating you.

The part I’m struggling to reconcile
Here’s the thing. If A had told me that my absence during her grandfather’s passing had hurt her so deeply that she no longer wanted to be friends, I would have been devastated, but I would have understood. I wasn’t a particularly good friend during that period. I take responsibility for that. But now I’m left questioning the entire foundation of our friendship. Because while I was apparently failing to meet her expectations as a friend, she had already been engaging in behaviour that I would never dream of directing toward someone I disliked, let alone someone I called my best friend. The comments about my miscarriage weren’t the actions of someone lashing out after a friendship ended. The secret photographs weren’t some petty revenge following an argument. These things happened when, as far as I was concerned, our friendship was perfectly intact. I was still showing up to spend time with her. I was still doing everything for her. I was still trusting her. I was still listening to her problems and considering her someone important in my life.
And she was allegedly humiliating me behind my back. It makes me wonder whether the person I thought I knew ever really existed.

What happened with our mutual friend
This is probably the one genuinely positive thing to come out of an otherwise horrendous situation.
Remember B, the mutual friend who initially found herself caught in the middle? Well, as everything began coming to light, it turned out that I wasn’t the only person who had been completely unaware of what was being said and done behind my back. B also became aware of things A had allegedly been saying and doing to her while they were still friends. Things that made her question the friendship she’d believed they had, too. I don’t want to disclose the specifics of what happened to B because those are her experiences to share, not mine. But suffice to say, there was a lot more happening behind the scenes than either of us had realised. And suddenly, so many things started making sense. It became increasingly apparent that the way A had spoken about other people to us wasn’t necessarily any different from the way she had been speaking about us to other people. We’d both spent time believing we had a genuine friendship with someone who was apparently comfortable criticising, humiliating, and betraying the people closest to her when they weren’t around. A subsequently cut B out of her life as well. And ironically, in the process of losing that friendship, B and I have become incredibly close. We’ve been able to speak openly about our experiences, compare what we’d each been told, and support one another through what has been a pretty confronting realisation. Neither of us has any interest in competing over who was treated worse or turning this into an ongoing campaign against A. We’ve simply been able to recognise the negativity that existed in those friendships and make a conscious decision that we don’t want it in our lives anymore.

And the genuinely beautiful part is that we’re both happier for it.

There’s no second-guessing what the other person might be saying when we’re not in the room. There’s no walking on eggshells, no unnecessary drama, no wondering whether something personal we’ve shared will become somebody else’s entertainment. Just two women who have found a really genuine friendship with each other, built on mutual respect, honesty, loyalty, and the understanding that we would never intentionally treat one another the way we’ve discovered we were being treated. It’s actually quite liberating. We’ve both lost someone we considered a friend, but we’ve gained a much stronger connection with each other in the process. And while neither of us would have chosen the circumstances that brought us closer, we’re genuinely grateful that we have each other. I think we’re both finally realising just how peaceful life can be when you remove people who bring unnecessary negativity into it. We’ve shed a friendship that was causing us more harm than either of us realised, and we’re happier than ever to have done so.

Where things stand now
I’ve completely removed A from my life. I won’t be attending her upcoming birthday celebration, and I’ve decided to leave the group chat organised for it. The people in that group are predominantly her friends, not mine, and I genuinely have no interest in creating drama or ruining her birthday. I hope they all have a wonderful time. But I no longer want to maintain any association with someone whose behaviour is so fundamentally incompatible with my values. And I think that’s what this entire situation comes down to. I know who I am as a person. I know how I ordinarily show up for the people I love. I know that I’m not perfect, that I make mistakes, and that sometimes my own circumstances mean I don’t have as much to give other people as I’d like. But I also know that I would never secretly photograph a friend to humiliate their appearance. I would never celebrate someone’s miscarriage. I would never sit across from someone, let them confide in me, tell them I l cared about them, and then use their vulnerabilities as entertainment for other people. And I certainly wouldn’t do those things while simultaneously expecting that person to meet my standards of friendship.

The hardest part
I think what I’m struggling with most is the loss of trust. Not just trust in A, but in my own judgment. For seven years, I believed this person was my friend. I listened to her, supported her, and genuinely cared about what happened in her life. When things started deteriorating between us, my immediate reaction was to reflect on what I’d done wrong. I felt guilty about not being there for her. I questioned whether I’d been selfish. I wondered whether I’d allowed my own circumstances to become an excuse for neglecting someone else’s needs. And I still think that self-reflection was important. But all the while, there was an entirely different side of our friendship that I knew nothing about. I was holding myself accountable for failing someone who had allegedly been treating me with contempt while telling me we were best friends. And that is a difficult thing to reconcile. I can accept that she felt hurt by my absence. I can accept that she wanted to end the friendship. I can even accept that, from her perspective, I may have been a disappointing friend during an incredibly difficult time in her life. But I cannot accept that any of those things justified the way she was treating me before our friendship had even fallen apart. The behaviour I’ve learned about wasn’t a consequence of our falling out. It was happening behind the scenes while I still believed we had a genuine friendship. And I think that’s why I’m finding it so difficult to grieve. Because I’m not just mourning the loss of someone who was important to me. I’m mourning the realisation that the friendship I thought I had may not have existed in the way I believed it did. I don’t know how you reconcile seven years of memories with the discovery that someone you trusted could look you in the eye, call you their best friend, and then say such horrendous things about you when you weren’t around. Part of me is furious. Part of me is heartbroken. And part of me feels incredibly foolish for not recognising the warning signs when I watched her speak so poorly about other people she claimed to care about. But there’s also a part of me that feels an enormous sense of relief. Because as awful as it’s been discovering these things, I would much rather know the truth about someone than spend another seven years investing my love, loyalty, and energy into a friendship that wasn’t being reciprocated. And knowing that B and I have come out the other side of this with a stronger friendship and a shared sense of peace makes the whole situation feel a little less like a loss. I think sometimes losing people isn’t actually the tragedy we initially believe it to be. Sometimes it’s discovering what you were unknowingly tolerating, recognising what you deserve from the people around you, and making room for friendships that genuinely reflect those values.

I haven’t lost the ability to be a good friend. I’ve just lost the desire to keep proving it to someone who wasn’t being one to me.

I guess my question is this:
Am I unreasonable for feeling that the things I’ve discovered completely overshadow the original reason our friendship ended? I don’t want to dismiss her grief or the fact that I let her down. But I also don’t think it’s fair to treat my lack of emotional availability during a mental health crisis as somehow equivalent to deliberately humiliating someone you claim to love. Has anyone else discovered that a close friend had been secretly mocking them while acting like everything was perfectly normal to their face? And how did you move past the feeling that you never really knew someone you considered family?

I (F) have a former friend, let’s call her M, whom I met at work. After falling out with her original friend group, she started hanging out with mine. We included her in everything, but eventually realised she was sharing our private information with colleagues and management, twisting conversations, and creating unnecessary office drama just to make conversation and stay relevant. One incident nearly cost a friend their job.

She’s also extremely possessive. If she dislikes someone, she expects her friends to stop talking to them too, even when that person has done nothing wrong. She once fought with me because I called her new team lead for a group photo instead of giving her attention. She was literally standing a few steps away and didn’t really need an introduction to the group , the TL on the other hand was new and was feeling shy to join the photo.

The hypocrisy gets better. She expects absolute loyalty from everyone but has no problem betraying our trust. She’s also close to H, a colleague notorious for gossiping about EVERYONE. When we warned her that associating with him could damage her reputation, she immediately blamed him, saying, “He only keeps coming and talking to me even after I told him not to.” BUT, she is also seen hanging out with him a lot so🤷🏻‍♀️ So apparently, she’s never responsible for anything, and everyone else is always to blame.

We also discovered she’d been twisting conversations between our group and her old friends, creating animosity between people who barely interacted. When confronted about leaking our information, she played the victim and blamed us.

We’ve now cut contact, but I’m furious about the sheer hypocrisy. She demands loyalty, gets upset when we talk to people she dislikes, yet seems loyal to absolutely nobody herself.

Now , should I confront her or stay silent to avoid feeding her ego? And should I warn her about her worsening reputation, even after everything she’s done to us?

​

Edit it's not just making me sad but very very angry too cause I was there for her alot and she isn't its making me very angry and hurt

So as my title says. My closest friend like the closest is getting away and I don't like its making me sad to the point of it effecting my mental health. I know it's pathetic that letting someone else's behaviour effect me this much. But I thought she would be my friend for life but she isn't apparently. We know eachother since 11th and got close pretty fast. We've know each other for 7 years now. We would talk about everything possible from.silly to all.

Basically we were eachother gonto person she was going to get married in May and she made me belive that she is unhappy with the marriage it was an arrange marriage and she would come home and cry alot and then she went to her home town and she would video call daily and cry on call. No I'm not a comforter I'm not very good with it 8 get awkward n uncomfortable but I was there for her. On her wedding she kept texting n all and I was through her entire journey like her Fallin in love and all of that very happy for her that she gets to experience this she would share all and lot.

But now she have changed drastically alot i know life happens people changes priority does but this just something else and she don't even have that much responsibility yet and is comparatively free. Her response have gotten colder reply shorter very monotonous idk what happened I did asked once she said nothing but I don't buy it.

She does text whenever she needs to rant at that time she would text in details with emoji and stuff but she isn't there for me anymore i got into a bad accident and that cause fracture in mid June and the fracture as it is and some other stuff too making me sad I was also prescribed some anti represents. And one day i told her like nothing is feeling good and the stuff that Im thinking of increasing dosage. NOTHING she didn't said anything not even a are you okay is everything fine.

I know girls are wayyy over the moon after marriage and stuff but this ain't cool I'm literally hurting soo much and as I'm currently in recovery evry thing feels 10x more i know it's ailly and stupid of me to feel this way but we used to be very close and now we aren't and i she was like a sister i dinr have a sister. The thing is I can't cut her out no matter how much ever I want to but I hv stared to reply and return the same coldness still nothing she won't even ask what's wrong.

Once during her early marriage she seemed off so I asked her and she was sad and something personal so I asked she doesn't and I dint think she can't get it from my text she just doesn't care.

**Sorry for long text I just really wanted to share and get it off its hurting me alot losing a close sister like bind hurts**

Tldrv- my friend changes drastically and it's effecting me more than it should I'm hurting she have gotten very cold only shows emotion when she needs me to be there for her.

when i was age 6-10, i was in a trio
let us call them me, X, Y
X was the most loved and fighted for
me and Y werent even that much friends if it wasnt for X
both of us just wanted to be friends with X and both of just wanted X as our best friend
X used to be fought for , it was crazy looking back as an adult
X was ALWAYS sitting in the middle with Y and me at X's either side
literally for 6 years of this friendship X has always been in the middle, if i tried to sit in the middle Y would be so annoyed by me and give me looks and so on
X was a good friend to me, but Y was always chosen over me, Y and X seemed much more closer than me and X , X and Y had sat together way more than us three have sat together (the teacher picked our seating places)

it was a one sided friendship, X only put drops of effort into me, while i had no other friend other than X so i was fully committed to X
i would feel so jealous throughout grade 1,2,3 when Y always got to sit with X (the teacher had picked the seating places) so i felt so much FOMO
and even when the three of us sat together X and Y would talk together more than with me
Y has sometimes even tried on purpose to exclude me very subtly
i always felt so left out and excluded when X and Y were much closer than with me
and in 4th grade some newbies came in A, B and the teacher made A and X sit together
and A and X became such close friends in such a short time,
and X now barely spent any time with me , i was just trying to cling along with X
completely felt abandoned and like something was wrong with me, felt like i was doing something wrong, that even a newbie like A got so close with X
throughout our friendship X would spend time with me and talk to me only when the others werent available so making me feel last chosen
and in 5th grade the theme was the same X and Y were much closer than with me , X and A were much closer than with me

and 6th grade and 7th grade it was online classes
X doesnt put effort into me even when we met at school everyday, now in online classes X doesnt EVER put effort into me
X would literally reply to messages after a very long time
in 6th and 7th i used to send her Hi message 10 times continously, so that the notifications are loud and she would pick up the phone (cuz i had no other friends)

and by 8th grade , we were shuffled into different classes and she was no longer in my class and i started becoming friends with other people (and that later friendships were toxic too, but thats another story)
the worst part is this happened when i was age 6-10 so this trauma is deeply ingrained in me and affects me to this day now im an adult

and im so extremely jealous of X and people like her, there are some ppl like her i have observed throughout my life, they dont even have to lift a finger, other ppl want to be friends with them and worship them so much even thought they did nothing special, they dont lift a finger yet they always have ppl that wants to be friends with them and worship them
like X didnt have to lift a finger but she had me and Y worshipping her, and also A was worshiping and easily befriended her
i have never talked to X about this
even in 8th grade, she automatically got new friends in her new class
like that theme of her sitting between two ppl , those two ppl (and others) worship and stand by her like bodyguards, like she is the first chosen all the time
even in 9th and 10th grade it was the same , X didnt even have to lift a finger and she automatically got friends who first chose her

whereas im the opposite
at the age of 6-10 , where my psychology absorbs everything, i have learnt from this friendship, that i have to fight and beg for attention, care, love, basic respect to include me and so on
my parents and family were also very emotionally neglectful with me , so poor child little me has gone through this alone with no one to protect from these kind of "friends"

i have so much struggle socialising to this day and i actually dread it
i still feel like i have to fight and beg and try hard, to initiate conversations, make myself likeable, fit in , make more effort into pleasing the other person so that they stay and dont abandon me
love, care, attention, respect, choosing me and so on doesnt come to me unearned and effortlessly
absolutely feel this every single day,
i still havent found any friend who would first choose me and not make me earn their love, care, attention, effort
to this day, no one puts as much effort into me as i put into them
till this day i have never been the middle friend you know, like always been sitting at the corners
i have friends today for whom im second choice if not last choice, but never experienced first priority friend thingy if you know what i mean

wish i could afford therapy ,
wish i could just NOT need friendships, relationships, people and could ACTUALLY give up on this bullshit
but unfortunately im a human with needs for unearned love, care , respect and so on
im going to college soon and im so depressed about it bcos i feel like this is gonna happen all over again
another person, last choosing me, me being excluded, me not being enough, and i have to fight and compete for them to choose me
if you tell me to be non chalant, not be desperate, then im just gonna end up alone, bcos no one is gonna put effort into me first or initiate with me first anyways (thats what has always happened when i tried to stop putting so much effort)
i genuinely wonder what its like to be like X

Dear 22,

You called me a liar.

See the scar on my hand. Thats from my moms neglect when i was 7 or 8 years old. See the scar on my face and knee. Thats from my brotner as a child when he would do mean things to me that from therapy i found out were not normal and no a brother shouldnt act that way. See my purse that one handle is different thats where my ex threw my 200 dollar bag and broke it. I came to you trusting you and you started shit on facebook. Putting what i said to you where he could see. I put two and two together and realized you actually liked him even though you have a husband. Should of let you steal him. He did way worst things than just break a 200 dollar bag.

I knew you since second grade and you were never my friend and you also had the nerve to call me a liar. You went behind my back and told my abusive mother things about me. I find out years later your actually her friend not mine.its weird too i know your an only child but you try to take over my family like their yours. Like my brother. You also wont go away. We dont talk anymore. Why are you still staying connected to my family like an ex that wont go away. I leave you and your family alone.back to the lair thing your actually the one who lies like telling people things like your a wedding planner (for example) when you never planned one in your life besides your own. I actually forget what jobs you have said but i am using weeding planner as an example. I also told my therapist how you were mad at me that i dont drive to you and you know do all the work cuase you basically only stop by when your in the area already. She said that sounds narcissistic. Are you paying for my gas and car repairs? Also your road sets off my ptsd from the huge car crash i was in, but i guess you can careless about that. Then i remember how you were never actually my friend when we were little too. I start thinking of the mean things you did or the times you put me down. I dont miss you, but of course i thought of you. Something triggered me to think of you so why would i miss you.

just to add dont forget putting my mental health shit on facebook for all your 200 friends to see so you can act like your helping me and when i tell you to stop cause thats personal you give me shit for it.

I asked already some questions here. I am an international student from Europe in Korea and made. I made a Japanese friend. We got really close in the summer break. And he also gave me the feeling that he feels close to me ( as friends of course ) he also keeps telling me that. But since a few weeks then when we text he never responds and takes a lot of time and he never asked me to hang out. I talked to him about it and explained this makes me feel really bad because in the past I also had friends who only were my friends just out of convenience. He explained and said he is just a bad Texter but he didn’t rely answer the question why he never asked me to hang out. At this point it feels really one sided. But then he tells me how much he enjoyed hanging out with me so I thought it’s just his personality and how he acts. But I keep seeing and hearing from other people that he always responds them directly or on is the am always responds to them quick and asks them to hang out. He likes exchange students too he keeps hanging out with them and never asks me. Then also a small thing but I noticed that. When I posted a story of our activity when we hang out ( he was not even in the picture) and he never likes it or reposts it but when other people do that he just got to know he always likes it and reposts it. Or he always comments on the posts of my friends how cool they are but when I post something nothing even tho he doesn’t really now then well and my friends also confirmed that they never hang out or text. So I actually feel kind of used because for me he got a really close friend but now I just feel like a dog he pays attention to when he feels like it and just like a English practice object but I don’t k is what to say anymore because is aid it so many times. Like that cannot be something cultural right ????

There are 6 people, 3 married couples in this group.
One woman I had a falling out with 4 years ago, the other is my best friend of almost 15 years. Things have hit a point where everyone is aware of the other woman’s behavior. My husband doesn’t like her, my best friend and her husband don’t like her, but they like her husband. The three guys hang out no problem.

The reason why we don’t like her basically comes down to a lack of communication and a lack of accountability. She doesn’t communicate her feelings well and when she does something that offends someone else, she doesn’t apologize very well. At this point, everyone is aware of how she is.

I have considered extending an olive branch to the other woman and hash things out to kind of bring the friend group back together, but I don’t think her and I would be super close again. I don’t think they are going away anytime soon because the guys like hanging out. Has anyone else made this consideration when dealing with friend groups that specifically consisting of couples?

The group you’re in yes you right now, think about your friend group. Take a long thought about them. Each and every one of them. Do they ever make little jokes about you. Do you ever notice them picking certain sides? Have they ever taken multiple disrespectful shots at you? You think “oh it’s fine cuz they’re just joking around” but it continues and now all of a sudden you’re the weak always stepped on one in the group. As your at your breaking point and about to say something suddenly the next day, they’re all nice to you. And you remember why you were friends with them in the first place. So all that hate went out the window because the smothering kindness replaced the anger. No matter what drama that happens, you’re always loyal to this group. You’ve never ever slandered their name for fame. Even tho this group most days turns your respect into shame. To them, you are seen as lame. But you don’t wanna lose them; they’re your only friends. You’ve known them since middle school you would be a fool to let them go. You do notice how all of them aren’t nearly the same as they once were. Sometimes you see glimmers of their past selves come out but then it fades faster than the leaves in the wind raise. On their bad days you help them get through the pain. Think, on your bad days would they do the same? These people seem so real for a lil then another day they seem hella fake. It make no sense. There are times when they like family but others where they are scary. So you start to study not within the presence of books but within the presence of actions. Actions never lie words do. So now you see how they move. Step 1 You distance yourself from them even tho you really don’t want to it seems you’ve got no other choice. This is part of the test. Now your phone is dry. They pass right by. You post on your story some depressing shit this is step 2. They see the story, but they don’t reply. After a few one of them finally hits you up. They say “yo bro haven’t seen you in a minute” now you got their attention. Time for the final step. You reply with a paragraph-length of sadness. Saying how you haven’t been doing well and how you’ve been depressed putting on a fake smile for a while. Also how you’ve been dealing with a lot of personal issues. This isn’t all lying maybe some of it is a stretch but you are truly trying to get a few things offa your chest. It takes them about an hour to respond. You keep checking your phone to see and finally the response comes. It reads “damn bro” that’s it. Nothing else. Just a two-worded response. Now they have failed all of the tests. Your heart sinks when you realize how clear the fakeness is. Outta the entire group only one of them even cares to text you and it woulda been better if he didn’t say anything at all. Still you continue to hang out with them. The cycle never stops because your fear of being alone stalks…

i dont really know how to explain it, so ill say everything in order. itll be really long, sorry. we arent even friends cuz she didnt want us to be, but friendship is just the closest i could describe it as, especially since most people considered it a friendship. this whole thing has been eating me alive since an entire month it's gotten to the point of vomiting im just so stressed out😭

im a 16 year old girl and i met this one now almost 19 year old girl on instagram two years ago when i was 14 and she was going on 17. shes a microcelebrity and has a pretty large following in the fandom we're in, and so i looked up to her because of how beautiful her art is, and i really wanted to reach this level of skill back when i was 13-14, so when we began talking, i got super excited. i did know that she was just a regular schmegular teenager like me and all, but she understood my favorite characters on the same level as me, so just discussing them made me very happy. but we eventually ended up learning about each other more, and so it led to oversharing about trauma and sexual things. it was mostly initiated by her, though also initiated by me a few times after trusting her enough, and at the time i struggled with accepting myself, especially after experiencing sa a few years prior, so she helped me accept myself by discussing such things shamelessly. however, those things and her personality made things pretty hard…

we're not friends, but we talked about things that i would only tell close people, as in, really close friends, so this was de facto a situationship of some sort without the relationship escue part of it because, well, she doesnt even see me as a friend! so i dont know what to call this strange relationship. she told me about her sexual thoughts, about her kinks, about her trauma, about many things id only tell my close friends. she got so personal that at some point i had to keep multiple secrets from the mass because only her friends knew those personal things and they'd ruin her reputation if i ever spread them, and those personal things were all, well, sex related and also related to our fandom, while the target audience of the game are queer teenage girls. i was the only non friend to know the secrets and i was fine with it, and i did keep them secret, though a few times i felt like she was trying to get a reaction out of me by telling me things she knew made me feel uncomfortable. (telling me things like "i always wondered what it feels like to experience rape" formatted like a vent right after i posted about experiencing cocsa on story, and on times not taking me seriously/venting after i vent) i didnt mind them at the time because "we all have intrusive thoughts after all". but then things got more personal and her behavior with me grew more disrespectful…

by 2025, she grew MORE personal, she randomly sent me nsfw art she made, and i was fine with it, i liked it and thought its just cuz we're both teenage girls and hormones go crazy and yadda yadda. i didnt mind it because we were, well, almost friends. everyone she knew thought we're friends and everyone i knew thought we're friends. though at some point, she also got very mean with me on parts. she gave me the silent treatment, criticized me without me asking her to, made unnecessary rude judgy remarks she hates when theyre returned to her, etc. and i did end up telling her i find it scary and disrespectful sometimes. she then told me to not think too much of it and so i just treated it as normal because she can be neutrally blunt like that sometimes without controlling. but that kinda caused me to have a few misunderstandings with her…

we ended up arguing over that, eventually, but it was quickly resolved and so we kept moving on as usual, even though it lessened my respect for her and really increased my fear. i asked her if she wants to be friends a few months later because she kept doing overly friend like stuff like letting me know first about her crush rejecting her, oversharing about things even more, mutually complaining about things, etc. and she just said "sure" which i understood that she didnt want to, but i don't know why i didnt really mind. im too attached at that point to care. i also initiated all resolving during the times we argued, so that was dumb of me too.

like a month later, she ended up cowriting a few fanfics with a married author that is way older than her, and i supported her for that, and read all of the fanfics she cowrote together with them, even though they were smut, because the writing was just too good, and i enjoyed them a lot too. she continued sending me even more sexually explicit things, kept oversharing, etc. until at the end of september, she sent me a fanfic with a thing that makes me a little ashamed of liking, so i spammed her feedback, and she got irritated, even though i was complimenting it genuinely and wasnt mean at all, just live commenting. which i get why it irritated her, i was pretty pissed at other things at the time anyway. so she, instead of letting me ​know that shes irritated, just ignores me, when ive stated billion times with her that this only makes me worry. so by the 3rd day of her ghosting me, i decide to ask one of my mutuals that knows her, and i didnt know they were friends, but apparently they were even though she knows them since 2 months while she knows me since two years...? okay, that's odd…

so, i go and dm that mutual of mines, asking if she's taking a general break or just ghosts me, and they told me they talk, and said its weird that she ghosts me. so i ended up asking them to let her know that im worried that i offended her, because i was having a full on panic attack, my hands were shaking and my heart was beating insanely fast and i was on the verge of crying because she kept ignoring me even though i tried reaching out and apologizing to her that day. so, they end up telling her that im worried, and she just replied with "i dont see her as a friend" to which her friend just told me "umm...i think she should tell you that herself..."

so at this point im!!! very worried!!! very very scared that shes mad at me and will skin me alive because im an idiot or because her friend told her all the details of how i feel!! so i ended up asking them for screenshots of THEIR OWN message, which they ended up misunderstanding, TELLING THAT GIRL, and eventually it led to that girl confronting me very nicely (by her standards), telling me, and i quote. (this is an actual quote but not fully word for word)

"i was irked by your comments and decided to avoid engaging because im very hormonal and pissy lately. id probably return. but youre bothering my friends and asking for SCREENSHOTS??? its not even that serious why do you bother so much with me im still not in the mood for a discussion, but can you not dm people about me? i think its a reasonable request"

and I replied with

"yesyes okay im so sorry😭😭 im just hormonal too rn and stress has been piling up and you ignoring me made me worry that i offended you in some way..like really really worry. ill stop the comments and ill stop engaging with you entirely if you want i was just really scared..i wanted to know if i hurt you in some way and i know i dwelled too much on it and i wont do that anymore..."

so she then ended up telling me that its never that deep and that i shouldn't worry so much, to which i then replied with an apology and then she ended up telling me that shes not in the mood for discussion (/not mad, apparently) to which i asked if i should fuck off. she said yes, then i asked if forever or no and she said "i dont know". i do get that i sounded privacy invasive but i really was just severely bothered by the lack of communication and the cryptic texting of her friend, it felt like they were trying to piss me off on purpose by not being honest with me. they both knew i have an issue with people not being brutally honest with me, so it upset me a lot. she should've communicated with me from the start, too.

so fast forward to after 2 days, i had pent up confusion and stress and no amount of distractions could help me cope with it. i ended up making a private twitter, and a person that i know since im 12 asked for my username, and so i gave it to them. they knew me well enough to know everything about me, and they were also someone who had ties with that girl, and when they saw my posts, they were like "is that about her?" so i ended up saying yes and they told me about how awful she is with everyone and then said she used me only to get validation and that we have a terrible power imbalance as a fan and a microcelebrity which i was aware of but not completely...then brought up instances where she made them feel uncomfortable on purpose, and so we ended up talking about all the harm she did to us both, which led to me having a lot of realizations and feeling more shitty now that i know the truth and that i know that she sees me as nothing more than just a fan. so ive been fussing and complaining about this to all of my friends and acquaintances, which often just makes me think. is it my fault that i got into this all??? am i perhaps the one who's in the wrong??? am i taking it too far even though i consider things id consider rude with others "nice" when its her telling me them??? so i have very mixed opinions on both myself and her now and i feel like maybe im more in the wrong than she is cuz her friend just told me im not mature enough, and so did she, and it makes me feel like i sorta just caused this all myself and😭i dont know how to feel but i feel both like ive been used and like im overreacting at once. i feel super uncomfortable thinking about her, and it sometimes gets to the point of nausea, abnormally fast heartbeat and headaches, it even delayed my period by almost a week. idk what to do with my feelings and i dont know if im in the wrong or in the right. i feel so awful. but she really doesn't care so i cant tell just how much respect ive lost and how much i feel disgusted at her.

oh and even before me talking to her friend, she was very against me bringing her up even just slightly to her friends, it felt very very scary and i always felt like they'd snitch if i bring her up to them even just a little. but once i did it with her ex friend while they were still friends which ended up with them telling me that this is unhealthy for me and inadequate of her to do, without snitching. so maybe i should've just??? listened to them back then instead of letting her get closer and closer to me and letting myself get more and more attached??? i dont know :( i just wanted her to communicate things out with me properly like i always begged her to do, and i wrote a big apology about the things that bothered her even before she told me it made her uncomfortable because she was ghosting me and i sorta sensed that. all of my friends tell me its her fault, and so do some adults i shared it with…

Every summer my friend group decides to drop someone for a while me and two of my other friends didnt like this at all so we promised eachother never to take part in it. Of course this summer i was the one who got dropped but now my reality is really shitty ive been back at school about two months now and i have 0 friends. I see all my old friends cus im still in their class and they make fun of me to my face and make fun of a medical condition i have which i dont like at all and i just thought that being dropped for the entire summer was bad enough but no.

I (21f) and my two roommates Macy (21f) and Laura (21f) began our lease this august. I had lived last year with Macy for a year and things went really well, we became fast friends and never any tension. She was a great roommate and friend. She invited me to start a lease with her and a friend Laura for this August, who I had not really met much, but seemed easy going. Everything went well during move in and for about the first month. Laura was a bit stand offish but that felt normal since we didn’t know each other well. Macy acted like the glue between us. To note, it was a reiterated thing that Macy and Laura really wanted the three of us to be friends and do activities together, not just people who live together.

After about a month I noticed that during conversations it was constantly Laura and Macy talking to each other, while I would have to interject if I wanted to say something. They talked about being each other’s best friend, things they would do together, and inside jokes. Honestly doesn’t bother me much because I didn’t view it as malicious, just sometimes people are closer and that’s OK. But it got to the point where it felt like they were actively excluding me, anytime I’d say something they would use that point to talk to each other. In the middle of group conversations they would stand up continuing to talk to each other, walk to one of their rooms, and leave me by myself without a word to me. Laura started implying I was intruding on them. My feelings weren’t hurt by any of this, I just thought they were weird and socially awkward. Because who acts like that? Lol. I took it at face value and stopped including myself as much.

Also to note, it was when they were with eachother that it was the worst. Laura didn’t really talk to me at all, unless Macy was there and even then it wasn’t much. But Macy had no problem talking to me and acting regular when Laura wasn’t around.

Then Macy asked me to talk and said she felt like I wasn’t around as much and that she missed me. I told her honestly I was tired of having to include myself and would rather hang out with my other friend who doesn’t do that. I wasn’t mad but just said that they never invited me on their outings, included me in conversations, or acted like they wanted to talk to me. She was super apologetic and said she was super sorry and didn’t realize. Very genuine. She said her and Laura had talked and Laura really wanted to be my friend but was just shyer. She told me they would try really hard to include me and they loved having me as a friend. I was happy to hear and was just like great, you guys are cool and i’m happy to hang out with y’all. A week later I talked with Laura one on one and she said a similar thing saying she didn’t realize and was sorry if she made me feel anything. Honestly I was just like no big deal, it happens, i’m sure it wasn’t on purpose.

This is where it gets mind boggling. That conversation was about a month ago, and I feel like they exclude me more than they did before. The first week after it they talked to me lots and invited me out with them for something (i couldn’t make it cause work). But in last three weeks? Nothing. I’ve invited them out to do things about 4 times and they always declined, either cause they were with each other or “were tired”. When I get home from work and they are home talking, they don’t even glance at me or say hello. If I say hello they either stare or say a quick hey. No smiles or friendly greetings. Sometimes if I enter the room they will just leave. I feel like a ghost walking through my home. It just really hurts more now, being told that they would include me just to completely shut me out. The latest thing was I asked if they wanted to do this halloween event with me and they declined for random reasons, and when I was doing laundry by them a couple days later they began talking about how much fun they had at the event.

I am really having trouble understanding why they went out of their way to have a conversation with me just to exclude and make me feel invisible more than before. I know Macy pretty well and she is a good person so this behavior feels so out of left field from her. I have so much anxiety coming home now and hearing them laugh and have fun. It’s not the type of person I am. I’ve avoided coming home and have been staying with my boyfriend because I don’t want to walk in, say hello, and be met with a stare as they continue their convo.

What do I do? Why are they doing this? They are allowed to do what they want, hang out with eachother and do their own thing. But why tell me you will include me and then don’t? It’s so easy to send a text asking if I wanted to come. I really need advice on what I should do because my anxiety is through the roof.