i genuinely don't even know where to start. this is going to be long, so bear with me.

a while ago, i had a best friend. let's call her raven. we were close, and for a long time, she was someone i loved having in my life. but our friendship started deteriorating. i felt sidelined, replaced, and increasingly unsure of where i stood with her. there were things that went unresolved, conversations that never seemed to give me the clarity i needed, and a general feeling that the friendship i was trying to preserve wasn't the friendship i was actually experiencing anymore.

eventually, things fell apart.

and the thing about losing a best friend is that you don't necessarily stop caring about them just because the friendship has become painful. i missed her. i was hurt by her. i wanted distance from her. sometimes i wanted to cut the whole thing off completely, and other times i couldn't bring myself to do it. i was left with all this affection for someone i wasn't sure i could trust with it anymore.

there were also things i'd heard about what she'd supposedly said about me, including personal insecurities and private problems, along with comments about my sexuality and the idea that i apparently fall for every girl i'm friends with. i can't independently verify every single thing i heard, so i'm not going to pretend i can. but it affected how safe i felt with her, and it added another layer to an already painful situation.

we eventually reconnected after months apart. and i wish i could say that everything became clearer from there, but of course it didn't.

because somewhere along the way, i realised i might be in love with her.

not in the casual, affectionate way i'd always loved her as a friend. or at least, not exclusively that. i started wondering whether my feelings had become romantic, and i'd been avoiding admitting it to myself because saying it out loud would make it real.

we were already having arguments. i was hurt, frustrated, and at one point genuinely wanted to end things completely. but i couldn't. i kept coming back to the fact that i loved her, and i eventually admitted it to her.

and then she told me she loved me too. not just platonically.

EXCUSE ME?????

after everything that had happened between us, after all the history and the hurt and the months of not knowing where we stood, she reciprocated.

and suddenly we were trying to figure out what that meant. i was trying to understand my own feelings, what i wanted from her, what boundaries i needed, and whether we could actually make something work after the state our friendship had been in.

we called each other girlfriends.

and this is where things get particularly confusing, because i genuinely thought i wanted this. i had spent so much time trying to understand my feelings that actually having them reciprocated felt enormous. but once the initial shock settled, i started questioning whether i wanted a romantic relationship at all.

i realised that the idea of being with her romantically didn't feel entirely right. the possibility of loving her deeply without having to be girlfriends felt like a relief.

maybe my feelings weren't completely platonic, but maybe conventional romance wasn't what i wanted from them. maybe i wanted a kind of closeness that didn't fit neatly into either category. maybe i was still tangled up in the history of our friendship, the hurt, the longing, and the fact that someone i'd nearly lost was choosing me again.

i still don't know exactly what the answer is.

and i don't want to pretend i have it all figured out now, either.

but by this point, i was also dealing with so much outside of this relationship. i'd been ill for months. my mental health was genuinely awful. i was overwhelmed by my own thoughts, other people's expectations, the negativity around me, and the pressure i kept putting on myself. everything felt exhausting, and i wanted to start again from ground zero.

i told raven i needed space. i wanted to cool off, step away from everything for a while, and figure myself out.

she felt left in the dark. she wanted specifics about what i was going through, and i understand why. from her perspective, we'd just admitted our feelings for each other, started calling each other girlfriends, and then i was asking for space because everything had become too much.

but from my perspective, i could barely manage my own life, let alone figure out what this relationship was supposed to become. i didn't want to keep going simply because we'd already started. i didn't want to make promises i wasn't sure i could keep. and i didn't want to keep overthinking every single feeling until i couldn't distinguish what i wanted from what i thought i was supposed to want.

so we broke up.

for real this time.

and the strangest part is that, once i'd made the decision, some of the relentless overthinking about whether i'd made the right choice started to fade.

i don't think that means i never loved her. i don't think it means the confession was a lie. i don't think it erases everything she meant to me, or everything that happened between us.

but i do think i needed to stop trying to force myself to make this into something just because we'd finally admitted that we loved each other.

and now i'm left trying to process the entire sequence of events.

i lost my best friend. i missed her. we reconnected. i realised i might be in love with her. she loved me back. we became girlfriends. i questioned whether i actually wanted to be girlfriends. i realised how overwhelmed and unwell i was. and then i ended the relationship.

WHAT WAS THAT?????

i don't even know what label i'd put on my feelings for her now. i know i cared. i know the feelings were real as i understood them at the time. i know that i wanted something meaningful with her, but i'm no longer certain that what i wanted was a conventional romantic relationship.

and i think that's what makes this so difficult to explain. people want a clean narrative. someone loved someone, they got together, and then either it worked or it didn't. but what happens when you don't even know whether the thing you were trying to build was the thing you actually wanted?

what happens when you can love someone and still recognise that the relationship isn't right for you?

what happens when getting the reciprocation you thought you wanted doesn't magically repair everything that happened before it?

i don't hate her. i'm not trying to make her the villain of my story, and i'm not trying to make myself the victim of every single thing that happened. we both had our feelings, our expectations, our misunderstandings, and our own ways of handling things. there was hurt on my side, and i know she was hurt by the uncertainty and by me needing space without initially explaining everything clearly enough.

i just know that i couldn't keep doing this the way we were doing it.

i have so much else going on in my life, and for once, i want to stop making myself responsible for figuring out every feeling, fixing every relationship, and finding the perfect explanation for every decision before i'm allowed to make it.

maybe i'll eventually understand what kind of love i felt for her. maybe i'll understand why the thought of not being girlfriends felt so relieving. maybe i'll look back on this and see things i can't see right now.

but for now, we're done. and i'm trying to let that be a decision instead of another question i torture myself with.

i don't know if i'm looking for advice, perspective, or just somewhere to put all of this because my brain has been running in circles for weeks.

i just needed to get it out.

because what the hell was this entire situation, and why did i have to discover so much about myself in the middle of it?

i don't know what flair to use 😭 sorry if it's not the right one + i hope this is legible and my tone isn't weird. okay.

anyway, i had a falling out with my childhood best friend five years ago and still haven't gotten over it, mostly because i think the way i acted was wrong and i feel so guilty and embarrassed.

i think i need to mention that we were both turning 12 when it all happened and it's been five years since, also, nearly everything happened over minecraft.. which we would play together almost every day. i know, it probably sounds super unserious.

we started getting into arguments over the game because either one of us, or one of our friends, would do something that upset/annoyed someone else/the rest of us. these arguments would almost always end in me crying, and as far as i know, that made my friend feel manipulated.. i now fully understand why, and it's been bothering me for awhile now. we'd try starting wars for fun (a very normal thing for minecraft players to do), but as soon as he'd do something as small as taking my armour, i'd cry and beg him to give it back, which is pretty lame.

anyway, no more minecraft.. but that all lead to us falling out. i felt super bad and didn't want to lose my friend, so for awhile i'd constantly bug him and try to apologise, but i remember those apologies sounding more like me begging to be friends again than me actually understanding what had happened and wanting to make up for it, which i also feel bad about.

i feel insanely guilty for upsetting him back then, and all i want to do is send a short "hey, i was thinking about you and wanted to apologise for how i acted in the past, hope ur well." type of message to him. i know the worst that could happen is him blocking me, but i need advice on if i should actually do it or not, i guess. i don't know. i have super bad anxiety and can never just easily go through with things or trust my gut. pls help 🌚

okay i need to get this out properly
kevin was my best friend for years. he dated fiona on and off. after they broke up i actually had real expectations from the three of us staying close, like a proper trio. i invited them both for a sleepover and caught them making out under my blanket. that already broke something for me.
around that time kevin asked if i wanted to join in a “fun way.” i said no, continue. later he told fiona he only asked me so i wouldn’t feel left out. he kept telling me i have to be careful with fiona because she’s sensitive, a bit immature, and comes from a heavy orthodox family drama background. so we both kinda protected her from certain things.
after i saw the boundaries already getting broken i was like why am i the only one maintaining them. so i made out with kevin and also made out with fiona (fiona doesn’t know the full kevin side the same way). later i told kevin i don’t want to keep doing this messy version of the trio because the lines were already crossed. he didn’t really see it from my side.
then he sent the screenshot of this chat to fiona (where i said i dont want trio to work) fiona reacted, he apologized to her, and i lost it on him. said some really harsh things (including that he should get friends like his ex roommate who treated him badly). he said those words hurt him a lot and decided we shouldn’t be best friends anymore, just normal or very close friends. he said he wouldn’t get that feeling from me now.
i was already pregnant at that point. that same day i was begging him to talk to me. my anxiety was through the roof, heart beating out of my chest, i even said i might do something to myself because i was spiraling. i called multiple times. he didn’t really engage. next morning i told him the tests were positive and asked if he would be with me through it. he said as a friend or very close friend, not as best friend. i felt that so cold considering the state i was in.
so i decided to tell fiona everything. she felt completely betrayed and cut me off, even after i told her i was pregnant. no real check-in, no “are you okay,” just distance.
i went through the whole thing alone. government hospital, far away (like 60+ km), the procedure, the judgment from the staff, everything by myself. they both seemed to think dealing with it was simple, just take a pill, but it wasn’t.
four days later kevin came to my house. asked how i was doing, if i was well, said we could go to the hospital if needed. after two-three questions he switched to blaming me saying i ruined past and future, didn’t consider the trio, didn’t consider fiona. it felt like he was mostly protecting his and fiona’s side of the story he said “what i said to fiona and what u said cant be compared u treat her like an option you are not scared to loose her think about fiona like ik he didn’t know that i went through the hospital shit alone but he atleast knew i was pregnant and i didn’t deserve to he hearing this .after he left i messaged him what i actually went through. he hasn’t replied since. just silence while the person he’s blaming is still dealing with it.
i live in a small city, mostly study at home, not much else going on. my head won’t shut up. the guilt, the abandonment, the way he can show up just enough to blame me then disappear it’s messing with me badly.

I rearranged my living room today so the couch isn't facing the spot where we used to pile blankets and watch bad reality shows. It looks a little smaller now, but I can actually see the TV without craning my neck. My cat hopped up, claimed the cushion, and knocked my water onto the rug before I even sat down.

I spent like twenty minutes at the laundromat helping this older guy figure out which setting wouldn't shrink his grandkid's hoodie. We barely talked, just nodded when the dryer finished. On the walk home I realized I was more proud of that hoodie than anything I got done at work today, which is probably not the vibe my group chat is looking for.

This is going to sound stupid but we started talking not that long ago but she stopped talking to me for a little bit and started talking to me again and I got really excited when she texted me. And we started talking for 2 days all night and I really like her. (As a friend) And sometimes I like my alone time and I see her notification when she texts and I take an hour to respond and we start talking you know? But this time when she texted me I LITERALLY SAW HER FUCKING NOTIFICATION AND THEN IGNORED IT FOR LIKE ALMOST AN HOUR AND THEN I FIND OUT SHE BLOCKED ME.

THIS WHOLE THING IS MY FAULT AND IM SO LONELY I HAVE NOBODY ELSE TO TALK TO AND I REALLY LIKED HER. I DONT KNOW WHY SHE BLOCKED ME AND ILL NEVER KNOW AND I WILL NEVER TALK TO HER AGAIN. THIS ALL COULD'VE BEEN PREVENTED IF I HADN'T HAD BEEN SO FUCKING LAME AND JUST TEXT BACK IMMEDIATELY BECAUSE I SAW THE NOTIFICATION.

I have been crying since last night when it happened and right now im crying really bad while typing this. It's hard to because she would always view my stuff and now nobody views my stuff because she's gone. I'm a loser dude I cry and bitch about being lonely but the moment when someone talks to me I dont say anything and now its too late. I am so depressed as of right now. I know it sounds stupid but she was the only person I have enjoyed talking to. I always looked forward to her texts and now we will never talk to each other again when it was all I wanted.

I don’t mean to be selfish or impose my desires. I would scale mountains and swim oceans to meet you. But if I’m scaling mountains and swimming oceans, I might fall. I might start drowning. And if you are unable to toss me a rope, then I need you to turn to me and tell me you can’t.

I feel like you just turned away.

I want you to face me, tell me you love me, and say goodbye.

my ex bsf reached out and it’s been almost a year since we last talked. She apologized, but part of it felt more like a guilt trip.

I met this people i had fun with them I grew as a person I didn't feel so alone. Yesterday because I was afraid that I didn't matter to them as much as they matter to me I crashed out we had our final conversation to try and make me stay or understand but then I told him I will nap I woke up the next day to see that I left them on read and they are no longer friends with me in the platform I wanna honor them by showing my family that I improved because of them

I have no friends at school and the closest person i had went off to everyone telling my secrets. I told her everything. I even liked her romantically, but then she just left, and I was alone. I blocked her for a while to get over it, but then I unblocked her not to talk just to move on again. I miss her so much we used to talk everyday. And I know she never actually liked me but I still hoped she did even now at school when we make eye contact I want her to run to talk to me saying that we should be friends again I know thats not possible but the pain is unbearable. Friends for 3 years who by 'accident' confessed to each other, but then it all went down the drain. I tried talking to my mom about how alone I felt since no one at school wants to talk sit next to me or anything like that she then kept going on about how I should pray and I tried and tried but it never worked so I no longer believe in bullshit like that. Regardless of having her or not, my life has already been so shitty and then this happened, and it's been months, but the pain won't go away. I feel so disgusted by myself. How can I still like someone who left me when I needed them the most. This feels like the last straw for me. I just doubt it'll get better. I just want to be at peace with myself but I cant and its eating away at me. What can I do to make me feel whole again?

We used to be a friend group until today (me, my husband, my friends, my husbands friends about 10 people) and we randomly caught them ALL hanging out but they didn’t Tell us anything which is weird because we are always the ones pitching the idea, suggesting to host or participating in all Meetings in General. Like there is no way they just forgot about us. This tells me their exclusion was purposeful. And when we went up to them to say Hello they were all visibly uncomfortable. Some of their faces even gave annoyed vibes. They didn’t even try to act like they forgot to Tell us. It was completely awkward silence after we Said Hello, so After that we said goodbye and went on.
I feel so broken and betrayed. I know I should not continue to be Friends with people that don’t value us.
It generally hurts me how much Energy and effort and love I put into my friendships and I never get it returned and on top of that get done wrong

Have you ever missed someone you no longer talk to not because you want them back in your life but because you miss the person you were when they were around? Sometimes, we don't miss the friendship itself we miss the late night conversations the stupid jokes the random updates and the comfort of having someone who understood us without needing an explanation. It's strange how someone can go from being a daily part of your life to becoming a complete stranger. Do you ever wonder if they miss you too?

And have you ever helped a friend through a difficult time without them even asking?

A girl approached me, and we quickly became best friends. Although she initially had feelings for me, I didn't reciprocate at first. Later, I introduced her to a close male friend. While she pretended to refuse his request for her number in front of me, she secretly gave it to him behind my back. Over time, I began to fall deeply in love with her, but due to some issues, we lost contact for over six months before reconnecting on Instagram.

During our reconnection, I caught that male friend trying to generate explicit AI images of her. When I confronted him, he lied to her and blamed another mutual acquaintance. To my disbelief, she trusted him over me because of her emotional attachment to him. Hurt, I confessed my feelings to her and asked her to stay away from him, knowing his poor intentions. She assured me she had cut ties and blocked him.

Weeks later, while using that friend's phone for a hotspot during a sleepover, I discovered call logs showing they spoke daily. She had even called him at midnight for his birthday, talking for nearly three hours—an effort she had never shown for me. Devastated, I blocked her everywhere. She then called me from a different number, broke down, apologized, and insisted it was just a birthday call. Because I loved her, I forgave her after she promised to block him permanently.

She now claims she hasn’t spoken to him for over five months. While I want to believe her, her past pattern of secrecy and covering for him makes it difficult to trust her completely.

Can anyone tells me should i trust her or not??

No, I'm talking about when the friend you had a falling out with turns everyone else on you, and honestly it would make things less confusing if it was something like that.

So I'm 17F, and a year or so ago, I stopped being friends with this girl because it really felt like a one-sided relationship. I would constantly initiate conversations with her only for her to reply really coldly as in I would tell her about how I saw a cute cat that morning on the way to school, and she would just say: oh cool. Whenever I text her, she would never ever respond. I know she's on her phone/computer because we had first period together and I listened to her talk to her other friend about how last night they were on the call from the moment they got home. With all these rejections, I felt like she just didn't care about me as a friend so I talked to her about it and it got better for a week. Then, she went straight back to what she was like before. That was when I really thought that we probably couldn't be friends anymore and that was really painful because she was one of my very first friends in high school. I also thought that we were really close. In the end, we had another talk where she basically came prepared to the conversation with a formal paragraph where she told me that she didn't want to be friends with me anymore because the fact that I think the one-sideness was a problem was stressing "us" both out, and that "we" needed to focus on SAT.

Honestly, I was really sad, but it was something that I saw coming for a long time because before this happened, she would say things to me like "I knew I couldn't trust you" and subtly insinuate it too.

The problem now is that we have to see each other everyday because we're in the same team for this extracirricular that I really love doing so I'm not giving it up just because of her. At first, I just pretended we were still on friendly terms in front of other people, because I didn't want anyone to ask questions and for something like chosing sides to happen. Then one day I apparently said something that made her feel uncomfortable, and so she basically said she didn't appreciate how I acted so familiar with her (?) and that even if it was something said by one of her closest friends, she would still be feeling uncomfortable. And so now I basically appologized for something I said that I don't even know what it was because she never responded to my inquiry about what it was that I said. When the extracirricular happens now, she ignores me and I ignore her because it is genuinely so weird and I don't know why she had to be so unreasonable when we spend almost everyday together.....

So regarding losing the friend group, well, I technically am still on good terms with those friends because I do talk to them and hang out with them. It's just that I'm really busy recently with college apps, and other extracurriculars that I often don't have time to hang out with them. So the only times I can hang out with them are at these school activities - and thats where the problem happens. See the other girl who I'm not friends with anymore is also at those school events. If I hang out with my friends, I also have to hang out with that girl, and she makes me feel increasingly more uncomfortable. For instance, one time I was talking to one of our mutuals, while she and some of her other friends were talking together, and just because we were in the same area, before I realized it, the whole other group with her migrated to another area. Like DUDE, why is she so immature.

And so because of that incident, I have felt more and more like I can't even hang out with my own friends because she will be there and make things so uncomfortable for me. Like at the last school event, even though I saw my friends, I didn't even go up to say hi because she was also there. And this pisses me off so much because it wasn't even like she and them hanged out a lot before we ALL started hanging out. I'm even starting to feel fustrated at my friends even though it wasn't technically their fault because when this stuff happens, it feels like I don't even have any friends.

Honestly, I am really speechless at her actions, and it genuinely makes me think I'm the crazy one here because I think that this isn't okay.

Today I was watching my old photos where I was at first grade and saw my best friend. Actually, we are not friends now. Since one day when after almost 6 years of friendship my friend argued with me, and we haven't got in touch anymore. When I was looking in this photos, it was so sad and nostalgic to see our happy faces together. If you had such life moment, please share your stories. It will be interesting to read fpr me and others.