Fragmented Friendship

Hello all,

This may not seem like a big deal, but this is something that has made me feel a lot of emotions over the course of two years, and even now I don't know how to deal with it. I feel like I don't know who to talk to about it, or how to get advice, so I figure I might as well post something on here.

I used to have this best friend since middle school, and I thought we were going to be best friends forever. We were very similar in our interests and we even look similar, both being mixed race girls in a predominantly white school. We were friends even through high school. But while we were in college, things changed. She was one of the only people I knew from high school in college (we went to the same school for our Associates degree), and I barely ever saw her. My years at that school were very lonely, and she was always going to social events and being invited to go to parties,and I barely made any friends. I felt irritated and resentful. She has always been a social butterfly, very good at making friends, and she's always rotated her selection of friends to fit her mood. But I only have a few close friends, and I counted her as one of the best, so I felt upset that she wasn't spending as much time with me and didn't seem to be interested in inviting me to the things she went to. I know that's an immature way to feel now (years later), but at the time it stung.

She went on to her four year degree while I took a gap year out of school. I was burned out and needed a break. Every time I wanted to hang out with her, she said she was busy. I started every conversation, and even on days where she would say she could hang out, she would suddenly cut it short or cancel. I was patient about this because I knew she was in school and very busy. But my perception of that changed when one time she said she was too sick to see me, and then instead she spent the day hanging out with her boyfriend, and then later told me about it. Even though she tried to explain this away, it made me worried. I wish she had just been honest with me instead.

I began to feel even more unsettled in our friendship when I realized that if she had something she needed to vent about, I would spend hours comforting her and trying my best to make her feel good, but she didn't seem to care nearly as much when I was upset. She would act like she cared for about half an hour, then immediately start talking about her life and problems she'd had in the past that were similar to mine. I didn't feel like she cared about my problems as much as I cared about hers.

The straw that broke the camel's back was when I invited her to a Halloween party I was hosting and she came to it with her boyfriend (who she begged me to also invite as her plus one, even though I don't like him because he made a racist comment in the past about my heritage), and then she left before going in a haunted house because she said she couldn't handle that kind of intense environment. I tried to be understanding and said she could just go back to my house while we went in, and then we could could meet up after, but then she confessed that she had a rock concert that she'd already committed to going to at her college with her boyfriend, and that she wanted to go to that instead. This hurt the most because I had explicitly told her before the party that I was excited to see her again, spend time with her again after months of not seeing her. She asked me if I was angry at her, and I pretended not to be, because the way she asked it implied I would be in the wrong if I was. I told her to just go, and she left.

After that I decided not to talk to her or see her anymore. I know that she isn't a bad person, but she wasn't the kind of friend I needed. That's not her fault, and it's not mine. I know I wasn't perfect either, and I probably hurt her before too, so I thought it would be good for both of us if it didn't live on as strong. I stopped initiating. I stopped asking her to hang out, I stopped being interested in what she had to say. I didn't want to hurt her, so I acted like we were just naturally drifting apart. I forced a distance between us, to the point that now we are both very different people, two years after that. But what makes me feel confused and have pain in my heart is that since I left her, she started chasing me. She started initiating. She started saying that we should hang out (but not really doing anything to make that happen). She comments on my posts online. She seems so eager and happy anytime there is an opportunity to talk to me. She is reaching out her hand all the time but I feel as though it's too little, too late. I wish that she had acted this way from the beginning. I am filled with bitterness, but also frustration at myself for being unable to let go of my hurt, and fear at getting the affection I wanted when I no longer want it. I feel like when I stopped comparing myself to her, I was able to grow more as a person. I don't want to lose that.