Is AUTHOR wrong in the post ? POST : TL;DR: Can’t really fully tell the situation without this long post, but basically because of the ways our personalities are, I did not put as much effort as my friend did. Some of my bad social habits were amplified for my friend as we are together 24/7 as college roommates and this combination caused them to eventually develop actual severe anxiety and painful panic/anxiety attacks. I don’t know if anybody is at fault, and just feel like an ignorant piece of shit in general.

Just want to clarify beforehand that I don’t think anybody in this situation is an actual “asshole”, but that I just don’t know if I should be feeling as guilty as I do and just need some advice. If this situation fits better in some other subreddit or community please let me know.

Story starts two semesters ago. My friend (lets call them Sam) and I both went to the same school together and mainly knew each from other high school before going to university. We were probably one of each other’s closest friends. We both had applied to transfer to the same university in the Spring 2018 semester. We both got in and decided to room together We knew about people who roomed with close friends from before and how it led to drama and broken friendships. We thought we were close enough to the point where we could talk about anything, and the alternative of having to room with someone completely random was worse (for me especially, at least, because I’m a bit of a germaphobe and kinda felt like I needed to be with someone tidy). 

In the Spring 2018 semester, we became good friends with few other people. Since we were in the same friend group, we saw each other almost 24/7. However, between end of Spring 2018 and early Fall 2018, we started noticing issues. To help preface this, I’ll quickly tell a bit about myself in high school. Early high school I didn’t like life and, even though I didn’t have any severe anxiety or anything of the sort, I still was always anxious and very low self-confidence. Later on I started hanging out with different people who made me a lot less nervous about being social. I became much more confident in myself, but I also lost some self-awareness. Even though I didn’t realize it at the time, I grew a small tendency to circlejerk around past events, inside jokes, and memes with people even when in the big group, which understandably can be awkward for those who do not know about it and could cause FOMO. It wasn’t a very significant issue at the time though, because we would only really see friends at school and had a lot of time outside of school with family and other friends to clear our minds. 

Even though I am somewhat outgoing now, I still need a lot of alone time to be happy. Sam, however, is pretty different in that they are a very high-energy person and put a lot of effort in their friendships. In the big picture sense, my idea of a close friendship is a lot different than Sam’s, and even though we both love each other equally, Sam naturally put in a lot more effort and attention that I did, and I was not able to reciprocate. This caused Sam to, over time and understandably, feel hurt and feelings of “why do I even try” because they would notice things about the energy I put in, big and small. This, combined with the FOMO and feeling of being left out from my circlejerk-y and sometimes inconsiderate tendencies made their mental state very bad. Sam talked to me about it. We eventually decided it was best if we stay really close and help each other through this, and that I work on my bad social habits and be more considerate. I am getting better with the habits, but the anxiety is now physically hurting Sam as they have actually somewhat severe panic/anxiety attacks sometimes. 

The attacks happen fewer and farther in between now, but I am scared that the anxiety will never leave Sam, and that it developed into something that will stay with them forever. I am helping them a lot as we figure it out, being cautious when I’m with Sam in social situations so as to not trigger bad memories from before and helping them calm down during an attack. We are totally on good terms and are working hard as two good friends to get through this, but the fact still remains that seeing me in social situations and small things I do trigger their anxiety. I did not expect to get into the type of close relationship that Sam expected early in college and I was just being the close friend in the way that I knew, but at same time so were they. Even though I was unaware of my bad social habits, I feel like they were never extremely severe, but the combination of the habits with being 24/7 with Sam, the energy/effort difference between us, and general stress from leaving home to college made it a lot worse from Sam’s perspective. I don’t know what to do, and I feel like I fucked over my friend’s completely happy and confident mental state because of my ignorance. I am starting to feel like how I felt beginning of high school, and dread social situations because I don’t want to hurt anyone or myself anymore. I know we are on good terms and will eventually find some kind of balance and work things out together, but I still feel like I caused this and don’t what to feel about myself, Sam, or anything for that matter.