We met in college about 10 years ago and hit it off immediately. She is the loud, sometimes obnoxious, attention loving performer-type and I, the goofy, introverted hermit, emotional artist-type. 

The dynamic of our relationship has always been that I'm there for her whenever she needed me and if she was struggling with something, I was happy to spend however long talking her through it. I'm assuming with as much as I've done for her and helped her out in the past, she felt like she could rely on me. But, it wasn't so much the same for me. See, most of our conversations would always somehow end up focusing on her, even if it was something \*I\* wanted to talk about. Still, I considered her as my best friend and even an extended family member for all the events/family dinners she's been at.

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So, fast forward...I leave our hometown, move across country a few times, get married. She stays back home, pretty much doing/living the same life before I left. We halfassedly keep in touch while I'm away, and we even organize double dates/hangouts when I'm back home. But, over time, keeping in touch becomes more and more difficult and there's resentment compounding on my end for ridiculously stupid things like "she never likes my pictures on instagram", "she didn't message to ask if I was ok when she saw I was in the hospital", "I'm always the one saying hello and she takes forever to respond to texts, yet she hits me up when she needs help with something", etc...

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So eventually, I got sick and tired of her shit and sent her this text;

 

Hey dude,

Just wanted to reach out to apologize for being in town for over a week and not getting in touch. To be honest, I’ve been kind of upset over the past few weeks and I got to a point where I thought it would be best not to reach out. It hit me some time later that letting anger get in the way of honest expression is the reason why most friendships wither and die over time. So my idea in being completely honest with you here is so that I have a chance to get it off my chest, give the situation an opportunity to unveil all of the hundreds of other possibilities my one perspective might be missing, and most importantly give this friendship another chance to survive. 

I want to be super clear that while this message may seem one sided - it’s just me expressing everything I feel. And, what I feel is all I know. I fully open the possibility of being completely wrong and having misunderstood things. Ultimately, I’m reaching out because I’m not comfortable in making my own assumptions of the truth to a two sided story. How could I possibly?

Anyway, for as long as I’ve been capable, I’ve always done my best to help you. I answered your call when I was on vacation to walk you through Instagram marketing, set up your YouTube ad campaign over the holidays, and have never hesitated to share with you anything and everything I’m doing that has helped me - in order to help you. I never expected anything in return because that’s not why I chose to help. I helped because I thought we had a mutual respect and care for one another as friends and as independent artists. But every time I reached out to say hello, I’d never get a response, and when I did it was super delayed and the excuse was always the same. I became extremely ill right around your birthday but I messaged to wish you a happy birthday but you didn’t respond until a week later, after you saw that I was in the hospital. By the end of all that - you reached out to ask me what happened, I was so tired of not being responded to, that I answered in a way to cut the conversation to avoid waiting for a response that would never come. That made me so sad. And made me wonder if you really cared. 

So, ultimately it was time to go back home for a visit and I was extremely resentful towards you. To me, it feels like I’ve inserted many coins in this friendship vending machine only to feel like I’ve just come up short. You may have noticed that I didn’t mention being busy as an excuse I’m interested in talking about. I know how busy I am and I’m assuming your schedule is no different. 

In all honesty, I wasn’t going to send this at until I played this 30 min exercise / game and it opened my eyes to why I should. (do it on desktop browser to fully understand what I’m talking about). 

Whatever happens I feel good about being honest with you. Life’s too short to be angry and I don’t want to keep thinking about it. I will always love you.

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She responded by saying she needed time to think things through and that she loved me and respected me...but then turned around to unfriend/unfollow me and she hasn't bothered to reach out like she lead me to believe she would. I feel hurt and used obviously, but the question that wracks my brain constantly is this...Am I an asshole for calling her out? Did I make it impossible for her to want to remedy the friendship? Was I too aggressive? I want to know what I did wrong to warrant her wanting nothing to do with me. It's so f\*\*\*ing confusing. 

Thx for reading.

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