full image - Repost: I miss my friend (22F) and I (22M) feel hurt that she is no longer in my life. How do I move forward from this 2 years friendship and stop finding myself in these types of dynamics in the future? (from Reddit.com, I miss my friend (22F) and I (22M) feel hurt that she is no longer in my life. How do I move forward from this 2 years friendship and stop finding myself in these types of dynamics in the future?)
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I have been friends with this girl for two years since 2022. We go tot he sae university and she's from my father's country and I met her on instagram. At the time i met her two years ago in 2022 she was very socially awkward and did not leave her apartment much, only for studying and that's it. When I followed her on instagram what intrigued me was that she had the flag of my father's country and where I live, hardly anyone here is from there. So from there I would respond to her stories and she would respond to mine and we started talking for months. I ended up learning she has no friends here, and learned a lot about her life and everything. She also helped me to connect with my father's culture side as they both are from the same country (but I was not raised much in that culture). I invited to her a school event a few clubs at my school club were having during the FIFA world cup in 2022 and we had a watch party and this was the first time her and I met in person. We had a short conversation and I introduced to some other people (people who i thought were my then friends) and then later on we had a subsequent event to which I invited her too and she came to the event. In both encounters she was very shy and scared to talk to other people and she ended up thanking me for introducing her to other people because normally she would just make excuses to not meet people and stay at home because of her social anxiety. Then comes 2023, and this is where things start to get weird. Her and I continued being friends and we go to events and I was not romantically interested her, to me she was just a friend a cool girl to be around and someone who helped me so much to learn about my dad's culture and she became someone who I could really relate to at this university where I also felt very insecure and like I did not fit in (I felt like i could relate to her). A number of guys would try to hit on her when they saw her and I together they assumed we were dating but when her and I made it clear we are just friends, the other guys started to get aggressive in their flirting with her (to o the point she would tell me she felt uncomfortable and I would have to tell them off). What pissed me off was her birthday in 2023. She told that she has nobody here. No family no friends here. So I wanted to do something special for her birthday and take her out to diner and or at least get her a present. She rejected it all (yet complained about having no one here etc). By this time we have been friends for a year. She talks to this 30 something years old stranger on facebook (who also comes from my dad's country and her country) and he sent very provocative sexually explicit messages to her. She ends up spending her birthday with him and his girlfriend (yes the guy being very sexually explicit to her on facebook who messaged her also had a girlfriend), and she spends her birthday with him and his girlfriend. She then complains to me afterwards that he told her you are not pretty, called her ugly, yelled at her, and his girlfriend calls her pretty (to which she was sooo happy about) and both of them were cold and rude to her (in spite of the guy's girlfriend complimenting her, she still insulted her too). She then goes out to see a movie with both of them on her birthday. And I just could not wrap my head around it. Why did she reject anything good from me but accepted mistreatment from someone who sends her sexually provocative messages on facebook, already has a girlfriend and treated her badly in person? I never understood this. But this ends up underlying why her and I are no longer friends. Later on she tells me about how difficult it is for her to make friends and she meets someone else on facebook (apparently she joined a facebook group that had people from her country who are new here). What happens next is just weird. Another guy who is older than her messages her and she goes out with him and then she complains to me that he grabs her breasts and forcibly is kissing her and yelling at her and she feels scared. She tells me he was yelling at her that you like it? You want it? or something like it. And she did not know why she did not leave. I go to another friend of mine for advice and both of them tell me to tell her to stop doing that because she could get into serious problems with those guys if it gets worse. I end up warning my friend (the girl from my dad's country) to stop meeting up with older guys on facebook, they are not trying to be your friend their just trying to sleep with you and they just treat you badly. I tell her this over an dover and over again. But she never listens to me. It then evolves into her finding guys on the street (literally on the street not even joking), and then her going on dates with them and then complaining afterwards that they sexualize her, outlined their crotch to her, made very very very sexually explicit comments to hr, fetishized her for how she looks (her skin colour mostly was the object of fetishization), and et cetera. Someone who I thought was my friend (who I helped to get him a position at a school club I was part of), ends up trying to cheat on his girlfriend with my friend, and that’s when I stop being friends with him. She ends up just stringing the dude along, I tell her over an dover to stop talking to him you cannot trust him he tried to cheat on his girlfriend with you you can’t trust him. He get's tried of trying to get with her (while he has a girlfriend) and just ends up blocking her all together and ignoring her existence (which bothered her a lot that he ignored her in person even though she claim she's weird and was not interested in him in a romantic way). I end up thinking, I think she just wants male attention that she is not actually looking for friends (i literally introduced to her to multiple girls too to be friends with and she never pursues being their friend at all only the guys). So I start thinking that this girl is not really interested in having friends, rather she is just interested in feeling validated that she is attractive. August of 2023, I had a bad encounter with a friend who was racist so I cut off contact with him. At the same time this is going on, she sends me a TikTok a racist TikTok that normally we'd make fun of the TikTok but instead in that moment I told her, sorry but I don't care about some stupid racist TikTok. Someone who I thought was my friend is being very racist right now and I feel hurt. (and this is where everything gets weird). She literally disappears. Gone. She blocks me on instagram and I cannot message her at all. I find this so weird. And I just cannot process what is going on. After I am done freaking out that my friend who I just cut off contact with is a racist, and I am trying to process this disgusting event (he was racist on so many levels towards me it shocked me that he was very very racist). After a few days I stat to blame myself for her blocking me. So I reach out to her through email (through our university email). I take all accountability and blame for everything. And then she unblocks me? We then have a conversation and she says, you attacked me. That shocked me because I did not attack her. But she accuses me of attacking her because I said I don't want to see some stupid racist TikTok. I then tell her that, I do admit that my words were cold and harsh but I was caught up in the heat of the moment because someone who I though was my friend was being racist to me. After apologizing profusely, taking blame for everything (even for her nonsensical claim of allegedly "attacking her" ) she then resumes talking to me and everything goes back to "normal". Fast forward to January of this year, her an I get closer and I am able to relate to her even more and I am happy that I finally am able to relate to someone at this university. I end up seeing her as a real friend someone to confide in and trust et cetera. by this time, she is aware of my insecurities, my low points et cetera. She then tells me about her friend who needs help finding a place to stay. I say okay. So then I reach out to my network of people and ask my guys for help if they can find her friend a place to stay. One of the guys messages me back and he ha s a place for her friend (who turned out to be a guy). Because she said her friend is from her country, I thought this was some childhood friend who had come here. It was not until a few months after the dude got a place to stay (from my contacts and his generosity of giving him a place to stay) that she tells me she met him here not in her country and she met him off the streets after hearing him speaking their language. That's when in my head I start seeing her differently. I start thinking, why would you do this??? I end up getting pissed off at this point. I end up continuing my self improvement journey and start finding out why in the past the girls I liked were manipulative. I end up learning that it's because I am grew up in an environment where my parents were like this so I am attracted to it now as an adult, because I am conditioned to view these things as normal I don't see the red flags. And due to my unmet emotional needs from childhood not being fulfilled, it facilitates for manipulative problematic people to take their place in my life. I start thinking, this woman devalues me. But this thought does not take firm roots until she tells me she likes this guy and then publishes a story on her instagram praising and thanking him for listening to her for a few hours and she is thanking god for him and all that. I become shocked because as her friend, I have been listening to her for 2 years, and barely even get a thank you. If I complain I get accused of attacking her. I gave her books recommendations to help her body dysmorphia and lack of self esteem. I have listened to her countlessly and made myself available for her all that and barely getting a thank you. Just for one guy who she meets off the street to love bomb her and just listen to her for a few hours and she is praising the heavens praising god for his existence. This pissed me off because i start seeing that this woman does not value me at all.I then prepare a text to her confronting her about this problem feeling devalued and she gaslights me instead of taking responsibility. She says I don't know what you are talking about, I have a boyfriend now so I can't always reply to you, and this and that and blah blah. Making excuses, claiming she doesn't know where it's coming from, denying undervaluing me. Essentially being gaslit. Then she acts all weird. She stops replying. Unfollows me. And a few minutes later i get a text from her stupid boyfriend. He tried to act like a tough man (lucky for me I don't back down from intimidation). So I go right at him and have a good cuss out with him. I end up blocking him and her too. She sees I blocked her and then finds my old instagram (that I do not even use anymore), and blocks me there too (i only found out about that later). And what is funny is that , we never had a conversation on WhatsApp, yet she blocks e there as well. I then see that I cannot trust this girl. And surprisingly my life got better immediately after. I start learning how to heal my anxious attachment style an start spending much more time by myself (and it felt nice to finally put my needs first). But now every now and then i fall into missing her because she was someone I could relate so much with, and I feel like I hardly meet people who i can relate to. I miss that she helped me so much to connect with my dad's culture (or my heritage culture lol). I end up missing how we would joke around about some stuff that it's difficult to joke with other people because they don't have the same familiar background in that area, (not everyone has the same humour). But whenever I remind myself like right now about the bad stuff about this entire friend relationship, I can clearly see that the bad outweighed the good by a long shot. It's been almost three months since the ending of our friendship. And i still find myself feeling nostalgia over the good parts of our friendship. Perhaps I am just seeing everything through rose tinted glasses and maybe it was not as good as I like to remember it. But I do find a part of my self missing her and fighting to not email her because I know it will be the same stuff over and over again. I want advice on :1) how can I move on2) reassurance and validation that this was not healthy and that I am not making up feeling undervalued3) red flags that I need to keep an eye out, so that in the future I do not find myself in this dynamic again4) anything else that would be beneficial for me and my situation even if they are insights on how I can change myself to not be in this situation anymore would be amazing Thank you so much to everyone in advance.
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