Before I start, I'd like to say that this post is
not about romantic relationships (and also that these last couple of pages have been
great. 👍). I have been in a happy long-distance relationship (I know, an oxymoron, right?) for almost seven months now. Things have been getting a bit shaky lately, but it's not bad enough that I have to come here for advice. I know how to deal with it.
However, this is the
general relationship thread, and I consider that to include friend relationships, which can be just as strong as romantic ones. So, if nobody objects, I'll continue.
(wall of text alert!)
I have a problem with a friend who drifted away from me for no reason, even when I made every effort to keep the friendship alive. We were best friends pretty much throughout high school, hung out every day at school with a small friend group, went over to each others' houses, did stupid stuff throughout the school year and especially during the summer, and so on. When we weren't hanging out, we were on Facebook forgoing homework to post stupid videos on each others' wall. We complemented each other very well, and even when we graduated and went our separate ways (we're both from the Washington, D.C. area; I'm a music major at Indiana University and he's a music major at a school in Virginia) we still kept it alive.
We are both musicians, and we would sometimes get together over long holidays to record multitracks that we wrote for ourselves. These were ridiculously huge undertakings; the Christmas multitrack we did in 2011 took three entire days to record, but the result was fantastic (which you can listen to
here if you're interested). We had a lot of fun doing it - multitracking is something I'm extremely passionate about, and he loved it too. I'm telling you all this because it was multitracks that caused me to first notice him drifting away. We planned to do several multitracks last summer, but after a summer full of doing stupid things outdoors together with some other friends as per usual, we only had time for one at the end of the summer. It was his idea, too - he really wanted to record one of his favorite jazz ballads, so one day he came over and we arranged it for ourselves. We would just barely make it before I had to leave for Indiana, and recording day ended up being on the last day I was home. But, alas, he "forgot", and I left for Indiana the next morning pretty bummed. I didn't blame it on him though - everyone makes mistakes and I wasn't going to be mad at him for forgetting.
But as time went on I started to think he didn't really forget. Every time that semester I'd try to Skype him just to hang out or plan the next Christmas multitrack or whatever, he'd say he was busy, something just came up, etc., so can we do it next week?...and then say the same thing the next week, and the next, and so on. Now I can understand being really busy in college, but I have a busier schedule than he does and I always made time to Skype my friends from back home. We ended up not Skyping at all that semester, and come winter break we were in an interesting situation. We had three weeks of break (our breaks coincide), and the middle week I was gone on a cruise with my family. So we could record the Christmas multitrack the week before or the week after. I wanted to do the week before so that I wouldn't have to worry about not playing for a week on the cruise ship. We ended up making lots of progress on writing the multitrack, but didn't even finish it before I went on the cruise. So we decided set in stone to finish writing and then record it as soon as I got back. My first day back I was ready to go and he said that he couldn't do it that day as his sister was flying back to her college that day, and I thought fair enough, spending time with his sister is more important. Then the next day I just asked if he was free that day to do it, and he never responded for the rest of the week and I drove back to Indiana with a heavy heart.
I decided thereafter that if he wasn't going to make the effort to keep our friendship going, I wasn't either, and if he wanted to hang out or do anything again, he was going to have to contact me first, to avoid any more disappointments. I decided that at the beginning of the semester, and these past 7-8 weeks he has not communicated to me
once. This past week a musical event at home happened that we both went to last year (his idea) and had a great time at. This year he posted pictures live from the event on Facebook, which I saw sitting in my home.
My thoughts on the matter are that he loves his group of friends at his college (as I do at mine), has changed by hanging out with them, and I no longer fit into that change. On the rare occasions where I do see him (like I did before my cruise during winter break), however, he's exactly the same as he always was. And in any case, the least he could do is just tell me that he's moved on or whatever else applies, instead of just repeatedly leaving me hanging. I didn't think it would be that big of a deal at first but after the friendship we had in high school these developments are heartbreaking and devastating, much like whenever I've been wronged by a girl.
My question to you all is this: is he gone for good or is there a way to get his friendship back? In the process he'll have to get my trust back, which is not easy, but is it possible? I'm afraid I can't just move on from this either - that's not the sort of person I am. I still have a wound in my heart from when I was left by my first girlfriend almost three years ago, even though I'm in a happy relationship. My feelings almost never leave me, and the only emotional burden I have right now involves this past friend.
TL;DR: Can you get back a friend who left you?
Apologies for the excessively long post...one of these days I might make a post about girls!
idiots...
Shouldn't it be, kinda like, the opposite?
