Dear Ishita,

first, happy birthday to you!!

As for your conversation with X, well, I think it reveals a lot about him. But first, let me say, I notice you didn’t want to tell him explicitly why you feel upset with him:

He asked me to tell him what instances did i exactly feel were the reasons for this misunderstanding.

And I told him, that I am not gonna babysit him, narrating each such incident because I feel, if he really wants to understand he is smart enough to retrospect and figure out on his own, because otherwise everything that I say, he would just try to defend hinself, making me feel like a stupid who is getting manipulated, So I am not gng there. If he doesnt feel he was at fault, then maybe our ideas on friendship are pretty different, and then it doesn’t make sense for us to stay friends.

Then, he asked again to give him specific examples so that he wouldn’t cross boundaries again. Again, you didn’t say in what ways exactly he was crossing your boundaries (by sexting, by calling you his bae, by opening emotionally to you, by spending huge amounts of time talking with you, by speaking highly of you and standing up for you, by expecting you to call him first and inform him about your whereabouts, etc). You just said that you had unnecessary expectations from each other:

Its because we were having a lot of unnecessary expectations from each other, and that was leading to fights that shouldnt happen if we r just friends, (and I have repeatedly told him that even when I thought we were something)

To which he said, I always felt they were resolvable, so I didnt exactly mind.

The discussion from then on focused on those mutual expectations – whether they existed and whether they meant something more. It seems that for him, those expectations (e.g. that you call him first, or that you tell him your whereabouts) weren’t such a big deal. If he’s a narcissist, he might have felt entitled to be put first, not because he has feelings for you, but because it’s in his character to feel entitled.

For you on the other hand, the expectations were so big because behind them was that you’ve fallen for him, and thought that he feels the same. You assumed that he wouldn’t behave like a boyfriend if he doesn’t want to be your boyfriend, so you already started treating him like your boyfriend. You claimed the right to be No1 in his life, that he reports to you, informs you about everything etc.

In short, the motivation for the two of you behaving similarly on the surface – expecting from each other a certain kind of dedication and special treatment – might be different for each of you. For him it might be his narcissism, and for you is that you have feelings for him, you’ve fallen for him.

He also admitted than he has 2 or 3 other friends with whom he regularly fights, one of them being a girl, his childhood friend. He says those are minor issues, but at the same time she asked him not to talk about it with anyone. Which tells me that those might not be minor issues, after all. He might have some flirting going on with her too.

He claims that he had too big expectations from you only once (was it when he got mad that you didn’t come on meet, btw?). And he says he didn’t feel you had too big expectations from him, except in a few occasions when he got annoyed (perhaps one being when you accused him of not letting you know that he’d be sleeping all day?).

You asked him about your intense two-month period:

Tell me just one last thing X, during these entire two month period, how much do you feel was ur fault for me ending up feeling this was ?

You again didn’t mention the real problem – his sexting, calling you bae, etc – but kept it vague. He responded by listing just one event where he sees how he possibly might have upset you, but other than that, nothing:

he legit said, just one event and apart from that whatever I did to you I did it because you were my good friend and I guess its just you who thought abt everything to this extent.

I was breaking by then, it was just so sad , realising, how much I want to be around him as a friend, but I don’t know if he deserves this friendship or should I actually let this go, and just get back to being friends( but this time with boundaries)

Since he pretended to be clueless till the end, I don’t know how he would have reacted if you gave him concrete examples of how he was crossing your boundaries. But in any case, this is what’s coming to me: Do you really want to be around a guy who sexts with you, calls you his bae, speaks so highly of you, opens up emotionally to you, behaves like a possessive boyfriend, and then says it means nothing to him and that’s how he treats all of his “best female friends”? Because now suddenly he called you his best friend, right next to his ex girlfriend who was his “best friend ever”.

He has been very particular abt to whom he refers as best friend.

So you should be “honored” to be put so high on his friends list, in fact to be put among his very few best friends, whose boundaries he can cross left and right and sext according to his liking, while acting clueless that he’s doing anything wrong. This is probably his idea of best friend – to tolerate this kind of narcissistic behavior.

I really don’t know if you should spell out the concrete examples of his misbehavior, and explain that it’s not how one should treat their best friend unless they’re interested in them romantically. It would only make sense if he were clueless about what he was doing, to sort of educate him and open his eyes. But I am not so sure he’s clueless, because you said he can very well see this kind of behavior in other guys. If so, it means he is deceptive and manipulative. And in that case, the best is to cut contact with him, and not allow him to mislead you again.