Dear Riley,

I am completely new on this forum. I was browsing on the side where I got interested because of the title, that immediately evoke feelings. In me, of a particular situation I am deeply ingrained.

So here I am! Haha. And I thought I’d respond, also because it seems that there is a lot in common with my friendship.

Let me talk a little about mine. We are friends for a decade, actually a little more. As soon as I started to read about what you wrote about your friend, it felt a bit scary how much similar it is what I feel when it comes to him, to my friend.

Regarding these “feelings”, as I was telling, I feel like – at least how I could relate to your story was this: my friend is unparalleled. He is incomparable. I’m not sure whether you ever felt this way about your friend. It is kind of like a romantic way of a relationship, though, it does not have to be a romance, nor it needs to contain any kind of romanticism, but in the sense of, that it should be like – the ideal friend. So, maybe even better put, it is an idealist view on this friend.

As I was mentioning, I really don’t know whether this is ever how you felt with her. But this was what I immediately saw with my friend – how much it is the perfect friend. Someone, hence – something, that – if I had lost, it is something that I would be forever robbed out of. Something out of my very core, or from my soul.

This is probably why it seems so scary to let go. As generally the very idea of letting go, because, letting go would mean the end of the world that you cultivated with this dear friend. You and her, probably have some good things in common, as you are telling about it, so it makes her dear to you – a dear friend.

My friend, as I mentioned, we were friends, we have been friends for an incredible 11 years. Wow! Hahaha. It is beyond my imagination. And we have left our country for another one, where we lived together in a house for a year or a little more, and after that, I had left. I left to another city, and now, here I am, again in another country, in London, in the UK.

But this last move of mine was just a couple of days different from exactly one year ago. And this dear friend of mine I am telling about was calling me for a few times, then he was calling me very consistently. Then he stopped. Now one would ask, why didn’t I called him – I did. I did, many times, and 9 out of 10 he didn’t respond. He didn’t have to, due to his astrological complex. And this is as much as I will go into detail, because, as he is a very dear friend – he still is – I won’t give him out – I am protective about my relationships, especially about people I find important and with whom our importance is big and dear to me.

On top of that, I feel a little guilty now. I already do feel like I am giving out a little bit of him. But I also have to be honest, firstly, with myself. And this much. I can share.

I have been waiting for him for Christmas to come over to visit me from where he lives. This would have been the first time he would have done so. I was looking forward to him, and to his visit, but this whole year, financially and in other regards was a struggle. Not without results, nevertheless, it was. And I wasn’t only busy waiting for him. But every time we talked there was this feeling as if he didn’t feel it enough that I am waiting for him, although I did. And I remember I had told him, many times. Also, he was trying to do things like I was doing, so he tried to connect. But we haven’t seen each other for 8 years. To me, so many things had happened. To him, it was only that he changed his job once now, though, of course, he had experienced other things too in his life, changes in his relationships for example. But we consistently have been sharing a lot, and had plans together.

What I discovered was that he, from time to time, started to share ideas about what we could be doing in the future. I was looking forward to that, but I didn’t say anything whether it was going to happen from my side or not, but I did show my enthusiasm about these things. Because I cared. I did. A lot, and I was looking forward to him so much, not to speak of his Christmas visit.

What happened just yesterday was that, first time after very long it was me who didn’t pick up the phone. Only for a few days – but I enjoyed a little bit of solitude instead, knowing that very soon I am going to greet this very friend of mine in person. And, on top of that, I was going through a seemingly endless struggle of finding a job, which I just did! Plus some other relationship issues, living in my current flatshare difficulties, plus a pursue of my dream – music. So I wasn’t idle.

I’m just telling you all these because, I can, while myself am doing so, see how easy it is to overlook my own side. So I could relate to, when I read about your own struggles with how one-sided your relationship with this friend was/is. It isn’t fine when your friend isn’t respecting your boundaries, but keeps echoing her own; it isn’t fine when she thinks it is fine for her to independently move away from any contact or listening to when it comes to your side, but she doesn’t that she could respect whether it would be you who would be doing it. Let me ask one question, I think it comes evident: is this really a friend? Or is it rather an idea of a friend?

It is quite scary, as I had never questioned my friendship’s evidence, but I must ask the same with mine. I am not really sure! I don’t know. It is like: I certainly don’t want to give up on him, he is so dear to me, and there is so much we have been going through. But he isn’t responding now, but every now and then just adds, it’s not because of me, but him. It has always been like that. It’s never me it’s him. It was the first time that I dared – that I even realised I had never did – to tell him, “this is mine”. This is my side – there is you, and that is OK, and then here is me. This is what you are dealing with!

It’s not ok to surrender completely to a friendship when the other party can do whatever they want, but seemingly ourselves, nearly or, maybe… Well, not only nearly… Nothing. It maybe something else, rather than a friendship.

To ask whether it is or not, is always ok, and doesn’t hurt the intimacy of the relationship. Because in such a relationship, one’s self is so easily overlooked.

This is the first time I chose to challenge my friendship. I won’t give 11 years of true friendship away in one day! But I will dare to challenge it, if it is so one sided.