The one person who comes most to my mind is this friend from my school. We were good friends and almost inseparable. Suddenly, her attitude changed. When I used to call her, she would say she is busy. Once we were working on a group project, when she had to go to her sister’s birthday. That night she called me to talk about the project and asked me to take down notes which I should type out and email to another team member. It was late at night and I was about to go to bed. I asked her to directly call the other team member and give him the notes. It seemed more efficient that way. She said there was already a lot on this other team member’s plate and others had to contribute as well. I said I did sent material, but didn’t get feedback from the rest of the group. She said all my contribution was useless. I felt bad and told her that it wasn’t useless and she could directly talk to the other team member. After that, she didn’t talk to me at all. I telephoned her and she pinned it down to this incident. She said things would be back to normal now, but they weren’t. Then I realized, her behaviour had been different since before this incident as well. A lot of times after that, I saw her give me angry stares. Over the summer, we met to celebrate a classmate’s birthday and she gave me a very angry stare and didn’t even greet me. I felt bad and thought something was wrong with me and it was my fault. At the end of the summer, she started talking again, but I didn’t want to talk to her as I felt she didn’t treat me right. We met at school events after graduated, but never had that intimate relationship that we once had. We were Facebook friends, but then last year she had liked one of my pics, and I felt annoyed that she could see my private moments, so I unfriended her. No one else acknowledged that I was hurt and that my feelings were valid. I spoke to a mutual classmate last year and expressed my displeasure at her behaviour when we were in school. I think this came up because he was talking about her.

Other incidents have been when I felt hurt because my friends didn’t share important information with me – like moving back to my city etc. when I shared a lot of my private stuff. I felt I was looking out for this particular one and I had helped her a little with her job search. Next thing I knew, I found out from someone else who found out from someone else about her major career move. I had shared my hurt with another friend and he inadvertently let it slip out to her. She wrote me an angry email and we had an argument. She called me judgemental, and that my priorities were wrong in life which lead to my depression. I also told her that she was very insecure. I have reached out to her and we might meet this week, but it will be very awkward. I thought we were good friends, but this was one-sided.

There are other similar examples.