That’s right. And truthfully speaking, I have a feeling that her sister’s counseling (for lack of a better word) has turned her against me even more. Not that the latter is malicious, but both of them share this delusion that the Indian culture’s dogmas are the ultimate truth, a boy no longer has the right to even quietly develop feelings for a girl once they call each other brother and sister, etc. I’m not saying that developing the aforementioned feelings is fully right, but breaking relations and treating me like a pervert and traitor is just extreme. I know that she’s being cold even towards a couple of mutual friends who had given her messages from me (neutrally, in one case). She and her sister totally believe that whatever they do/think is The Right Thing ™ and everybody else is wrong. I don’t know how to make her see sense.

I agree with your views regarding what would be right to send her. But some points really need to be considered in this regard before sending her anything.

1) She presently thinks the absolute worst of me. No matter how much she says “I have no anger towards you”, she’s fooling only herself. 90% chance is, she will delete my message without reading, and in the remaining 10%, she’ll read the first couple of lines at most and then ditch it. The opening lines have to be such that hold her attention somehow, long enough to persuade her to read on.

2) She has a tendency to take wrongly everything I say, look for hidden bad meanings in there, twist them to fit as a target for her beliefs. Even if she doesn’t, her sister is omnipresent to do the honours for her. The message needs to be clear-cut so they cannot easily make straw man arguments out of it. At the same time, I wish she somehow realizes that she must use her own mind and not let her sister keep influencing her.

3) She is extremely stubborn (now), refuses to consider any views contradicting hers and believes firmly that any relationship between a boy and girl other than brother/sister is unholy/filthy/sinful/whatever. Yep, even simple friendship. It’s bro-sis or nothing. Now that it doesn’t seem to be an option anymore (me calling her sis no longer seems to have any effect), I don’t understand what to say to her.

I was waiting for another friend to come up so she can advise me regarding this too… maybe then I’ll try to draft a message. Thank you so much, Anita. Truly.