Dear Prash,

thank you for your response.

Sometimes if I read articles about toxic people, I wonder if I am one. And in the case of my brief encounter with that man, I fear that I might have hurt him. I probably have. I wasn’t able to give him the feeling that he is loved. He doesn’t want to talk to me it seems. I also won’t call him again, as I want to respect his decision. Even though I wish we could talk at least one final time about what happened.

I’m just wondering about: what did I do wrong? But I know, I should have taken it more slowly. I worry about what he might think and if he is okay. If he is indeed sick? It would be so terrible if he got sick because of me.

And in the last year or so I lost some friends. So there must be something wrong with me…

The first friend was constantly calling me, wanting to spend time together. I should have enforced my own boundaries, but didn’t and always said yes. She also told something very private to other friends and even acquaintances, which upset me a lot. She also called me in the middle of the night, because she had a fight with her boyfriend and things like that. It was too much for me and I just stopped contacting her and she also stopped contacting me after a while. I now regret that we didn’t talk about it.

Another friend I lost, because we didn’t contact each other any more. We never were very close to begin with.

The friend I regret losing the most, I knew for a long time. We used to study together. She lives in a city nearby, but still we struggled to stay in contact. Last year we finally met and she came to visit me. We had a really good day together and I promised to come visit her soon, we even had made plans for the next month. But I also had no job at the time and barely enough money for food. I also had told her before that I wanted to change things, but didn’t manage to do it. So I was so ashamed and didn’t contact her for months. Only recently I wrote to her.

Finally there was the friend I always tried to help with her festivals, moving and so on. Even when I really didn’t have time or didn’t really want to do it. And then sometimes I wasn’t enthusiastic enough or was being difficult (sometimes it also went well). But I wanted to be a good friend. After the last incident I didn’t contact her again and she also didn’t contact me, as I was thinking that it just didn’t work out. Maybe I should have just respected my own boundaries more.

When I write this down I think that it probably all has to do with my difficulties with saying no. And I also wasn’t feeling so well at that time, so I isolated myself a little. But I think I wasn’t a good friend too. And doesn’t this show, that I am very difficult? But maybe it only shows that I have some problems I need to work on. And to not do it again.

I think I need to start writing more, it helped me to clear my mind.