Dear Ryan:

You are welcome. I think that your current discouragement regarding the special friendship with her has a lot to do with her (1) leaving yesterday to travel south for the week, and (2) not responding to your safe-travels text yet. Seems to me that you are over-reacting to the week separation from her, and to her not texting you back (she may not have been able to, or she was too busy to text you back so far).

“It was confusing for me because it felt like we were close”- People in a special friendship or in a relationship are not always close to the same extent, and at times, they are not close at all.  Within a relationship we have to endure the natural, unpreventable fluctuations in closeness vs distance.

“once we were apart, the chasm opened again, which certainly messed with my emotions”- your use of the word chasm indicates to me that at the perception of some distance from your object of attachment, you perceive a huge distance. A little distance/ separation feels like a big, threatening distance/ separation.

You gave an example of a text you sent her on Wednesday, a 34 word, thoughtful text, to which she replied with an 8-word text and an emoji- is that what bothered you about her reply, that it was not as thoughtful as yours and much shorter?

“she was unable or unwilling to connect”- I understand you being discouraged about having a long-term romantic relationship with her because she told you that she doesn’t see having that with you, but in the context of a relationship (your previous threads) and in the context of a special friendship, I see that you have trouble connecting and staying connected with a person, fearing separation on one hand, and initiating separation on the other hand.

anita