My best friend and I have known each other for almost ten years now. Thing have definitely been rocky, but we’ve always been able to patch things up and be the best of friends again. Right now it seems like it’s not going to last and I felt like maybe I could get some opinions or input on the whole situation.

My friend Jess (this isn’t her real name, fake to protect her) and I have had a pretty weird relationship. I’m a very intense person and I feel like this has maybe taken a toll on our relationship. We mostly talk to each other through video chat, which is great because we are still able to have live conversations without the inconvenience of meeting times, cancellations, etc. (This works for us very well, so please don’t assume that this is why we are drifting apart). Jess has a tendency to shut down and give me the silent treatment when we fight/I do something that she doesn’t like. In this situation, here is how things usually go:

1. I p*** her off one way or another.
2. She doesn’t respond to my texts/calls or leaves me on read.
3. Updates her status with passive aggressive/indirect quotes abotu friendship or “toxic friends”.
4. She goes a few days and eventually deletes me from social (sometimes I delete her first, however).
5. We go a few months without speaking at all .
6. I message her eventually and try to patch things up (I’ve given her time to cool off, what could go wrong?).

This cycle has gone through twice now. She ignores me for childish things and doesn’t seem to care what happens (or if I will even eventually text her to try to be friends again). Some people reading this may be wondering why I go back to her every time this happens. It’s because I CARE about our friendship and (most of the time) think we have a pretty darn good one! The thing that hurts the most is that she doesn’t seem to care like I do anymore.

One reason I believe we are drifting apart is because lately she’s been very distant lately. I sometimes see her hanging with her other friends from her school on social media and she won’t invite me or even care to tell me. I know I shouldn’t expect this from her, but this is how we usually did things in our relationship. We told each other everything. Now it seems like she almost keeping things from me and trying to p*** me off by hanging with other people and posting all about it w/o telling me.

Her new friends seem like they’re changing her. They’re more in the popular crowd at her school and I’ve heard some shady things about them. She’s suddenly started to care about brands of clothing/shoes and just acts different altogther (like an a***ole sometimes…). I’ve tried to convince her that they probably aren’t the best people to hang around, but as you can imagine this only made things worse.

Another reason is that she is avoiding contact and leaving me on read. In the past we always responded seconds after a text was recieved. Now she either is short with me or chooses to not respond altogether. Every time I ask to call her, she says she’s busy and that she can’t talk at all (and later posts all over other social media). Most of the time, she’s the one that wants to call me! As you may have already gathered, this REALLY gets on my nerves and hurts my feelings even more.

I have tried speaking with her about this. I was really gentle when I did, but it did NO good and has only made her turn to being extremely passive aggresive on her social media (about me). I’m scared that she’s going to start ignoring me again if I am blunt about it.

I’d also like to add that she has told me about annoying kids that “follow her around” at school and that they used to be friends but Jess dislikes her now and Is trying to get rid of her. I was thinking that that may have a bit or a connection to what she’s doing to me. I’m not sure though…

I’m also at fault in this friendship. I have a lot of issues she’s had to deal with and I appreciate that she still is even my friend. And there’s also a lot of good in our relationship. We pretty much know everything about each other and always know how to make the other laugh.We’ve always gotten along beautifully, even after the fights/cold wars we’d get into. It just isn’t feeling like that anymore.

So what do you think? Am I just being paranoid? Is she doing this being she doesn’t like me anymore/has found new friends? Should I end the friendship or keep trying? Or something else? I’d love advice or even to hear about similar experiences. Thanks so much for reading!

-Edie