Hello all,

Looking for as much advice/input as I can on this as it’s really been weighing on me.

In June, I met a friend and we instantly became close. We were on a group trip with tons of people yet spent most of our time together. One day we even shared a lot about our histories (we both lost our fathers at a young age) and just really seemed to hit it off. After the trip ended we continued spending tons of time together. We spoke every day and saw each other at least a couple of times a week if not almost every day.

Even in the beginning, I felt a strange connection to this person that I can’t explain. It was almost as if we were connected in a past life and were finally reunited. I have never had anyone in my life that I would call a “best friend,” until I met this person. We would do everything together, we even redid his living room together.

We knew/know just about everything about each other. We even finish each other’s sentences sometimes.

Then came a time where I was laid off in September and this friend was leaving a job- we basically were both going through rough life issues around the same time, and I think it became difficult for us to be the same people in the friendship as we were before. Things that weren’t that big of an issue before suddenly started to really bother me. (How he was always late, failed to make concrete plans, etc.) We got into a little tiff in October, when he stopped talking to me for a few days.

This really upset me, and I became really depressed. Someone I spoke to literally everyday completely ignored me for a weekend. He reached out and asked how I was feeling, which led to us meeting up to discuss what had happened. It went fine, and he even agreed to take my recommendation to see a therapist. (I see a therapist and a psychiatrist regularly and knew he could benefit from such.)

Things were okay again. Then randomly we’d have dumb little fights that would lead to us ignoring each other for hours or days (which I know is absurd- but how we deal with things.) It would happen every few weeks or so, to the extent that other friends would say we spent too much time together and needed a break.

While I agreed with needing a break, I thought we also needed to discuss the crucial things that kept leading to the arguments (who was late when, who said what to hurt whose feelings, etc.)

I started working in November, and him in October/November. So we both began to adjust to new changes.

We recently had our biggest fight yet, which resulted in him telling me he didn’t think we were benefiting from each other anymore. He has always been somewhat cold and not as emotional as I am, but this was the coldest he had been. I told him I accepted that and it was upsetting, and said my goodbyes.

Being as emotional as I am, I knew it would be hard to see him in any capacity after what had happened. So I deleted him from Facebook and considered leaving a team I had invited him to be on.

My therapist suggested that he should be the one to leave, as it was my team first and filled with my friends.

When I reached out and told him this, he ended up calling me on the phone. We spoke on the phone for 4 hours (we hadn’t spoken in a month), but only very briefly about any issues amongst us. We simply caught each other up on what happened.

We then got dinner, and again spoke about random things and only slightly touched on any issues.

This was before my birthday dinner, which he came to and brought me nice gifts. Things were okay, but you could definitely sense we were both walking on eggshells around each other.

A situation came up where plans were required, and since I have Type A personality, I took the lead with planning, per usual. He was preparing to go on a trip and working, so it was difficult for him to stick to a time. (This is also his personality in general: running late, not making plans, not sticking to plans, etc).

It became apparent that both of our feathers were being ruffled and frustrations began to rise over something as little as setting an appointment to get a pedicure together.

I asked him to call me about this as texting usually gets people nowhere. He called me from a friend’s house (he had gotten happy hour instead of keeping plans we had together), and I told him to call me when he got home. He said it was fine and he would step outside for a bit.

I told him I felt we were both uneasy around each other and he agreed, and I began to apologize for things I had done to hurt him and list grievances I had. I realized recently that he didn’t do much- if any apologies himself, he mostly let me talk and would give input here and there. He never got deep into our issues as I had. Just listened mostly. To make things worse, he then cut me off saying we had been on the phone for an hour and he was being rude to his friend. I told him that that was my point from the beginning, and why I asked him to call me at a different time. There was really no reaction about this from him, and the conversation ended.

The issue of making a nail appointment lingered on, and his trip was coming up, but he would keep saying he couldn’t pin down his schedule or something came up, etc. I gave him a chance to back out of the appointment, sensing he was stressed and couldn’t deal with it at the time. He just kept saying he really needed a pedicure and he would figure it out.

About 2 days before he left, I got really frustrated and asked him to call me when he was free. He spoke briefly before he cut me off (he was entering a parking garage) and said he didn’t understand why we needed to keep discussing the issue. I told him that it needed to be discussed because we kept running into the same issues- probably because we never discussed them.

Later that night he texted me saying it was hard for him to feel as close to me because I was acting needy as I had in the past. I told him that that statement was unfair and untrue, as I was simply trying to make an appointment for something he had suggested and agreed to do together. I also said it was hurtful for him to say that just days after I asked him to tell me how he felt about our friendship.

This is a common theme in our arguments: he blames me for being needy/sensitive and rarely acknowledges his mistakes.

We haven’t spoken in almost a week now, and my therapist suggested that I “let it breathe.”

My issue is that I can’t seem to shake the sadness of how our friendship ended up. It’s especially sad as I have never been this close to anyone before, so I don’t know how to deal with it.

I know that he mistreats me and can be seen as manipulative, but for some reason I’m unable to let him/the friendship go.

I find myself making excuses for him. The biggest being that a lot of his behavior reminds me of my mom’s behavior before she got treated for bipolar disorder.

I’ve said this to him before, and he’s dealt with a diagnosis in the past, but he doesn’t want to take medication for it etc.

I feel as though if he were any other person I would have ran away a long time ago, but I can’t seem to shake him.

Has anyone dealt with something like this before? Is it possible to have your spirit connected to someone you aren’t even sexually attracted to?

How should I go about moving forward from here?

Any help is appreciated- I can’t seem to stop feeling sad about this situation.