Sorry this is so long! I haven't had anyone to talk this out with (for reasons that will become clear if you read), so there was a lot to unpack.
I made 3 really good friends through my work (in education) about 3 years ago - I'll call them Anna, Beth, Clara. We started off as work friends and then began spending time outside of work, and all became very close. We did a lot of nights out, nights in, celebrated birthdays, attended work functions together, had an active group chat and were regularly touching base through social media when we weren't together. When we had breaks or summer holidays we got together often to just hang out. In summer 2018 we hung out at least weekly if not more often. Out of the group I spent the most time with and was most similar to Anna. We all opened up to each other about incredibly deep things. I shared things with them that I haven't even shared with my partner of 10 years. I thought these would be the girls in my wedding party, or the ones I went to prenatal yoga with, or celebrated buying my first home with.
Anna's parents own several short term rental properties which their family uses for occasional vacations or weekends away. During our spring school holidays, she posed the idea of having a girls trip to one of their properties on a lake, we all jumped on the chance and had a great time. The cabin is kind of older and rustic with lots of kitschy charm, with limited cell service, no internet, and an older-style TV that made me super nostalgic for growing up in the 90s/00s. We played board games, watched DVDs, talked, cooked meals, took walks, frequented the local bar, drank a lot of wine. It was a great bonding experience and a ton of fun. Things were normal between us after that, but after a few months I noticed that Anna and Clara knew a lot more about things going on in Beth's life than I did, and I was having to ask more questions to stay caught up.
During summer holiday 2019, I decided to make a career change and left my job for a new one. My friends had known I was not happy in my old position and had supported me in pursuing a career that better suited me. That summer Beth and Clara went on a 2+ week long vacation together, and I reached out to Anna a few times about getting together since she and I were the ones still in town. She sent back texts like, "Totally, I'll look at my schedule!" but we never made any firm plans. Around this time Anna and Beth were looking to rent a house together (and eventually found one). When all 3 were back in town, I saw on social media Beth and Clara were hanging out at our favorite spot from summer 2018 and messaged that I'd love to join them next time, which they "liked."
Toward the end of that summer, Beth had her birthday, which we all celebrated (the first time I'd gotten together with them all summer, but they had been hanging out in groups/pairs on and off). It was a ton of fun, we all got dressed up and went on a brewery tour - my birthday was 3 weeks away and people started talking about doing something fun for my birthday (nothing specific, just excitement about birthday planning). About a week later Beth, Anna and I attended a concert with a group of our other friends. Everyone seemed to have a good time and took a ton of goofy pictures together. After the concert we went back to Anna and Beth's house and ordered pizza and hung out for a bit before I headed home.
At this point I was just starting my new job, and they were preparing to go back to work for the new year.
The weekend after the concert (one week away from my birthday) I saw that Anna, Beth and Clara were all doing a big girl's weekend at the lake house. I was instantly hurt and confused. They were essentially creating our last visit, but without me. I'd been low level jealous of them hanging out on their own/in pairs throughout the summer, but I had always assumed it was due to proximity (I lived a bit further from everyone else) or schedules not matching up, and I wrote it off as FOMO. My initial reaction was to not say anything, or assume that it was supposed to be a final hurrah of summer before they went back to work. But after sitting with it for a few hours, I figured that these were women I considered myself very close with and I felt like I could reach out about it.
I sent a text to Anna, rather than to the group chat since I felt the closest to her and she was the best at communicating through text, and I was kind of embarrassed. I told her I had seen them posting online about the trip, and I was hurt and confused about why they had gone on essentially the same trip without inviting me. - - - I want to take a second to explain that I know that no one is under any obligation to be friends with anyone, or invite people on trips, or anything. When a group of acquaintances goes on a fun trip and posts about it, I don't feel like I should have been invited. This was my closest girlfriends going on a repeat of a trip I had been on with them the last time, which is why I felt the way I did. - - - Anna didn't respond right away, which is when started to feel like something was super off. I knew cell service is bad at the cabin, but I also knew we were regularly able to text our partners back home. I was going to a house warming party that night (which they didn't know about because it came up last minute), and wound up being pretty upset by the time evening came around. I knew they were all together and I also knew that our friendship was the kind where she would have showed them my text and they would have all discussed how to respond.
She finally responded while I was at the party (and pretty drunk). Her text said that she was also hurt... Hurt because when we had previously visited the cabin, I had been unkind about the cabin and it was a special place for her family. I was shocked, because I had no clue she felt this way. It has been almost 6 months since we had been there, and she had never said anything at the time or in the months after. I apologized profusely and asked for specifics of what I had said. She told me I had said something about the cell service, no internet, the view, the TV, the decorations, etc. She had a lot of very specific examples which made me feel like this was something she had obviously been thinking about since then. I have a very sarcastic sense of humor and tease my friends as part of my love language* - this is something this group knew and had experienced for a few years, so while I didn't remember all of the things she told me I had said, I knew that none of it had been meant in a harmful way. I stressed to her (as I had after our trip) that I had loved the cabin/the experience and I was so sorry I had hurt her, and then drunkenly added that they were probably better off without me, I was so sorry etc. etc.
*Quick edit: Believe me, no one thinks less of me than I do of myself, but I worry that my comment about my communication/"love language" is taking a lot of focus, and I want to expand on what I mean by teasing and what she was upset that I had said. She was upset that I had said, "Omg, this TV! I haven't seen one of these in years!" "How do you get any work done here without internet?" (because she sometimes goes to the cabin to work on days off) and "I love this lake view" - responding to the fact that the big picture windows look out over the tree lined yard as opposed to the lake, something she had pointed out. The only negative memory I had from the trip that was also something she mentioned as being hurtful was that all night on the first night there was the noise of something metallic hitting something like a window just about every 2 minutes, I asked if she would mind if I used a sound machine app on super low volume next to my pillow the next night. Re: teasing, I guess playful would have been a better word? I made comments about a novel place and situation that we all joked and laughed about at the time. Obviously I hurt her regardless of intention and lost the friendship, but I don't want people to think I sat around and said, "This decor is so outdated. It's so boring here without wifi. Can't you upgrade this TV? Why don't our phones work here?"
As mentioned, at this point I was drunk, and now I was also heartbroken because to me it looked like my closest friend was so unhappy about something I had done months ago that she had decided to uninvite me from their friendship. I sent a group text to Beth and Clara saying that Anna had explained why I wasn't invited to the cabin, and I was sorry for hurting her, and I was sorry if I had hurt them with my words at some point, and then I rambled on about being an "third wheel" in their friendship and how they were probably better off without me, I was so sorry out friendship had to end this way, etc. etc. (you know how sad drunk texts go)
Beth and Clara never responded. Anna sent a text saying she wished she had said something sooner or at the time, but nothing more.
About a week later (and after total radio silence), my birthday rolled around and Anna sent me a "Thinking of you today." kind of distant birthday message, which I thanked her for. A week or so after that I saw Clara post a big thank you on social media to someone for letting her use their Netflix login info - she had previously been using mine and so I cautiously reached out and said I had seen her post, and asked if she was using her profile on my account anymore or should I remove it. She responded, "Oh, yeah, delete that." I never heard anything from Beth again. At one point I was feeling sad and lonely, and I reached out to Anna with a text that said something like, "I feel really weird about everything, it seemed so sudden and like there had to be more of a reason behind everything." I immediately regretted it and sent a second text saying so, and telling her she didn't need to respond. She didn't.
Shortly after all that I unfollowed them all on Instagram because it was too hard to see them all hanging out together.
Today I saw a bunch of photos and videos of them at a work event from a coworker we're all mutual friends with. Maybe it's the fact I haven't left my house in 3 months, or maybe it's that we're in a global pandemic, or maybe it's that the world seems to be on fire. Maybe it's that my attempted career change wasn't a good move and I regret leaving my old job. I saw those photos and I sobbed. I ugly cried over my laptop while I worked from home. I've seen scattered photos of Anna and Beth over the year (I remained FB friends with Anna but have muted her), but today was the first time I had seen Clara. Something about seeing video of them cheering and smiling and waving really broke me. I miss these girls, I miss that friendship. I spend a lot of time with what ifs - what if I hadn't said anything about their trip and had just texted them all that next week to make a plan for my birthday? What if I had called her as soon as I got her text instead of responding via text, would I have communicated better? What if I hadn't texted Beth and Clara? What if I hadn't left our snapchat and Instagram groups? Her stated reasons felt kind of petty to me at the time, but what if I am a total jerk about things like that and no one has ever told me?
My questions:
I feel like there is so much uncertainty and fear and hope and change going on right now - would this be my best opportunity to reach back out? Does it seem like they would even want me to reach back out? Would reaching out just make me look like a pathetic ex who won't take a hint and bug off? I feel like there was no closure in this friend breakup - - - and I know that no one owes anyone closure! - - - but I wonder if it was only a breakup because I made it one? If I reach out, what do I say?
Tl;dr: My 3 closest friends ghosted me after 2 years because I made unkind comments about one of their properties 6 months before the "breakup." Things were never formally ended and I miss them. I want to know if now is a time I could reach out, or if reaching out will make me look like a loser (for lack of a better word).
Submitted June 04, 2020 at 02:54PM by lonelywolff23 https://ift.tt/2Y1As9F
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