The whole purpose of this blog, is basically, to remind you, and myself, that when a friend lets you down or withdraws, it usually isn’t about you. More often that not, it has nothing to do with you at all. Sounds simple, right? It really is! However, the reason I have a whole blog dedicated to the subject, is because it so often FEELS like it IS about you.
And, to be fair, in some ways dear readers, it is. Because although their reason for withdrawal may be completely unrelated to you, their absence is still felt by you, and you are still the one left dealing with the consequences of something they themselves are going through. This leads me to todays post, to explore the situation further when you need a friend to show up for you emotionally, or physically, and they are literally too caught up in their own heaviness to be there.
Somewhat recently in my own life, a close friend withdrew from me quite suddenly. I tried to be patient and understanding, because I was well aware of the issues this friend was dealing with in their own world, and that they were feeling pretty low and stressed. You can’t pour from an empty cup and all that.
We celebrated my birthday in August, and as my gift they had purchased tickets to an event for us in early September. If memory serves correctly, it was the end of August when they received some heavy news. We still attended the show in early September, but I could feel that my friend was somewhere else; physically present but emotionally absent. In the car on the way home that night, I initiated a conversation about things and although the discussion was heavy, my friend seemed to feel lighter for having shared what was on their mind.
This particular friend loves the phone, and would call me (yes, actually call, not text) several times a day sometimes, and always a few times a week. Never at any specific time, just whenever the urge hit. So I definitely noticed the silence and the absence from my life in the way of physical presence too. I invited this friend to a theme park with us at the start of October, (a month being an unusually long time for us not to have seen each other or spoken really) and they did come along, however seemed to spend the day avoiding me or any real conversation. It felt awkward and strained.
I reasoned that maybe they didn’t want to talk about it and wanted to distract themselves on the rides and slides, letting off some steam and not thinking about their situation for a minute. Which was reasonable. However, when they cancelled on me for our next ticketed event the following week, (tickets we had from the previous Christmas) I started growing concerned. This friend is habitually late, but in all the years of our friendship, they had never, that I could recall, actually cancelled on me. I tried to remain calm and cheerful, telling them that I completely understood and was always here if they wanted to talk. But I guess they didn’t because by the end of November I hadn’t seen or spoken to them in any meaningful way and we had not seen each other in person since that first few days of October. Which meant that since August, we had only seen each other twice, when typically we were catching up about once a week if not more, before that. I say this to allow context. I don’t expect to see all my friends this often, and for some of them, that schedule would be normal, however for this particular friend, it was a noteable shift.
Messages to say I was thinking of them were left on read. Memes sent were not reacted to. Emails about the kids schooling or questions about Christmas were unanswered. My phone was not ringing. It was getting harder to ignore the withdrawal and not take it personally, so you’d think I would’ve been relieved when the phone did ring eventually. I was… initially.
Except that during this particular call, my friend had to call me back 3 times because they were helping another friend with an emotional crisis, and needed to go to her house for a coffee. The second time they called me back, they were talking about the new cake place they tried at their weekly catch up with another friend. And the last time they called they complained that a third friend of theirs had made plans with them, then changed said plans, and my friend was annoyed because this change meant they weren’t going to be spending enough time together as the plans were shortened by 2 hours, not leaving enough time to have a meal and chat.
It is very hard not to take a withdrawal like this personally, when you are well aware that the person is not withdrawing from all their social contacts, but just you, specifically. So of course, my mind went into overdrive (which is never good, by the way) trying to pin point the moment that I had unwittingly offended this person. When I came up empty, I decided the best course of action was to quietly let this person go. That appeared to be what they wanted.
That doesn’t mean I wasn’t hurt, upset and annoyed. I was. But what can you do? If our friendship had run it’s course, that didn’t surprise me, given that we have had a bumpy road over the years. Maybe they were done with the drama and maybe that was for the best. So I was even more hurt, confused and annoyed when on the odd occasion I did hear from them, it was to ask me for favours. Could I buy and deliver flowers to someone on their behalf please? Could I bring them lunch at work because they left theirs at home. Could I go collect an item from the buy nothing pages before they gave it to someone else.
This person was not showing up for me in any real way, and yet kept asking me to do things for them, without addressing the unanswered messages or the distance between us. I have learned better than to bring it up myself. I didn’t want to know why they no longer wanted to be my friend, because that was only going to serve to make me feel worse. And honestly, I was tired of caring, when it didn’t appear to be reciprocated.
So I was surprised, to say the least, when this friend showed up at my house on the 1st December to give me our annual advent calendar exchange. I had one to give her in return, as I had bought it in the after Christmas sales earlier in the year (it did not contain perishables) however, I just wasn’t expecting it to happen. The exchange was brief, as they showed up right when they knew I would be leaving to take my son to work. They also had someone else in the car with them. So we didn’t even hug. They presented me with a beautiful calendar that I very much loved, and I ran inside to grab theirs, then we went our separate ways.
When I returned home, I messaged my friend to thank them for the lovely gesture and to say I was surprised to see them in all honesty. They acknowledged that they had been terribly distant and apologized. I admitted that although I knew they were dealing with personal issues, that I felt hurt and abandoned, not to mention used and taken advantage of. That I understood the need to withdraw, but found it difficult not to take it personally. They acknowledged that they knew it was painful for me, and that was part of the reason they kept their distance, because they couldn’t deal with my upset about things, and they felt guilty.
But once we had communicated things clearly, we were able to resume our connection. I just needed them to communicate clearly with me, and they needed the same thing. They should have explained why they weren’t able to show up for me, and acknowledged that they knew I might struggle with this but it wasn’t personal. And they needed me to broach it, to express that I was feeling hurt and used and abandoned although I understood their energy and capacity to give was low. I didn’t because I didn’t want to start a fight. And isn’t it ironic that we both didn’t want to cause conflict, so we avoided the conflict until it was too big to ignore.
If your friend is going through something and they can’t show up for you at the moment, allow them some grace, but don’t allow yourself to get hurt. You matter too, and if they are your friend they will care about that no matter what else is going on for them. And if you are the friend who is going through something heavy, communicate that to your friend and reassure them that this is not personal, you do care about them and if they really need you, that you will still be there, but to be patient with you meanwhile. A friendship may be lopsided at times, but it should never feel one sided.
All it takes is clear communication so everyone knows where they stand.
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx
