AITA For Abruptly Cutting All Contact with My Best Friend Without Telling Her?
I would like to start by apologizing for the way I ordered the events, English is my second language and writing is not my forte. For privacy reasons I’ll not be including real names and details that might give away who it is. I (25F) been friends with my best friend (27F) we will call her Mary, for almost 8 years. We met back in college and we clicked instantly. It didn’t take long before we became best friends and did everything together, up until the last four months of our friendship everything was like any friendship, we would have a few instances where we had our disagreements but everything was normal. Some of our arguments were, a few times when she picked me up from my apartment to hang out and I would be a few minutes late, at the beginning she didn’t tell me anything until one day she kind of “exploded”, it was more like she got mad and we had an argument about it. I’m the type of person that likes to have communication and I would change things that people don’t like and/or makes them uncomfortable. Since we had that argument, I changed that about myself, however, in those last four months she started to do what she didn’t like me doing, she would arrive late with lame excuses and would cut our outings short because she had to meet other friends or guys from a dating app without telling me in advance so I would understand why we had to meet for a short time.
She also had another best friend from high school (we will call her Ana), when I met Ana I liked her, she was nice and easy to talk to (I’m a very introverted person and talking to new people is really hard for me). We both became friends, however, me and Ana never hung out on our own, Mary was always there so it would always be the three of us. Little by little I started to notice Mary would mainly talk to Ana and kind of isolate me a little bit even though Ana would make an effort to include me in the conversation. At first I thought I was overthinking things until it became more obvious, when I talked to Mary about how I felt about it she apologized and told me she would fix it but she never did, it happened again, and when I told her, she just said she would just keep our outings separate. Instead of fixing the problem she chose to avoid it completely.
When I got a boyfriend, at the beginning of my relationship Mary made a “joke” saying “if you don’t want him I do”, back then I brushed it off because I thought she just tried to make a joke that didn’t go as planned, however, in those last four months of our friendship I broke up with my ex and was back on the dating scene and one of my high school friend tried to introduce me to her husband’s colleague and when I told Mary about it she made the same comment again “if you don’t want him I do”. During my relationship, I moved in with my boyfriend to a different city 30 minutes away from where Mary lived, during that time Mary told me how she felt abandoned because we didn’t hang out and talk as much as we used to. I felt bad about it and told her I was sorry and I improved on that aspect, I made sure to make time for her when I could. Fast forward to the last four months of our friendship, Mary started doing the same thing to me when she got into a relationship.
During our whole friendship she copied me in some things, like buying the same bag, the same or similar clothes and shoes, at the beginning I didn’t really mind it because she was my best friend and I just thought we were twinsies. However, in those last four months Mary started to copy things I did, for example, we moved back to our hometown and I was going through some personal stuff and noticed I didn’t have any friends in my hometown besides Mary, everyone moved to different states or cities, and because of that I tried to use apps to make new friends. When I told Mary, the first thing she said was “ohhh I should do that too”, I didn’t mind it but I thought it was weird she wanted to make new friends when she never mentioned it before and also using the same method as me as soon as I mentioned it, she would also make me open the app and compare to see if we have the same options/choices, and make comments like “why does she show to you and not me”, after that, I honestly stopped using the app. While I was on the dating scene in those last four months of our friendship, we were using the same dating apps and we would often talk about the guys on there and who talked to who, and she seemed bothered when I would match with cuter guys. She would also make comments like “you already know I like the attention” (from the guys on the dating apps and the new friends she was making) which came as a surprise to me because she never said that before in our 8 year friendship.
In those last four months, for my birthday she gifted me a bath & body works coupon that she got for free, she also said “I’m going to give you this coupon so I don’t have to struggle finding what to gift you”, honestly I didn’t mind it, but for her birthday she asked me to make her a birthday cake. I didn’t think it was fair because before that, every year for our birthdays we would match the price and the effort. And when she asked me to make her a birthday cake I was unemployed, birthday cakes can be somewhat expensive if you don’t have all the ingredients. However, what made me mad was that she expected me to put money, time and effort into her present but she didn’t give me any of that for mine.
The worst and biggest thing that made me rethink our friendship was four months before I cut contact with her. When I broke up with my ex, Mary and Ana offered to drive me to our hometown with my stuff. It was a four hour drive, while I was devastated and sobbing in the backseat, Mary and Ana were talking, laughing, and singing as if I didn’t exist. They were even talking about when they got married they would be each other’s maid of honor, the whole ride they never talked to me. I honestly wasn’t asking for much, I only wanted their sympathy, their comfort, or even small talk to make me feel a little better. The next day after I got home, I texted her about how I felt and how hurt I was. She apologized by saying “I’m sorry you felt that way, we were just trying to give you space”. After that, in those last four months everything went downhill, I started to rethink our friendship and while I was reevaluating everything, she completely changed, she started doing everything I mentioned before.
And some might say why I didn’t talk to her about everything that happened in those last four months, but honestly, I couldn’t, it was just way too many things happening in such a short time and if I tried to tell her everything that she did that made me feel hurt she would feel like I was attacking her. And I have experienced when she would say she feels like she’s being attacked. During those last four months I always felt anxious while texting and hanging out with her, and when I stopped all contact with her it felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. Also, when I stopped all contact with her, she never asked me why I stopped texting her. I know I was the one who cut contact with her but a best friend asks what’s wrong and why you stopped texting. So, AITA for abruptly cutting all contact with my best friend without telling her?