I lost a friend after he got a girlfriend, and now I have to fake being okay with him because we’re in the same group.
More than a year ago I reconnected with an old friend group, and there was also a newer guy there I hadn’t met before. From the beginning he was extremely kind and inclusive toward me. For context, it’s mostly a male group and I’m a woman. I’ve had a partner for 7 years, and some of the other people in the group are also in relationships, everyone treats me normally.
This new guy started talking to me a lot. We’d talk during games, on social media, and he’d tell me personal/deep things about his life. He also sent long messages about random everyday stuff. He thanked me a lot for helping him emotionally and basically treated me like a very close friend.
At some point he mentioned he was looking for a girlfriend, so I introduced him to two of my friends. It went badly and both of my friends later complained to me about him. Also, most people in the group already seemed suspicious of him and often described him as “weird” because of things like the long emotional texts and some social behaviors. I personally didn’t see it that way at the time, I just thought he was shy or awkward around women.
I’m naturally a bit distrustful, so after the failed dates I waited to see if he’d suddenly stop being nice to me now that I was no longer “useful.” But he stayed just as friendly for months, so I genuinely believed his intentions were sincere and that he really valued me as a friend.
Then one day his behavior changed completely out of nowhere. He basically disappeared. At first I thought maybe I had done something wrong or upset him somehow. A few weeks later I found out he had started talking to a girl around the exact same time, and they eventually started dating.
What made this hurt much more is that around that period my mother was hospitalized and given about a year to live. I spent every afternoon at the hospital. It was one of the hardest moments of my life. And despite previously telling me how much I meant to him, thanking me for listening to him, calling me a good person, etc… when I was the one going through something awful, he just vanished and never checked on me.
That period also made me realize which people in my life were actually there for me and which weren’t. But this one hurt especially badly because I struggle to make friends, and I felt like I had invested emotional energy into someone who ultimately didn’t care that much about me.
Normally when someone hurts me like this, I cut them off completely. But since we’re in the same group, I decided not to create drama and just stay cordial in group settings.
Since he became focused on his girlfriend, he stopped showing up as much, which made things easier. But he still talks normally with another guy in the group he’s very close to, so it’s not like he isolated from everyone equally. Some people in the group think the girlfriend is a bit toxic because apparently she got upset about him gaming with us before, and they even briefly broke up once because she wanted to see other people. Still, I don’t think she “made” him stop talking to me, because his behavior changed the moment they met, not later.
Now he’s polite but not especially kind anymore. I tried to stay mature about everything, but then months later he started flaming me repeatedly in the online game we all play. That honestly made me angry, because I had already been making an effort to stay civil despite the resentment, and this felt like my reward for trying. Also, I know for a fact he never would’ve talked to me that way back when he was trying to be close to me.
At this point I still resent him a lot. I don’t want confrontation because I don’t want tension in the group, but I also genuinely don’t want to see him anymore. I’ve started avoiding hangouts if he joins, although sometimes people get annoyed if I cancel suddenly because of it.
Sorry, I wanted to rent, but why do people act like this? Should I just stop attending anything he’s at?