u/Calzonepizzadish

Hi, this is my first time actually posting on Reddit. I’ve been a long time lurker. I’m a sophomore in college and I live in a two bedroom apartment in school housing. I’m in a single room, and my best friend “Em” (fake name) and our other friend share the double. I pay extra for the single, and Em and the other roommate lived together last year. Apparently their old roommate was awful from what they told me, and they don’t talk to her anymore.

Me and Em have been really close friends for over a year. We did everything together, and there was never really any issue, so living together seemed natural. It was honestly really fun at first. She didn’t really like my other friends, so I spent a lot of time mostly with her.

One thing that always kind of bothered me though was that when we’d hang out, she’d usually want to stop after like an hour, even if we were just watching TV. She always had to shower, do homework, etc. I never thought much of it because obviously that’s normal, but she also barely talked to me during the week. I’d find myself saving everything I wanted to tell her until Friday because that was basically the only time we talked.

Over time, never seeing her during the week, always being the one to make plans, and the fact that she avoids my parents every single time they visit started making me feel kind of sad. It felt like I was putting in way more effort into the friendship than she was.

My therapist encouraged me to talk to her because I’m someone who really prefers direct communication. I’ve always told my friends I’d rather people just be honest with me. So I made lunch plans with Em and told her that if she didn’t want to meet my parents or go to dinners with them, that was completely fine and I’d stop inviting her. She said it wasn’t like that.

Then I told her that I felt like I never saw her during the week and that when we did hang out on weekends it was usually only for an hour. I said I’m just a social person, she’s my best friend, and I wanted to spend more time together.

She laughed and said, “Well, you are kind of needy,” and said I’m always coming into the kitchen to talk to her when that’s her “zen time.” Then we got interrupted and the conversation basically ended there.

Honestly, I was shocked because I’ve never really been called needy by friends before. If anything, I’ve been called flaky for not wanting to hang out enough. It hurt my feelings, and it felt like she was trying to joke her way out of the conversation because she’s extremely non-confrontational and has admitted that herself.

After that, I decided to give her space and stop always initiating things because I thought maybe I really was bothering her. But now we basically haven’t talked in five weeks.

I can tell she’s avoiding me. Multiple times I’ve been in the kitchen and heard their door open and immediately close again like she saw me and decided not to come out. I used to drive her home from class, but she stopped showing up to the meeting spot and started taking the bus instead. I tried giving her the benefit of the doubt and thought maybe she just has a low social battery, but now she spends all her time with this new friend. Like hours and hours with her. Sleepovers, staying up until 3am together, constantly going out together, doing all the things she used to tell me she didn’t even like doing.

One thing that really got to me was when she and my other roommate were leaving to go to the pool. I was literally standing in the kitchen next to the door, and Em basically sprinted past me without saying a word and stood in the hallway while my other roommate said hi and told me where they were going.

I’ve basically been acting like nothing is wrong because she’s never directly told me there’s an issue, and I figured trying to talk again probably wasn’t worth it since she clearly didn’t want to the first time.

But this week things have started feeling even weirder. I came back from a weekend trip home and the apartment was trashed. I didn’t say anything and just cleaned up enough so the mess wasn’t in my way, but it stayed like that for days.

Now we’re packing for summer storage, where we can leave boxed items in the apartment over summer break. My other roommate started packing the communal stuff, and I told her I’d help and to let me know what to do. She mentioned taking down one of our posters, and I said I thought the housing instructions said we could leave it up. She responded, “Well, we thought maybe we’d want different decorations next semester.”

That confused me because who is “we”? Nobody asked me about decorations, and I live there too. I ended up just moving the poster into my room because technically I bought it, even though they helped pick it out and liked it too.

Then later I realized she had only packed the things that she and Em bought together, even though we all shared and used everything. She even went through our game box and separated out only the games I brought.

At first I thought it was just kind of weird and passive aggressive, but when I told my mom about everything she said it sounded like I was being isolated or quietly pushed out.

Now I genuinely don’t know if I’m overreacting or not. I’m really bad at passive aggressive behavior and indirect communication, so I honestly can’t tell what’s going on. It feels like no matter what I do, I’ll somehow end up being the bad guy. If I bring it up, I feel like they’ll either deny it or say I’m “coming at them,” but staying quiet also feels awful.

So am I being overly sensitive, or does this actually sound exclusionary/passive aggressive to other people too? And what would you do in this situation when you still have one more semester living together? Sorry this is so long, no one is probably gonna read this anyway.