Hello!
Apologies if this post is rather lengthy– it’s the first time I’ve posted something like this, so please bear with me.
My best friend (23F) and I (23F) have been practically inseparable since childhood. Let’s call her Bailey (fake name).
We were also part of a tight-knit friend group that stuck together until the day we graduated middle school. So you can imagine how it broke my adolescent self finding out how they had been routinely hanging out without me. I thought I was a good listener when they’d confide in me, and put in effort to make sure they were loved when they didn’t feel like it. I thought our bond was mutual.
Without a word, I left the friend group chat. One of the friends (now ex-friend, let’s call her Anna) noticed and kept adding me back in. This left me peeved, and in a lengthy but honest text, I messaged Anna separately to confront her about feeling excluded.
The initial response came not from her or any of our other friends, but from an online friend of Anna’s whom I didn’t know, apologizing on her behalf. Deep down, I knew this was done in good faith, but for something personal of ours being aired out to a stranger… I knew, then, my resolve was to leave the friend group.
As the months passed, I reflected. Though I knew how I felt was absolutely valid, I confronted one person rather than the entire group. Furthermore, I withheld communication before things were too late and couldn’t bottle my feelings any longer. Thus, I reached out to Anna to apologize; later, she did the same. Either way, a weight had been lifted off my 15 year-old self’s lanky shoulders.
Bailey was the only one in the group that I kept in contact with. When the fallout was still fresh, no one messaged me afterward except for her. We chatted about anything and everything except the breakup. I assumed Anna told the group her side of things; thus, I thought she wanted for us to stay best friends despite what she may have been told, which made me ecstatic. (In hindsight, I knew this was unsound judgement, but I chose not to bring up my side of things because I desperately wanted to move past the whole ordeal. Her choosing to stay my best friend was enough for me.)
Nonetheless, over the years, Bailey would constantly bring up the very same group with fondness. Since we all share a lot of history, I completely understand, and didn’t really mind. However, Bailey would occasionally bring up moments where she felt excluded from them similarly to when I was. She even told me that she found a handmade present she gifted for one of the members in the trash a few years ago. The cycle is repeating itself.
So I gave Bailey advice when she asked. Assured her she’s just enough as she is, that if she couldn’t handle how they were treating her, she needed to communicate. If the dynamic didn’t change afterward, she needed to break away from them. I would’ve said the same thing even if I didn’t know who the friend group was.
From what Bailey has told me: she has communicated when issues arose (she used to be really non-confrontational), which I am proud of her for. Yet, other than that, nothing has really changed. If she stands by the decision to stay in the group after all these years, then I respect it. Alas, there’s only so many times I can repeat this advice before it’s in one ear, out the other.
Nonetheless, one impromptu hangout last summer unearthed the fallout again.
We were at a café, casually chatting until the topics became a bit more personal. So Bailey bit the bullet. She brought up how everyone in the friend group was surprised I left. Given my assumptions about how the situation was handled, I was a bit puzzled, asking what she meant by that. And that’s how I learned that Anna supposedly didn’t give the group any context about what happened between us— only that I told Anna I’d be leaving the group. That’s it.
So I tell Bailey everything I could recall. She listens with intent the whole way through. Tells me she’s sorry she had no idea all of this happened, assures me she would’ve stayed my best friend even if she only got to hear Anna’s side of the story. And that around the time I left, she was being excluded from meetups as well. It was nice to hear my best friend be honest with me like this.
I thought I moved past this whole ordeal. Yet when Bailey and I parted ways after the hangouts, a disquiet was lingering. Learning that Anna didn’t disclose what had happened, and how the entire friend group, including Bailey, made the decision to stick by Anna without a lick of context. Which was enough to “pick a side” even if they didn’t explicitly say anything. No one reached out to me, didn’t bother asking me what had happened; I interpreted this as my presence in the group not mattering much to begin with. What dreads me the most is Bailey learning my side of things and still speaking about ex-friends with the same fondness. Honestly speaking, I think it would’ve hurt less if I was openly hated by everyone in the group, or if Bailey didn’t bring up people from the friend group frequently; that way, the years of old history behind us wouldn’t have reared its head. Maybe things didn’t feel as resolved as my teenage self thought they were.
I feel really childish for letting this feeling affect the present. Fallouts between friends do happen; and we were quite literally teenagers. Dynamics between friends are never really clear-cut, after all. But after reevaluating the situation as an adult, I’ve realized how much Bailey and I’s friendship had exhausted me. The times I have to comfort her to no avail. Realizing I was the “low-priority” friend twice. Or unintentionally falling back into this dynamic as a young adult.
Of course I still care about my best friend deeply. She’s been with me through it all. But I’m not sure what to do, given that I have already communicated to Bailey how the fallout had hurt me. Maybe I need to face the fact that we’ve defined what we mean to each other differently. I don’t want to end our friendship, but perhaps I need some time apart from her.
Any advice on how to handle this?