I’m so hurt by my friend’s coldness

DEAR BEL,

AFTER nearly 30 years, I appear to have created a rift with a friend. We’re both in our mid-40s and both were single until Covid, when she met someone, moved in and is happy. Not the issue. We don’t live near or see a great deal of each other but have always kept up with communications.

Our paths have changed over the years. However, she’s always been quite cold, a glass half-empty person, practical and not overly gushing when it came to empathy of any kind.

Most recently, she’s not reacted to sad family news of mine. She didn’t even acknowledge or reply when I told her after Christmas.

We met up for lunch two weekends ago (we meet a few times a year) but she didn’t ask me a thing. So I challenged her by text, after we met and explained how hurt I felt. I can’t face confrontation. All I want is a simple, ‘How are you? How’s your family? Sorry to hear’ etc . . . But no.

It’s more than ten days now since my text. Nothing. What do I do now? Leave it? Tackle it? I am not sure I even want to but it’s bothering me.

Maybe this is what it takes to make me realise I no longer have it in me to want to make it work.

Does it sound dramatic? Pathetic? Of course there’s a lot of background as well, after so long — but this was the main crux to my challenging her.

Now I’m left still sad from her lack of yet another reaction to my feelings.

Any advice would be very welcome.

DIANE

IcAn absolutely understand why you are hurt; anybody would surely feel the same. not to respond when a very old friend pours out her heart and recounts a family problem . . .

Well, that’s tantamount to seeing you near to tears on the doorstep and slamming the door in your face. Quite apart from a lack of empathy, it is just plain rude.

All she had to do was email/message back and say, ‘God, how awful for you all, I’m so sorry’, or something like that. It’s not difficult.

But remember that many people cross the street to avoid meeting somebody they know to be recently bereaved, or fail to get in touch, even with a close friend who is grieving.

The effect can be devastating, and the common excuse, ‘ I just don’t know what to say’ truly feeble and lazy. You are perfectly normal in expecting her to respond; the ‘pathetic’ one is the so- called friend who cannot cope with the pain of others.

Friendships do end — and, to be honest, this one sounds on its last legs. Only you can decide whether there is any point in hanging on.

The key is your realisation: ‘I no longer have it in me to want to make it work.’

I love that Beatles line, ‘And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make’.

How true is that? Why should you give time and emotional energy to someone who lets you down?

It’s possible to have history with somebody, and cherish that shared past, but realise that their friendship has not caught up with your life.

This woman has clearly hurt you before, probably many times, but this latest proof of her inability to empathise is the last straw. Should you ditch her? On the evidence of this letter, and considering how unhappy she has made you, I’d probably say ‘Yes’.

I hope you have newer friends who love and understand you much more than this one. I’d respond to her emails in the future, but slowly, and expect nothing more.

You hate confrontation (which is why you said nothing when you met) but you need to confront your own nostalgia and move on from this woman who is now a part of your past.