I [23M] reached out to a very close friend [27FtM] while in a really bad place, we began a conversation, and he started to ignore me in the middle of it.

It's not because of the conversation was interrupted and essentially abandoned. It's because of the nature of the discussion. Basically, I was in the middle of an emotional breakdown over the possibility of losing someone who plays the leading role in the cast of my life. So, naturally, I called Quinn, who also plays a huge role in my life, for some support, since the person I would normally rely on to help me keep my head on straight was the person I was having the issue with. He has always been someone I can rely on to stick around instead of doing the cut an run when things get rough.

What I'm having trouble understanding is, if he didn't want to/didn't currently have the ability to be someone who could listen and be there as a confidant, or didn't have the capacity to offer me much in the way of moral support because he's got his own stuff going on, that would've been fine. He knows all he has to do is tell me that, even if it was just a text saying "Hey, I'm sorry this is happening to you, but I've got my own problems that I need to deal with first." That would've been absolutely fine. Hell, even if he'd just not responded to my initial "I need someone to talk to" text until a few days later, whether it was to clear up his problems, or to say he wasn't presently able to help, that would've been completely kosher in my book. And he knows that. We've know each other long enough and have had enough blunt conversations about how we think friends who confide in each other should communicate, and what we expect if the other is willing/able to provide. But he did exactly the opposite of we agreed on in terms of communicating with each other, even though we've always practiced this kind of communication in our friendship, so I know he is aware that telling me something that may not be what I want to/was expecting to hear would offend me or piss me off. He has a life and his own shit and I have mine, we've always respected that and done our best to help however we're able to, if we're able to, at the time.

Yes, we do have fun, we laugh a lot, we have a lot of stupid inside jokes from a lot of the off-the-wall shit we've done over the years. He was the only person that wasn't either a SO or relative to make the fourteen hour trip to my duty station to see me while I was still under my enlistment contract. But our friendship has always been the light and the heavy stuff. When one of us has a problem we want to talk about, or just need to have someone around for a bit to help lift them a little out of a low place, the street has always been a two way. Whether it was an issue with family, another friend, a SO, shitty bosses, death of a loved one, whatever, we were always open to each other.

If this already long as fuck, novel-like, description hasn't already implied it, I'll answer the question on if he's just not a 'friend to call when my relationship is in crisis.' Friends that are just that-friends to hang out with, not call during breakdowns- are great. I have plenty of those, and there's nothing wrong with them. He's not one of them. It sounds like maybe the way you read my post you got the impression he's just a old friend I hang out with, and then just started dumping my problems on him. That's not the case.

I'm not a big sharer, I don't usually have a lot to say about emotions with anyone, save for my partner, one other close friend, and Quinn. Our friendship started on a heavy note, both of us shared some pretty emotionally rough things with each other. Since then, whenever one of us had a problem we wanted to ask for advice/talk/vent about, we would bring it up. If one of us had too much on our own plate, or didn't have time right that second to help, we'd make that known, and the other would either find another outlet or wait for a better time.

And I'm sure at least one person is thinking that I'm overusing the support I'm offered without returning the favor, or that maybe it's one of those weird things where I'm under the impression that we're super-awesome-really-close-BFF's whereas he thinks I'm cool to hang out with or whatever. I guess I can't explicitly speak for him, but I don't think this is a "I like/trust/want to hang around him more than he does me," thing. He comes to me for support just as often as I do. When his bio mom disowned him, I helped him through it. I've walked through some severe bouts of depression, dragged him out and about to be around other people and/or animals, gotten him to do some constructive but not awful and boring hobbies, would take trips with him to the lake to swim or walk so he (and myself) would get some exercise to help with increasing a better mood. He's come to me with problems he had with his partner, just like I have with him. You get the long winded idea, I guess.

Anyway, now that I have all that out (I apologize for the flood of probably not all relevant/entirely necessary information) the answer to you last question is I don't know that I'm the only one he's avoiding. What I do know is he is still hanging out with all his normal crowd of friends, (save for me, I guess) because he has a very active social media presence. He's still been posting statuses about his days/nights with the friends he was with tagged in them, a lot of pictures from houses of a friend or whatever bar they were at, most of them with people I know he hangs out with regularly. Our mutual friends have relayed that on their end he's acting normal (Normal for him, anyway) and he hasn't mentioned anything to suggest otherwise.

Well, if in that wall of text I missed anything, I'm sorry, but I can answer it if you want to know.

I'm just feeling pretty low about it, because he's never done anything like this before in similar situations, and we already had established guidelines on using each other as a type of support. He's been a phenomenal friend up to now, and it's really hard for me to wrap my head around how much this hurts.

tl;dr I'm sad, the cut losses thing is not about being ignored, but rather the content of the conversation that was ignored, we are close, no, this isn't the first time I've gone to him in crisis, yes, he has also come to me while he was in crisis, we have shared personal stories/issues from the beginning, it's not new, and I don't know 100% I'm the only one he's avoiding, but his social media shows he's hanging out with his usual crowd regularly, except for me, so it seems/feels like he is just avoiding me.

the tl;dr for the tl;dr I'm just really sad. We were really close prior to this. It sucks, and maybe I just fucked up majorly without realizing

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