He snapped and pushed me away. How can we get back on speaking terms?

[Miri]

I met a guy with whom I had a really intense connection. In my entire life, I've never met anyone else who was so well-matched in terms of interests and intellectual compatibility. We both share a special interest and professional experience in an area of the arts, and I've never met anyone else with whom I could just talk so passionately about our field. Unfortunately, he has a lot of issues and was not emotionally ready for a relationship. Please don't go and say "I told you so" - I've learned my lesson, and I tried to take everyone's advice, but sometimes you just can't help but being drawn to a kindred spirit.

 

We really did try to be just friends. That's what we were first and foremost, and we took things really slowly. He said that the connection we shared was too meaningful to "waste on a fling" and for months we were just platonic friends. He sought me out for conversation every single day (mostly online) and we saw each other consistently 1-3 times a week. 95% of the time our interactions were platonic. Even when we went on trips together we did not get physical but just had a lot of conversation. Sometimes we would hang out and talk until 2 or 3 in the morning, without any sex involved. But after a while, it just happened. And it seemed fine - nothing about our friendship changed. We talked a bit and just established that we weren't seeing other people and would let each other know if we got seriously involved with anyone else. There wasn't actually that much sex and after a while it tapered off but we still talked as much as always - every single day.

 

I was his closest friend and confidante. He wanted me to be his partner in a few joint ventures and he trusted me with a lot of information about his plans and ambitions that he never shared with anyone. I knew him better than anyone, and knew he does not have a lot of close friends or social outlets other than me. He leaned on me a lot for emotional support as well. He always, always wanted to talk to me, every single day, even when he was travelling.

 

I don't understand why this happened but one day all that just changed, like the flip of a switch. We were just in the middle of a normal conversations and I expressed a tiny bit of curiosity/jealous about another woman. He said she was just a friend (which seems to be true) and that he didn't think he could be more than friends with anyone right now, and felt that we were heading towards something more serious but he wasn't ready for that. He also said he really liked me, thought I was an amazing person, and valued our wonderful friendship. All of this seemed pretty decent and I actually wasn't all that surprised (as I didn't think we were in a serious relationship anyway), but after that he just stopped responding to me online.

 

I made a few attempts to contact him, but he mostly ignored me except for sending one last message confirming that he certainly did appreciate my friendship but that he needed some time completely away for the moment. I didn't understand why a simple question would lead to an abrupt and extreme change in our friendship and couldn't help but write back in a more upset tone, saying that I didn't consider him a friend if he wasn't willing to talk to me and that I deserved better from him after all we had shared, and that he was being unfair and unnecessarily hurtful. Nothing happened after that message (and I wasn't expecting a response). The next day he posted something on social media, and I posted a reply that was slightly passive aggressive (but pretty innocuous), and immediately, I mean within 5 minutes of my post, he blocked me on all social networks.

 

I'm just totally stunned and not even sure what it means. To me, blocking someone would only mean that the other person has wronged me and I wanted nothing to do with them ever again. It seems completely unwarranted. Yes, maybe I should have just left him alone, but I also just felt the need to let him know that the way he was treating me was not right, and I didn't imagine it would have drawn that harsh a response from him.

 

I feel like this is not how an emotionally functional adult behaves. He has shown clear signs of depression before, and in the past has lashed out a few times in a way that seemed really irrational and extreme, but he always came back quickly and apologized and made amends. So I do think there is some emotional imbalance here but I am not a psychiatrist so I can't presume.

 

It's been 3 weeks since he blocked me and since then I have completely left him alone, but I haven't heard from him at all. It's been extremely painful as he was someone I became very close to and enjoyed talking to every day. I really miss our conversations. It's clear that he also enjoyed talking to me as he was always the one who initiated and sought me out - why would he push me away so hard over something trivial? I have told him that I am definitely not interested in being more than friends either. I don't care now if he is seeing other women. I just don't understand why we are suddenly not on speaking terms and why it seems like he would change his mind overnight and throw away a good friend over nothing, after investing so much time and energy in our friendship. He had every reason to value my presence in his life, and he said he did. But this behavior is so baffling.

 

I'm just trying to wait and give him space and see if he comes around. But at some point after more time has passed I don't know if I should reach out and extend an olive branch, and if so, how much time I should wait before doing so, and what should I say? Should I just keep it light and not mention anything that could lead to tension, even though I feel deeply hurt and wronged by his actions?

Edited November 11, 2013 by Miri

[alonefornow]

You need to go totally NC and start moving on with your life. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but he asked you for time completely away and you then sent him another message and posted passive aggressive stuff. You may not think you wronged him, but that's not for you to decide. And you're certainly not going to make anything better by continuing to not respect his desire for time away.

 

For now you need to consider this chapter closed. Sorry, but thems the breaks.

[Miri]

Okay, but wow, that just seems so crazy. When I say my post was a little passive aggressive, it wasn't even really anything. I simply commented on a spelling of a name, correcting it (without any snarkiness), and then said "Nice picture." Something any friend could have posted.

 

It's horrible to think that someone could treat me this way just because of that. Is there really no way back? He said he wanted to be friends, but just because of one email message (written only because he hurt me) and a harmless little post it's impossible now to be on speaking terms?

 

We used to talk about everything, and he said that I should always feel like I could speak my mind and say anything to him. I was a really great friend to him and gave him so much support. I always had his back. And he wanted me to work with him on all these projects together. I offered to refer him for some artistic gigs and connected him with some really good people. Now I feel like I have to rescind all of that with the third parties. Not because of any hostility on my part, it's just really unstable and massively unprofessional of him to behave in this way. I'm sure he would feel awkward now anyway.

 

I just wish I could undo it all. I feel like if I had never asked him that question, if I hadn't pushed him a little (and in a way that I felt was fair, standing up for myself) we would still be talking now. Surely it shouldn't be that just over this stupid incident he is going to be closed off forever?

Edited November 11, 2013 by Miri

[Miri]

I'm having such a hard time accepting or understanding how things came to this. How does someone go from "I like you, I think you're amazing, I appreciate our wonderful friendship, and I do want to remain friends" - to suddenly cutting you out of his life, literally OVERNIGHT - just because I wrote ONE email and posted an innocuous unrelated comment? How can someone who clearly really liked me and talked to me every single day for 5 months, decide that just because of this, he will never speak to me again?

 

It's not as if I had betrayed him, harmed him, or even really insulted him. I was simply asking him to be a better friend, to talk to me, because I was hurt.

 

We have a few mutual friends and I spoke with the ones I am close to. They seem to think he is a jerk and his reaction is completely unwarranted and crazy. That he's acting this way because he has issues.

 

I'm really hurting so much from this. I feel like there has to be a way to get back on speaking terms eventually. Maybe not for a while but surely it can't be awful if a few months from now I try to just say that I regret that things ended on such bad terms, and can we just be friends? (I don't know if I should apologize - my friends say I've done nothing wrong and shouldn't.)

[Fufu]

Sometimes, when you find a person seems to be perfect for you, indeed there are times it is just too good to be true.

 

Move on, you can do it