We all want our friends to be happy, and often times that means giving them the space they need to live their own lives, but that can be particularly difficult when we've grown accustom to a certain level of presence and friendship. When our closest friends fall in love and embark on serious romances, it can often leave us, well, missing them and feeling a little hollow. To learn ways to aid in this adjustment, read more
- You know all those things that you keep saying you'll do when you have free time? Like cleaning out your closet or printing out your pictures and getting them in an album, do them! There's nothing like a little productivity to keep you distracted.
- Take advantage of this time to build relationships with all those acquaintance-level friends you've been meaning to make plans with but haven't. It may expose you to an entirely new group of people, which is always fun!
- Make formal plans with your pal. If you keep waiting for her to plan something, it may not happen for months or worse yet, until you feel resentful and hurt. However, if you take the initiative, and communicate to her that you miss her, she'll likely be more than willing to accommodate you.
- Make an effort to be a third wheel (every once and awhile). I'm not saying you should get into this habit, but it shows great support to join your friend and her new beau to a movie or dinner. Plus, you'll still be getting to see your friend.
Laura Clement
Nike
APC
I always just leave my girls with their time when they start a new fling. I don't mind. I just want them to be understanding when I am in that situation.
1It's not hard to find things to do!
This is exactly what's happening to one of my girlfriends. She has alienated herself from all of us ever since she started seeing this guy. I haven't seen her in months and when we all talk to her it's not the same anymore.
We miss her. I know it also has to do with the fact that
none of us like him. He's a douche and she doesn't see it. But, LOVE is blind.
2Great now how to I get her to talk about anything other than her new beau? I know we had plenty to talk about pre-boyfriend, so why now do we have to spend hours talking about him? (Or rather, she spend hours talking about him.) I know, I know, we all do it. Le sigh...
3WOW, this is happening to me RIGHT NOW. in fact, i'm supposed to talk to my roommate/friend about me feeling like she doesn't care to make effort towards our friendship.
i don't know what to do or say that will get the point across without her immediately getting defensive. normally in the past, if i was sad/crying she would be worried, now i have tried to call her and left her a message and instead of calling me back, she texted me defending herself without even bothering to mention anything about me crying.
the sad thing is, we used to hang out everyday. now all she does is go immediately from work to her boyfriends or goes to her best friends house then her boyfriends.
i sometimes feel like it's her giving me pity//making me feel like it's a chore for her to reserve a day randomly where we hang out.
i don't know what to do. just ride out the remaining months of our lease and part ways. or attempt to talk to her.... and if so, how do i talk to her without her immediately saying that how i'm feeling is me being wrong and overreacting...when it's been going on for 2 months now.
4I think it's happened to all of us at one time or another and we've all done it too.
5aww this helps alot.. on my end for her and on her end for me : )
6Oh my gosh, I have the same exact situation that you have ddene5713!
Anyone have any advice as for what to do?
I think, if things don't change, I'm just going to let us part ways. While she was one of my closest friends, she's changed and so have I.
I've begun to realize we didn't have as much in common as I thought. I think her getting a boyfriend just helped me realize that.
7I know this has happened to me a few times...I hate being the third wheel, so it's difficult, and we try to communicate our feelings about this and make time-but I don't know, it's still weird.
8geeeeeze. hlewis... that sounds just like what i was thinking too. if things don't change or she still doesn't care to reserve time to listen to what i have to say and not jump the gun and get defensive, then i'll just wait it out and at the end of the lease just end up parting ways. sad but what can i do. hm.
9I do what aschcwebb does and give my friends some time to do their thing with their new guy. If it goes on too long and they haven't resurfaced, I'll make some extra effort to organize a get-together, but if it's resisted, I don't push it. Some girlfriends ride off into the sunset when they meet the right guy, never really to be seen again. That's just the way it goes.
10Good grief, this has been happening to me for almost a year now. My bff lives very far away and we don't get to see eachother much but when I went to visit her, he was almost always there. It was so irritating, even though I do like him, he's the best bf she's ever had. And when she calls, they are always together... ugh. I feel replaced, and so alone because I don't have any other friends that are as close to me as she is... I talked to her about it several times in long emails... things change for a bit before going back to the way they were. I understand her job is demanding and stuff, but I know she hangs out with her bf/talks to him on those days and not me... I feel left out, so I wrote her an email again today... we'll see what happens.
11This is happening to me right now as well. I just sort of stopped making an effort to communicate, and I think she's finally picked up on it. She has started initiating contact, but never face to face or over the phone. It's through facebook, IMs, and random emails. I reply to about half of them. I'm hurt and I haven't been feeling up to putting in the extra effort lately. I guess that I should just grow up and start acting mature about the situation, but its hard. And I know that we all do it or have done it at some point, I should be more forgiving. C'est la vie.
12So it's my best friend's boyfriend's birthday soon and she's going INSANE for his birthday presents. She's already got him a few articles of clothing and shoes and feels bad cause she feels like "it's not enough." But for my birthday, (last August), she still hasn't gotten me anything. She claims it's because she doesn't have money but clearly, she does. So that's my big issue right now.
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