Advice For Dealing With Friend/Acq

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I'm 28 and have struggled to ever make and maintain a healthy friendship.
Same story as you....people exclude...and then when they do include it either is one-sided where they manipulate control OR where the culture we grew up n...being loners, emotional starved for attention, is one which clashes.

Months ago I meet somebody at my gym. We worked out, then started hanging out. It went so well I actually acted normal, no "checking up" no "testing people" actually feeling included and acting like a different man.
He told me that when he moved 35 miles away he still would try to work out the gym and despite being married I could hang out anytime I want.

Since he moved; it's sucked. I have had to chase him at an 8:1 ration. We don't have much fun...we do what he wants...mostly errands and sitting at his house. He just is not the same. I got the impression, he is a good man, that my days of isolation were over. He knew I had AS and IBS and he seemed to sympathize saying "everybody needs a chance" or "this must have been hard; I understand I was picked on." Also he'd ask follow up questions.

But again, since he moved he hasn't really initiated and he stopped doing fun things. He did invite me to his bday in a few weeks.
He was gone for 3 weeks, his other friend whom I felt and got the strong impression was my buddy too; I tried to hang out with him multiple times and got a polite no.
Since he came back, he never reached out to me on the weekend.



I need a full time buddy and crew I can count on. Part time will only make things worse. Because if I am isolated for weeks/months it sucks...but I get used to it...I'm not really aware of what I am missing out on. When I do hang out...I have fun...but then I see what it is like to be a regular peer...and it opens a wound and makes me emotionally hungry as we all are and leads to a MAJOR depressing let down. It basically teases me and gets my hopes up to crush them.


He did reach out to me monday asking how the gym was going....I purposely delayed 4 hours and answered "good."
Have not heard back. So.....

1) Should I contact him casually and try to have a dialoge:
-Where I can try to discuss this with my peer; but I don't really now how without it being girly. Frankly my view is, if I have to chase people, deal with lies, and then have these discussions it's really not working and the problem will just come up again. It worked in May...he came to me 50% of the time, initiated, and did fun stuff. He gave me the impression this was not some part time occasional thing but I could count on him to be the consistent pal I needed. Actions say otherwise.

2) Should I play chicken and not speak to him until he reaches out to me....and then:
-Next time he contacts me....I can assert myself...address my complaints...and do so fearlessly with the kind of irritated, belligerent tone you have seen me do here and let the chips fall where they do.

3) Or, I can just totally ignore, delete, and have no contact and f**k his party.

Up till now I have been 100% on my best behavior being extremely agreeable and polite...I haven't shown the other side of me you all see and frankly feel if he is going to be the friend I need he will have to see the real me and I need to stop sucking up and show him my time matters and I am not going to be at his mercy. If he doesn't like it...I've lost nothing important because the isolation didn't go away hence he didn't live up to the impression he gave.

Friendships are simply harder to maintain at a distance. When someone moves away, people usually don't contact each other as much. That this person invited you to their birthday party means that they still consider you a friend, though.

I think you should maintain the friendship, but at a less intensive level. With the two of you being further apart geographically, it's not going to be as easy to meet. IM and e-mail are probably better options. A warning with e-mail: most people don't like getting huge e-mails. Keep it to two paragraphs or less.

Don't be too clingy with this person. You seem to be scared that if you can't be friends with this guy, you will be completely isolated. That's a lot of expectations to put on one human being, however nice he is. Remember that you want to hang out because you enjoy each other's company--not because you're scared of being alone. Now that you have this extra experience, try finding other people. If you could meet one person who is interesting and fun to be with just by chance at the gym, chances are there are a lot more people you could connect with out there just waiting for you to say hello. Depending on one person to keep you from being lonely isn't something that anybody should do. You shouldn't even do it if that person is your spouse!--so why put the whole burden of your social needs on a single friend? You may not be an extrovert, and you may not want a *lot* of friends--but if you need more social interaction than one friend can provide, you should try to find other people who are also interesting to be with.

Thanks.
Truth is I AM 100% isolated socially without this friend.
But HE knew it when he became friends, he knew who he was dealing with.

Fact is he lives only 35 miles away and has no real local friends himself (aside from wife).
Also he works 10 minutes from me and he could still workout.

I don't what to do.
I don't know if I should play hard to get and go on a staredown till he contacts me.
I don't know if I should casually contact him.

I do know this is a problem, and if I repress it that it will come back.
I at age 28 need buddies, not part time friends.
I am better off being 100% isolated than being the incertain position of having a great time 1 weekend and not knowing if that is my last chance for 6 weeks. That will not work.

I'd like to make this guy understand this going forward because I need to know this will work or not.
If the best he can do is part time casual, then better to end it than deal with the let downs.
He told me "I am part of the A team" he told me "We can hang out every weekend when I am around" and when he was here in May and June the contact ratio was 1:1 and we actually did fun stuff. That worked for me.

This has gotta work both ways; repressing does no good.