Former friend wanting to apologize

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Hi:

For those of you who know, a close friend of mine decided to cut the cord with me at the last minute and out of the blue. What made it worse was that she seemed to dump me right after Christmas and especially after having me over for dinner and getting me gifts and acting as if everything was fine. She started ignoring me by appearing to act different around me by pulling a 180. I picked things up during a gathering at my house on New Year's Day. She really did not want to be there and therefore sat around acting like a stuck up teenager. She was also very disrespectful to my other house guests.

Long story short she had been ignoring me and giving me an attitude. I asked if she was mad at via e-mail after trying to send her two texts and being ignored. She responded by telling me that she did not want to continue having a relationship with me because we were not compatible. I had a chance to let her know that I was not happy with this decision and that it was selfish in terms of what she did.

She wrote back to me over a week later and said that she was sorry for not calling me over the phone and being "Assertive" instead of using written communications to let me down. She also said that she wished that she could have invited me out somewhere so she could assert herself in person. She then asked me if we could meet somewhere so could can talk things over. She then said that she understood if I don't want to. Yet I did not hear her apologize for playing games with me by ignoring me like that.

In all honesty I have no problem meeting her in person but since she is deciding to dump me, what's the point?
1. The situation is too raw right now and we are both fragile
2. I think seeing her right now would make it worse.


Has anyone else experienced this kind of garbage?

Yes. I think NT friends get frustrated with us and can't see that we don't comprehend what their issue is. They then appear to feel we should know why they "have had enough".

I've had people go cold on me like this, so many times I can't remember. I do recall one specific occasion when a close friend did this, and I was very candid to him; I said "well if you want to just through away a good friendship, there's nothing I can do about that, but I don't even know what your problem is!". This person listened to that, although others have not in the past. He seemed to conceed that he didn't actually "want" to not be friends, but couldn't explain in a way that I understood why at that particular point in time he had "had enough". We remained in touch, but I felt a bit resentful, and so we aren't close now.

Weirdly every now and then some ex-friends have approached me sheepishly and tried to act like they didn't ditch me years ago. The thing is now I don't respect them, it doesn't mean a thing, it's just sad.

As she has not left if a long time, it sounds like this may have not gone too far for you. I hope you can continue to be friends. Maybe this will open up a new dialogue between you. I think sometimes a little "water under the bridge" is a good thing, but prob important not to sweep it under the carpet, or it will happen again.

She is on the spectrum and still decided to go cold on me without giving me a real reason why the straw broke the camel's back. I feel that she just got up one day and said "I don't want to be friends with her anymore." I also just see her rattling off a list of poor excuses about why we cannot be friends.

1. She's and introvert and I am an extrovert
2. I want to be a geek and she wants to go into ministry
3. She's not the life of the party like me
4. Then the relationship has been doing down hill.
5. I am the life of the party and she is not.

I just feel that since she decided to turn cold out of the blue and ditch me:

1. It was not a healthy relationship from day one where both of us went into it with problems of our own
2. She never really appeared to be that interested in what I was doing with my life while everything was all about her.
3. She and I kept finding ways to make each other jealous all the time and I finally got tired of it.
4. I noticed that others appeared to be more important during certain times of the year while I got shut out.
5. Then she would always appear to cut me down in the most sneaky ways that would seem helpful.
6. Then she is a very negative person to be around.

I know that we have different personalities but I somehow don't really think that she is truly sorry for what she pulled. For one thing, you don't go inviting someone to your house get them gifts and then turn around and dump them afterwards because you don't really like then. That's just diabolical I am sorry. That ladies and gentleman is a great of example of a jerk.

I also don't care to meet up with her so that I can sit and listen to her have a a pity party draw all kinds of negative unwanted attention to herself. I am just not going to give her that full opportunity. If she wants to whine, there are plenty of others that she can dump on and that's called a counselor.

Hmmm, well it sounds like you've answered your own question. It seems that now you can forget all about her, as you don't like her or wish to be her friend. No problem, right?

Can I ask how old you both are? The reason I ask is because it doesn't sound like there is any more going on here than people wasting their time being unpleasant to each other. Why bother?

Oh no I love this person but I hate what she did. I just need support right now since I had to confirm her decision with her and it's very hard.

Oh, I see. Well, yes it is difficult to accept when a relationship isn't working as we'd wish, I know that feeling. I'm sorry, it is sad. Maybe just give each other a break, and who knows what the future holds.

Yeah I feel the same way but I am not sure either.

I did something similar once to someone (not on the spectrum). We were good friends for a while, somehow (our personalities are pretty much opposites), but I started be consistently annoyed at him (his personality) and he was getting too close to me for my comfort, and didn't know what to do. We talked and tried to fix things, I ended up doing the 180 thing semi-unintentionally for a bit, we tried (him doing an unfair amount of the trying, to be honest, but I don't know what I was supposed to do) more, but it just fell apart. I handled my feelings pretty badly and somewhat deceptively throughout the thing, which was hurtful to him (and rightfully so).

Basically, I'm saying I can sympathize with your friend. Feeling trapped in a relationship (that used to be good) and not knowing how to get out without hurting someone is awful and eventually it snaps. And talking it over helped the friend hate me less for it; I think you should talk with this person. Giving it some time would not be a bad idea, though.

I also think you deserve an apology for how you were treated, but don't expect to become friends again. She can't help no longer wanting to be your friend, but she can help how she acted on that feeling, though based on my situation, I do not believe that she wanted to hurt you. I'm not sorry over ending my friendship, but I am sorry about how I acted and hurt a former friend who really is a nice guy and didn't deserve it.

Nobody in human history has eve been honest when it comes to this situation. If they cut ties with you and ignored you, why accept their apology? I'd bet money they're just apologizing to remove the guilt factor bestowed upon themselves, are they really sorry for you or themself? Nobody has ever, and probably ever will, give an honest reason as to why they decide to cut ties with someone. The human mentality - for both neurotypicals and autists; for both platonic and romantic relationships; is to just give someone the cold shoulder and be a dick until the other person eventually leaves. It's up to you if you feel you need closure or if you can move on, but the best you can do is just accept it for what it is.

Awww. That seems a bit cynical to me. No, I do know of situations were people have been honest about "breaking up".
It does seem that some people don't know what to say though.

I honestly would not have minded if she would have called me up the day after New Year's and told me that she felt like things were not going work anymore or offer to meet me in person then. She was being a complete jerk at my house during the gathering even though I was hosting the event. I also invited her out for tea so I could hear her out but she seemed to cover things up as if everything was fine. Yet I could tell that she had an attitude with me.

What bothers me was that I had to chase her down only for her to tell me that she did not want to be friends after being ignored like that. I feel too that since she did not act mature enough to contact me in the first place, that's it's not too important to her now. Again, she is only sorry using written communication. So it left a bad taste in my mouth, Again I don't think she is sorry one bit about what she just pulled. Anybody who can pull what she did like that goes to show that she only cared about herself in the first place.

I also don't need to hurt myself by listening to her talk about everything that is wrong with the relationship and the retaliating back at her. Then it's almost like she wants the attention but that could be my perception too.

You're perhaps correct, I just rarely from my experience see someone get let down honestly, it's always sugar-coated or just a middle finger.

Most of the time when a friend loses their interest in me, they just lead me around with excuses. They also say things that they don't really mean.

In one such case, I had a childhood friend who lost her interest in me after she discovered that I was not like other teenage girls once. That included talking about Disney stuff non stop while she was becoming a teenager and showed an interest in boys. She just started ignoring me and making fun of me as a person along with her first boyfriend about how dorky I was. Then when I would call I would get:
1. She was waiting for her boyfriend to call
2. She said that she had the wrong number
3. Another time she put food in her mouth just for me to get the picture by saying "I'm eating." (I remember being really upset and trying to tell me dad who was so cold and he said "Get over it!"


Other times, I have been told that I am someone's friend when it's not the case and that they don't like me. They gave me the hint by letting me know that everybody but me got to hang out. I would also invite another person over who agreed to come and never would and never called to say why. Then when I would see them again, there would be a load of excuses.

This woman made some excuses with me in the end too and it started around last May. I was wondering if she was even interested there a few times. I was not sure either so.