Published on 12, July, 2020
He moved abroad to be with his partner. They're getting married in June and my wife and I were going to fly out there for the event.
I'm very fragile right now and my wife has a lot on at work, so we withdrew our RSVP and offered to reimburse him if he ended up out of pocket.
It'd be full of people I don't know in a strange country and alcohol would be around (I'm also a recovering alcoholic and am tee total). It just wasn't a good idea.
He got nasty. Blocked me on Facebook and WhatsApp and said he was done with me. Accused me of lying.
I got him on email where he told me I act like the world owes me one and I bring everybody around me down.
I feel pretty low.
I would suggest not to focus too much on this one event, on this one comment and this one feeling. He's your best friend so that entire relationship throughout the time you spent together simply cannot be defined by this one negative action.
I know its hard be try and separate the person from the action - he said something intolerant and a bit unkind, but there is more to him than that. As has been pointed out, there is no doubt a huge amount going on at the moment with a move to another country, wedding, new jobs, friends etc. I expect as he left his best friend behind he's been missing you, probably feels as though he's not made any new friends as good as you, and was looking forward to seeing you again - so you saying you're not going was really upsetting.
It's probably no comfort now, but he would have only got so angry because you not coming was so upsetting - which is nice that another human cares so much about you.
But at the same time, I had a really bad time telling me best friend I was dreading his Stag Do, this was before diagnosis. For me I thought it was a fare thing to say as he knew I hated parties, but he took it really personally. On reflection I understand this better now, this was a party he was incredibly excited about, proud of, looking forward to - and they I come along and make it sound like torture.
I think perhaps if you email your friend and apologies for rejecting his offer, but include your reasons, especially those related to things out of your control related to Autism, I'm sure he'd come around.
Good luck, don't feel bad for being Autistic, don't feel bad for a neurotypical not understanding - it's very common