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Vanishing friendships and loneliness

Montekki

I realised I have nobody to talk to about these thoughts. My wife doesn't understand me and wouldn't be interested, people I know I don't want to dump myself on, friends I don't have that many of and it would be very out of the blue as I have only been talking a lot to one and she... Well she is the issue really. So I feel depressed, lonely and trapped with my thoughts inside my head. Realised that I either share them here or I really don't have anywhere else to share them. 

Like many here, I struggle to make friends. I also suck at maintaining friendships and keeping in touch. AuDHD means I can hyperfixate one someone and everyone else I genuinely forget exist. Plus, especially when it is a long distance relationships, and I only have 1 or 2 friends in the same town as I – the rest are abroad, we aren’t exactly on the same page with each other’s context so I don’t know what to write to them about. And it drops.  

Therefore, it was surprising, magical really when I clicked with a colleague. When she left the workplace for another company it was painful, scary, but we kept in touch and this was a relief. She was the person I could share things with and it meant a lot to me. Then, suddenly, radio silence.  

First of all, it is profoundly confusing. Because her last messages to me were asking me to remind her to respond to me in more details once she gets home from work. So not exactly indicating unwillingness to keep in touch. So I waited. Send the reminder she asked for. A couple of short unrelated messages over the next few days. Then a message asking if she is OK. After a week has passed I was getting myself wound up. Thoughts of maybe something actually happened to her started popping up and how to find out without being stupid, intrusive and causing panic. Until one day I spotted a notification on Steam of her and her partner being online so at least she was OK. 

But now it’s a whole different can of worms. I just don’t understand. I keep overanalysing, trying to figure out. Is it me? Is it personal? Or is it something different? Have I said something? I don’t think I have. Or am I just a burden?  Which is why I cannot really talk to anyone about it. Cling to someone else and mess that up also? I just feel trapped. And confused. And really depressed. 

I know that this too will pass. Even if it becomes another relationship that ended by me just getting ghosted. Another question for my mind to come back to from time to time and not finding an answer. This is the most painful though. And, at least how I feel now, I don’t just not know how to make friends anymore. I don’t think I want to. Getting invested, getting attached, trusting someone. To then just be left alone again. 

 

Parents

  • The challenge is that you are working with a subset of information, and therefore guessing.

    Relationships are successful when they are symbiotic i.e., both parties get something from the relationship. That may be direct and open, or indirect. Example, having someone that it is easy to be around and that you can discuss things with that you cannot with others (although that is one direction only).
    As the status quo changed - she moved to another workplace, then this may have impacted the symbiosis. Possibly that the relationship is now additional to other things in her life (as opposed to being an extension of work). The 'effort' for want of a better word, has changed, and maybe the 'what is in it for me' from her perspective. There could also be other influences that would completely knock thing e.g., she became pregnant and her focus is elsewhere.

    The primary is that you do not know, and without information from her or her partner, will probably never know why it ended.

    On other relationships, I am not one to be able to advise as I have zero friends beyond my wife, daughter and her family. I make acquaintances at work, and on specific topics, although that has lessened over the years. I remember the conversations that carried through to the early hours at university where we challenged the boundaries of the world around us. Those too were situational as the connection did not last beyond.

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  • The challenge is that you are working with a subset of information, and therefore guessing.

    Relationships are successful when they are symbiotic i.e., both parties get something from the relationship. That may be direct and open, or indirect. Example, having someone that it is easy to be around and that you can discuss things with that you cannot with others (although that is one direction only).
    As the status quo changed - she moved to another workplace, then this may have impacted the symbiosis. Possibly that the relationship is now additional to other things in her life (as opposed to being an extension of work). The 'effort' for want of a better word, has changed, and maybe the 'what is in it for me' from her perspective. There could also be other influences that would completely knock thing e.g., she became pregnant and her focus is elsewhere.

    The primary is that you do not know, and without information from her or her partner, will probably never know why it ended.

    On other relationships, I am not one to be able to advise as I have zero friends beyond my wife, daughter and her family. I make acquaintances at work, and on specific topics, although that has lessened over the years. I remember the conversations that carried through to the early hours at university where we challenged the boundaries of the world around us. Those too were situational as the connection did not last beyond.

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