I took a gap year before I started university and ended up becoming really close to one particular friend. We ended up going to the same university together, it was really exciting - we spent a lot of time together in the first semester, but in the second everything started going a bit wrong.

Her aunty only had a couple of months to live and she died in March. My Granddad also didn't have long to live, but no named illness so it was difficult for me to articulate to her. He died in July. I only mention this because I think a lot of our problems came from it.

Now, I basically considered this girl to be like a sister to me - we would talk about everything, but also found it was cool to not talk (or so I thought), and didn't mind just changing in front of each other or sharing a bed, etc...

In the second semester we discussed that maybe we had been spending too much time with just each other and that we weren't assimilating into university properly, so we should get out and do more things. We went to the Womens' Society together but I actually really hated going, I never felt very happy there, so I stopped. I joined the LGBT society because I had been thinking about sexuality for a while and decided I should do something about it. Cue stage 2 of PROBLEMS!

At first I didn't tell her I had joined - I didn't want to tell anyone at that point! When I finally did tell her, she wanted to come to socials with me. At first I wasn't sure - I was worried she wouldn't like anyone there, or that she would be worried I had a crush on her or something, especially considering that we used to change with each other and stuff so casually. Of course I never had a crush on her! But I underestimated her there because I was so insecure about it myself. But, more than anything, I felt it was something I needed to do alone - I am still kind of confused about it all, and even more so back then, so it was important to have the guts to do it myself and make my own conclusions.

At first she was upset that I wanted to go alone, I invited her along after that and she came to one, but it was never the same. She started drawing away from me and being kind of homophobic and stuff, so I drew away from her because I thought that she possibly wanted some space because of her aunt. I tried to talk to her about my Granddad but it must have come across as a bit of a pity party - "my problems are worse than yours!!" kind of thing. Really, I desperately wanted to talk about it and it made me quite lonely that I felt I couldn't with her. She also thought I didn't care about her aunty - which is an assumption I am still rather offended by as I think I made it pretty clear that I did care.

So this just carried on and on and both of us should have said something, we did and then we'd have a week honeymoon period of being awesome friends again and then just lose it. We blank each other in the street, we're constantly trying to one-up each other and meet up with mutual friends without each other so that we can 'up' on friendship points.

I really miss her, but we are both studying abroad now and it has been a good few months since all of this started. I can't phone her or see her as she is in Canada and I'm far away, I don't know her address either. I feel like it would be inappropriate and kind of tacky/cowardly to email her about how I feel, but I keep drafting them and drafting them. I found out that she only started to distance herself from me because she thought I was blowing her off for the new friends I had met at the LGBT - it was so stupid and I wish she had said something! I am kind of annoyed that she would think I would do that, but more than anything I'd just like to be able to chat to her again. I always felt like she wanted more fun friends who would squeal more and go drinking with her.

So, basically - sorry about the length by the way, thank you if you got this far! I keep going to email her and then chickening out. But also I wanted to explain how I felt. Does anyone think it would be a good idea or a bad idea to email her about this? I wouldn't want to stir up stuff and make her feel bad about it when she should be enjoying time abroad!