Hi all,

I have been keeping all this largely bottled up inside me for a couple of years now, and I feel things are about to boil over if I don't get an outlet of some kind, so this is my first step.

I have a friend who i care heaps about. I mean - generally I care a lot about all my close mates, and since we finished high school 2 years ago I've been a bit paranoid but reasonably proactive in making sure I see them enough. I'm not too attached to my family (except maybe my mum) so as far as my sense of belonging goes, it's pretty much all wrapped up in 4 or 5 of my closest friends. I know none of them have that same issue - they all have pretty cool families they can do stuff with and enjoy the company of, but that's always been cool.

Anyway, he's a guy, I'm a guy - I don't think I'm gay. Maybe jealous because he's rather fit and I'm a 110 lb stick, but that's nothing unusual. I really want to become closer friends, and I want to see and do stuff with him more often. He just always seems less accessible or less inclined to do stuff with me.

Over the past few years I've known him though, there have just been so many ups and downs, and every time there is a big down it hurts like hell. Let me go over some examples, chronologically.

- Our last year of high school. Things are generally going well - he sometimes goes out of his way to sit next to me in class. On one of our last days, the grade goes on a Beach Day sort of thing. While we're there he doesn't have much worth eating so I offer to buy him lunch. I do, and we sit down and eat - I'm a pretty slow eater so he finishes well before me. He then gets up and leaves me there in the food court on my own, so he can go back to the beach with the others. As you can imagine, that didn't feel too nice.

- We're at a friends house watching a movie. I didn't bring a car as I got a lift with another one of my mates. He had to leave early, so I asked this main friend in question if he could take me home later instead, and he refuses. This is despite me not being very far out of his way at all. It's like an extra hour of my company isn't worth an extra 5c in petrol for him?

Now, the leaving-me-sitting-alone-in-the-restaurant thing, he has done a second time as well, and every now and then he won't bother to tell me if people are doing something so they can include me. But on the flip side, he quite often does give me a lift to and from places, or lets me come over and veg at his house for a while. I don't understand why he seems reasonable sometimes... but then completely doesn't care about me at other times.

A month ago, my mum was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a masectomy and underwent her first bout of chemo a week ago. As you can imagine, this means greatly increased stress levels and needing of support. It's pretty scarey stuff. When I told him about it, I was shaking a bit - purely because I knew I'd be so upset if he didn't give the response I was hoping for, which indeed he didn't. He has hardly given me any supportive words and really just tries to avoid the subject. Another of my friends had his mum go through the same thing, and as I recall my friend gave a lot more support to him than to me. I know people react to these things in different ways, but it just seems heartless.

Then there's tonight. Tonight was the last straw with me keeping this bottled up. I was invited to a friends birthday party. I message him to see if he wants to come to my place so we can go together - him or me driving, I don't care as long as one of us can navigate as I don't know the way. He never replied to my message. Usually for him, no reply means he's not going.

So I managed to get a lift with another friend, and when I get there... not only is he there, but he also picked up another of my mates on the way. I wouldn't have been out of his way at all. I asked the person who he picked up if he mentioned anytihng about my SMS and he said "Yeah, he just said he didn't care". So throughout the party this evening I couldn't bring myself to say a word to him. But it sucks - he just completely brushes me off when I need him or want to see him.

Now, obviously because I've shortened the last 3 years of my life into a few paragraphs, I have only highlighed the bad parts, so you need to remember the above was spaced out over a good amount of time with a fair bit of nothing-worth-mentioning in between.

But I don't know. He was saying just the other day that he is worried about how few friends he has, and he wants more. But when it comes to me he doesn't even seem to care about whether he keeps me as a friend or not? I know he doesn't hate me, or he wouldn't let me come over to his house and stuff. So what's the deal? Why would he be doing all this to me? As far as I can tell I have generally been as helpful as possible. When he crashed his car, I was the first on the scene to see how he was. While it was getting fixed, I drove him places even though picking him up tripled my travel time to our destination. When he needs help with his computer, I come over even if it's late at night. I don't care for "trading favours", but I am pretty sure my actions have made it obvious enough to him as to just how much he means to me.

He just doesn't reciprocate, and infact often does quite the opposite. I'm going nuts, and this is what I have been losing sleep on almost every night for a long time now. I don't know what to do. Completely letting go of him just isn't an option my mind can cope with. At this time in my life i need as many close friends as I can get.

[OOPS]

I should add, I feel like I will scare him off for good if I talk to him about this. He doen't like very deep conversation, and he's awfully homophobic so if he got the wrong impression he'd be running as fast as he could. I don't want to do anything that would make him want to see me even less. Hence I am stuck.