[ShadowGX]

Resolved


"Normal" I guess meaning I prefer people who have good social understanding to reply so I can best understand what the appropriate action would be. My judgement is still clouded by emotions and I'm not great at social things to begin with. The following explanation will be the short version, if you want the long version it's in the BPD forum. Please make an effort to read through this post entirely before replying!

Today marks 1 week since having lost my most recent friend. I did a stupid thing while caught up in "curiosity killed the cat" mode and that caused him pain to the point that he ended up saying we couldn't be friends anymore because he could not forgive me. We have an acquaintance in common and after the initial removal that acquaintance was caught in the middle relaying further messages (which I did not ask for). Maybe an hour or two after, the acquaintance ended up convincing the friend to re-add me on the chat program we use (again, something I did not ask for), and in my highly emotional state I decided to decline the request.

Today, I decided to ask acquaintance to ask ex-friend how he is doing. Acquaintance urged me to re-add ex-friend because he hated seeing me so upset by this. I argued that I cannot, because I fear ex-friend would only accept me back because of guilt or because acquaintance told him to. Of course acquaintance argued that would not be the case and that I should just do it. He then provided a chat log statement from a week ago saying ex-friend would get with me later, but it's important to note that this was after he had re-added me when acquaintance told him to and I had declined.

This is where you guys come in handy - you can give me an unbiased idea of what I can do, if anything.
Do I take the initiative to re-add him? If you were in his shoes, how would you see it - are you expecting me to re-add since I was the one to refuse your last request, even though you removed me to start, or are you going to try to re-add again if you feel like it at some point?

My concerns over re-adding him have multiple points:
1. If he declines, it will add more to the hurt, but at the same time it will let me know that he does not plan on coming back. Currently part of my anxiety over it is wondering if he will come back, so while it would hurt more initially it might help in the long run.
2. If he accepts, it might not be because he forgave me, but out of guilt or because the acquaintance told him to. Neither of these things would be a good base to restart the friendship with.
3. I don't know if I can get over him having left in the first place. Another friend that came back last year I have distanced myself from because of fear he will leave again and since he has never been an initiator the friendship has basically died.
4. I don't feel I can really offer him anything and I fear I could hurt him again. For his benefit I do not think this is a good relationship and as hard as it is to let go, I really don't want to hurt him more.

[healingme4me]

If the friend is hurt by you, it's up to the friend to establish better boundaries through clarifying what is and is not off limits.

My first impression was, life is too short. Either there's something to offer in friendship or simply there isn't. My other impression is that having middlemen sucks. And my question in my mind was, is this online or in person? And what could be so unforgivable about curiosity that killed the cat?

[ShadowGX]

Originally Posted by healingme4me

If the friend is hurt by you, it's up to the friend to establish better boundaries through clarifying what is and is not off limits.

It should have been an obvious off-limits thing, but due to my social retardation I thought it no big deal at the time because I didn't think anything bad would come of what I did, it seemed harmless. I was not thinking clearly because I was so focused on getting an answer to something he mentioned briefly but was unwilling to provide details of. I should have respected that he could not give details, but I didn't. Originally it wasn't a deal breaker, but some days later the situation got worse for him because of the way I handled it and that's why he decided he could no longer forgive.

Originally Posted by healingme4me

My first impression was, life is too short. Either there's something to offer in friendship or simply there isn't.

He can offer me a lot, but where it lacks is on my side. I mean, clearly he saw something in me because he was the one to initially approach me for friendship, but I'm definitely the one who benefits most from the company. He's very honest and doesn't have a problem being blunt about something, which is what I need from friends because they have to be ok with telling me if I'm doing wrong. I mean, he even had the balls to tell me why he was removing me and discuss it with me instead of ghost me like most people would. People that I can mesh with are very hard to find.

Originally Posted by healingme4me

My other impression is that having middlemen sucks.

It does, and as I said it was not my intention to have this guy as the middleman. Former friend was the first to include him by telling said middleman to be a replacement for him in my life, and my first response through the middleman was to tell him to stop using the poor guy like that and that he can't pretend to be a friend after ditching me like that.

Originally Posted by healingme4me

And my question in my mind was, is this online or in person?

Online. I have no IRL friends. Just in case it's going to get said that online sucks and you should go get IRL friends and blah blah: I have tried to make IRL friends, but I can't get along with just anyone and the people around me are the exact types I cannot stand to be around, both male and female. I almost made a friend through work, but she was way too busy with family and her schooling so it never worked out. That was the closest I've gotten since after high school (12 years ago now) every single friend I had left the damn state to go find love and jobs and stuff, so busy in fact we don't talk online or the phone anymore despite me reaching out.

Originally Posted by healingme4me

And what could be so unforgivable about curiosity that killed the cat?

Well I sorta answered this above, but when curiosity goes too far and you end up doing things to hurt someone because of it, then it's a problem for sure. There's nothing I can do to fix what I did, all I can do is hope he forgives me and not repeat the mistake.

[healingme4me]

With all you've written, I'd say give it another go. Yet, I also am mindful of what you wrote about the anxiety of being declined in his acceptance.

[ShadowGX]

After getting a couple more thoughts from acquaintances saying similar to you I decided to go for it this morning. Definitely glad I did. We had a really great talk and it turns out things weren't quite what they seemed from my POV since I lacked a lot of info that he gave me this morning. Of course we still have things to work on, but I'm glad that for once I didn't let the pessimism and abandonment fear take over.

[amandalouise]

my own point of view is if this really is something that I do not want, that someone else is trying to do, I would not even chat, or have the third person passing messages to the friend that felt hurt.

I would instead leave it up to the person who feels hurt to contact me and ......they......ask me their questions and sort the situation out between me and that person who felt hurt.

doing the he said she said through a third party just doesnt seem right to me....my message or their message coming through a third person could actually end up being changed or what have you.

also you state many times in your thread that you never asked for this so why continue doing something you never asked or wanted to do.

Id say...... if this was me... its time to find other friends rather than going round in circles through a third person. let the hurt person be the one to contact me.