Renewing a friendship

There is this common friend group that I have. I have met most people from it but due to the pandemic, we mostly meet in online video calls. The number of people on the call varies depending on everyone's schedule. There is this one girl in the group that was my senior at university and over the past few months, I started talking to her. We started talking about casual stuff like shows, books. work etc. but occasionally we talked about deeper stuff as well. This went on for two months. Then, a couple of times it was just us on the group call and we talked for hours for all sorts of stuff. A lot of it was our personal feelings about things or how we thought about certain kinds of relationships, what kind of childhoods we had etc. She had told me earlier that she is generally really private and so I was happy that she chose to share all this with me. She disappeared for some days on social media and I asked her over text if everything is fine. She said she is just taking a break and I don't need to check in on her. I felt like I was overextending and I backed off but later she responded normally to things I had sent before her break. Plus, we had another one of these calls and it was just us left and we talked almost all the way into the morning. So, I assumed everything was fine and that she was comfortable with me. I did have a crush on her but everything about the interactions was platonic and I did not think that she was interested in me. I was fine with being friends.

Some days after this, I asked her over text about a moral question I had (about directly handing money to homeless people). I asked her what she would do if a homeless person asked her for money. She said stuff like I don't need to know her opinion to make my decisions and that I should restrict such questions to the group. She said that she is not an expert on a panel that anyone is allowed to reach out for questions and that she gets uncomfortable if I ask her personal stuff especially over text. This wasn't stuff that we hadn't discussed before and so I got angry and responded passive aggressively saying that I won't bother her now and I was asking her because she was a friend. To this, she said she is neither a friend nor an expert. I flipped out at this and I said that we have different understanding of what a friend is. She explained that texting if often feels like exhaustion to her and that I should keep such questions in the group discussions rather than asking her. I did not have a problem with her not texting but saying we are not friends really hurt me and I got defensive. Ultimately, she said she does not want any contact beyond the group call and proceeded to unfriend me on all online platforms.

I wasn't sure who was in the wrong here. I asked a couple of friends and they said I had done nothing wrong. But I felt very guilty about the whole incident and I did send her an apology later to which she said thanks (after 10 days). Should I have apologized in the first place? If yes, what am I to do now in this situation?

Thanks for sharing this experience. Unfortunately, I doubt this is a situation with which I can be of much help since I have no 1-to-1 on-line contacts and I don't even own a smart phone. (I'm essentially what you might call an urban hermit.)

You asked if you should have apologized in the first place. Personally, I think a sincere apology seldom (if ever) hurts as long as apologizing doesn't become a habit. (Some people fall into the habit of apologizing for everything and that can become problematic.) My own perspective, with regard to what you wrote here is simply that in-person relationships can be difficult enough to navigate. On-line relationships are (I would presume) even more difficult. For one thing, you don't really know much of anything about this person you've been in contact with, not relative to the totality of her life. Plus, so much of human interaction includes facial expression & body language in addition to the words that are spoken and voice inflection. None of these " communication aids" are available via text.

The other thing I noted, in your post was you mentioning having become angry, passive-aggressive, or defensive at various points in your communication with this person. This suggests to me the possibility that you may perhaps be trying a bit too hard and hoping for too much too soon? I don't know who was right and who was wrong here. My inclination would be to say neither of you was at fault. This was simply indicative of the difficulties that can arise in these types of situations. (I will add, however, that it does seem this person you've been in touch with does seem a bit rigid for my money, so to speak. I don't think your question about giving money to homeless people was out-of-line nor should it have engendered the kind of reactivity you encountered. But, there again, you don't know what's behind the response you received. Perhaps there's a back-story here of which you are unaware.)

The other thing you asked was with regard to what you should do now. My thought on that subject would be that, at this point, you have to respect this person's request that contact between the two of you be limited to group calls. Anything more, at this stage, would probably come off as being intrusive and potentially just make matters worse. Simply continue participating in the group and, perhaps with time, the relationship between you and this individual will rekindle... perhaps not. But, at least from my perspective, I don't think there is any direct action you can take to recover what you had. You may simply end up having to view it as a learning opportunity and hope for better outcomes in the future. My best wishes to you...

First of all, thanks for taking the time out for such a detailed response.

Yes that I agree with. I overreacted and that is what I apologized for to her. I mean I still don't think it was right for her to say we are not friends. There was clearly a connection. I am not implying that she was romantically interested in me, but it didn't feel like just acquaintances to me. However, as you said, a good faith apology can't hurt and so I apologized.

Yeah makes sense. The funny part is some other members of the group got into an argument and the group basically dissolved. She also cut off some other members of the group (apparently for behaving like men always do). So, there might me something more going on with her than I know.

However, I am interested in reflecting on the fact if I am also behaving in the "way that men do". Probably this one incident is too little information to know these things about me, but still, I would like to know what you (or others) think in this regard.

It seems your definition of friendship was different - you asked her a personal question which made her uncomfortable. She felt pushed past her boundaries and comfort level. In other words, such questions can be draining and/or inappropriate (i.e. too close, too intimate, too persona). So she referred you to the group. But then you got angry. That's when her walls went up - as self-protection when you pushed her to a place she was not comfortable being with in the first place.

She was uncomfortable when you placed in a category (friend, someone you can share your moral dilemmas etc with) which was, again, too close/intimate.

When she said this question ought to be asked to the group, you could have said 'fair enough' and done just that. Instead, you were pushing her boundaries because *you* thought she was a close friend etc etc. Clearly, this is not how she felt. Her feelings ought to have been respected, rather than you getting angry and blaming or reproaching her for not reciprocating.

I would like to clarify a bit. When she first said I don't need to know her opinion on this, I just said that I was asking as a friend but if she thinks it is overstepping I won't bother her from now on. I only got angry after she said we aren't friends in reply. Plus, I did not spring that up out of the blue. We had discussed about the nature of charity and non-profits at length before this.

Ideally, I should post the whole conversation but I don't think that would be appropriate.