I’m not my best friend’s best friend and it hurts

We’ve been friends for 5 years. She’s referred to me as her best friend before and I know I’m one of her closest friends but I also know that there’s another girl she sees as her #1. The things they do together and how she talks about her…idk, it hurts to feel like I see her as my best friend but it’s not reciprocated. I know “best friend” is also just a label, people can have multiple best friends, as long as the friendship is good etc but it still hurts.

We lived in different cities for three years (which is the time when she met her new best friend) but she recently moved to my city which is why we’ve become super close again, we hang out every weekend. But deep down I feel like if she didn’t live near me, we wouldn’t be close. I don’t think we’d text, call, visit etc like her best friend visits her and she visits her best friend. Because she isn’t the greatest texter and she knows this. I can’t help but feel like a friend of convenience sometimes.

She does tell me she loves me and misses me when we’re apart. We hang out every week but there’s just many little things that make it clear where her priorities lie, and it’s not me. I know she hasn’t done anything wrong and she doesn’t know I feel this what but I don’t want to tell her because I don’t want to beg for friendship and have her start doing things just because she feels she has to, when she does them for her best friend so naturally.

I do have other good friends and I know the best thing to do is stop being so dependent on this friend and focus on developing my other friendships but how do I deal with the hurt and the sadness and just feeling like I’m not someone’s top priority the way they are mine. It sounds like a childish thing to be upset over but it’s really getting to me

I think to start with you need to recognize and acknowledge that it hurts when someone who is your top priority does not treat you as their top priority but just as one of their lesser priorities. It is not childish to be upset over this. Allow yourself time and space to feel the upset.

Cultivating other friendships is, granted, a good approach for you.

Sorry to hear that. Just be glad that you’re one of her best friends still. Maybe try texting her less in order to get her to chase you instead. That might cause her to miss you for a change. Be less available & see what happens.

Hmmmm, out top priority should be our own life & our own responsibilities. Who fits in around that is icing on the cake & it can be many or one best friends. It is never healthy emotionally to have someone you EXPECT to have you as their best friend just because you consider them to be yours. Real life just doesn't work like that.

You need to ask yourself why it hurts so much & what happened in your past to make it hurt this bad. Acknowledge the feeling but you need to process why.