My beautiful best friend hasn’t been answering my messages for months. Since we’re not at school together anymore, I feel like she ignores me. She is so mean! I saw her yesterday and her sister waved and then tried to get her to wave at me. When she finally did, like a minute later, she was totally gritting her teeth. What happened? What am I supposed to do? Also, she’s so fake, she’d probably say she doesn’t hate me if I asked. We’ve been away from each other for school a lot of the time. I’ve never been as smart and rich as her, but I’m still pretty smart, and I am so much prettier. She has a kind of cute face, but that’s it. They know I’ve occasionally partied, but I just show off my African waistline and African dance moves. I’ve NEVER drank or done drugs or whatever dumb thing we love disapproving of. Seriously though, it’s not like everyone can win a civil rights court case and intern in D.C. Ugh! Is she snobbing? That is not cool. Seriously, though, I’m really lost. I don’t know what’s up!!! One time I told our other friend that I might kind of have a crush on her, and that might be why she’s avoiding me too but she still doesn’t have to be a jerk. Help please!
CONSIDER THIS:
- It hurts to feel rejected by people that we call friends. Sometimes, people change their opinions out of the blue and it gets really confusing. Friendships can ebb and flow with time whether there’s a solid reason for it or not. This is something many of us have gone through with friends.
- Evaluate your friendship with this person. Is your friend someone worth keeping in your life? Has she treated you well, does she make your life better, are you happy when you’re around her? If not, just try to move on, make new friends, and forget about her. If you think this person is a wonderful friend, then devise a plan to work things out.
- The best way to fix a relationship with someone is to ask them how they would like things to be fixed. It takes courage to be able to go up to someone and ask them directly why you aren’t as good of friends anymore, but you can do it! If you want things to work with this person, nothing good will come out of sitting around and wondering what went wrong– you should go to the source and ask. You can both then make compromises to figure out what was wrong and how to be better friends to each other.
- When you confront your friend, don’t forget to tell her how much you value your friendship with her and why you want to fix things. Let her know that she’s important. If she wants an apology for a good reason, apologize. If you believe you are owed an apology because she’s been ignoring you, you should ask for an apology, too. Remember to be fair.
- Evaluate yourself: what can you do to be a better friend? No one likes being compared or put down, so take pause before you put yourself above your friends and call yourself prettier than them, etc. Whether you’re right or not, it’s not something friends will appreciate. That is something enemies do, not friends. Remember that pride is not a good look for anyone and it can really push people away no matter how good of a friend you are otherwise.
HELP YOURSELF:
- What do you like about this person? Are they worth keeping around?
- What can you do to fix things?
- If you were in her position, how would you want things to be fixed?
- What can you do to be a good friend?
- In what ways are you a good friend? What things could use some improvement?
