Brick Wall

Well, T is "talking" to me, though only by the occasional email and text message, and only to reiterate her feelings on friends, and the end of our friendship.

She is geniunely feeling completely alone and very lonely. She has listed various women she thinks of as friends and who she either hasn't seen for 6 months, a year or longer, or who have only seen her when they needed something from her. She says she has made it clear to them how awful they've made her feel and they don't care. She wishes that they would admit to having contributed to how she is feeling and that they would be honest and tell her that they only think of her as a colleague.

From what she's said about these women I think one of them is generally quite a flakey, unreliable person who has let T down on a few occasions. I do wonder though whether the rest of them even realised that T thought of them as close friends. Perhaps she is being overeager and thinking there is more to the friendship than there actually is. Perhaps they they just didn't feel that same level of friendship, perhaps they need much longer before they think of her as a good friend.

She did actually say something similar about me, that maybe she loves me too much and wants to much from me. She mentioned the last guy she sort of dated, who she thought she was in love with after knowing him for a couple of months. She said she probably didn't actually feel anything for him, and that she was just clinging to him because he appeared to be somene who cared.

She did mention things which I have done or not done which have made her feel bad. I'm not perfect and do make mistakes but these things were a small number of things that were surely outnumbered by things I have done that have hopefully made her feel good.

She says we don't talk. Not about "proper" things anyway. It seems the hours and hours we have spent talking about various problems of hers and some of mine have been a figment of my imagination.

She says she spends every weekend alone. So all the weekends I spent with her last year were also imagined.

She used the fact that I didn't tell her all the details of a longtime family issue of mine as proof that I don't really think of her as a close friend. I very rarely talk to anybody about this particular issue and I am angry she has tried to use it in that way.

She is still blaming herself for all these people treating her badly and abandoning her. She is insisting that I am a terrible person for not changing certain of my plans to include her. She says she would if I was feeling the way she is. I suggested she thinks about getting professional help. She says she doesn't need any. She is still talking as if we will never see each other again.

I spoke a bit to my friend E about all of this. She thinks T is trying to manipulate me, albeit possibly without realising. I do feel as if I am being manipulated. I don't think that me changing my plans on two or three days of the year so that I can spend them with T will help her. She will still feel alone and lonely. She will still feel as if she has nobody. She will still hate herself. She will still not have the confidence needed to make a life for herself that includes other friends as well as me. I cannot single handedly make everything better. I feel overwhelmed by pouring her heart out about her loneliness. And her refusal to seek help makes me feel as if I have hit a brick wall. What more can I do?