Distant, selfish "girlfriend"

Hi! Some years ago I met a girl online (at that time I was 17 years old, and she 15). I guess we both were somewhat lonely to try find some comfort on the web. But we did, en we actually found what we were looking for. Many months passed and we decided to start Skyping. From then we really start bonding: we talked about each others problems, deepest thoughts, experiences and feelings. I was falling into a depression, and she had problems with almost everyone around her (except for me of course). We both said numerous times how much we appreciated the support and comfort we gave each other. After some time (5/6 months) we even started liking each other. When summer break arrived (me being 19 years old, she 17), I asked her out (distance of 20 km). Surprisingly, she said know, and she didn't know why. When asking her what's wrong, she kept saying nothing is wrong, but she just didn't want to meet. So I asked her to give it some thought and we just continued texting/Skyping. A few weeks later she had to go on holiday (somewhere in Africa, so no phone or laptop), but just two days before she left we had an interesting... talk (texting). It was late in the night and somehow we started talking about sex. We asked each other questions what we would like in bed, if we ever had sex, we were even talking about fantasies. After some hours we got really tired and we decided to go to sleep. The next night, the night before she would leave on holiday, something strange happened. We were talking about how our first date would look like, how we would kiss each other. But with minutes passing, the texting got stronger. It went so far, it actually became sexting. It was really exciting: we both wanted each other to... you know...... And yes, we did! Afterwards, we were really happy and both in love. We gave a proper goodbye and things couldn't go better. When she returned, something was different. She acted weird, distant. Yes, we still had fun, but it was definitely not like before (it was easily noticed, trust me). When I asked what's wrong she said nothing. So I decided to drop it and just to move on. But with weeks passing i just couldn't let it go out of my mind: something was wrong, and didn't know what. So I (sort of) confronted her, said she was acting weird, and I wanted to know why. Her answer wasn't changing. Me being somewhat hurt, decided to drop it for good. (From time to time I asked her out, weeks apart, so no stalking. She kept declining.) But it even became more stranger. We always talked every day, but not anymore, not really. She began ignoring some texts I sent her. When I asked why, she always became somewhat annoyed, so I always dropped it rather quickly. Suddenly, out of the blue, she was back again. Super happy and enthusiastic (many kisses en hearts again). I finally thought it was over, but I was wrong. A few days later she acted weird and distant again. And suddenly, when I texted her, she completely ignored me... When the day was almost over I confronted her. I said what's wrong, and why she was ignoring me. This time, she had an answer: she wanted some distance, I was too close. I asked her what we could do about it (for example: to meet). But she saw no solution. I was really hurt, and it even became worse. She kept ignoring me sometimes, and I kept asking why, why would she act like this? Suddenly, she said she didn't like me anymore, at least, not in a sexual way. When I asked why, she said the following: "What did you expect? We never do something, we never see each other!". I have much patience, but this time I became mad, really, really mad. I felt betrayed, there were so many other options, so many ways to prevent this. When somewhat cooled off, I said it wasn't to late. I proposed to meet, a new start, but again, she declined.... She said she loved me and she didn't want to lose me, she couldn't live without me (coming from her, that means really much: she is a bit the opposite of the "overly attached girlfriend" meme). I decided to stay, to keep being there for her. Slowly we started to pick up our friendship again, as our fight never happened. But then, she started becoming distant again. Saying I was too close, ignoring texts etc. I wanted to confront her, but she had a important/difficult test week for school coming up. So I put my feelings aside: I sent very sweet and motivating texts every day (she said so herself, she really appreciated it). But afterwards, our friendship didn't improve. She was even more distant, and so I felt incredibly let down. I kept her happy when she was down, I motivated her when she saw no good ending, and this was how I was repaid: more distance. I confronted her (normally), but she became angry, really angry. I kept my nerve but I felt I could not tell her my feelings. A few days later she said she wanted to meet. Finally, we were going to meet during the Christmas holidays! But still… it didn't change my feelings. And so the next week I decided to tell her, this time she even became more angry. During the fight I kept talking normally and warned her she was crossing the line and hurting me. But it didn't stop her, so I raged. I was so angry, disappointed, hurt. As with the previous fight, we quickly dropped it and continued our friendship (we just dropped it, we did not talk about it anymore). I did say if we wouldn't meet soon, there would be consequences. Two week had passed and nothing changed. When the last days of the holidays were passing by, she said (without realising what it could mean to me) she truly wanted to enjoy the last few days of the holidays. So she was gone many hours with friends, but I didn't say anything: there was still some time. When school started again I confronted her. I told her I was really hurt she was going out with her friends instead of going to do something fun with me. I said that every week passing by without meeting, hurt. She said one thing: "sorry". Nothing else, just sorry. She didn't see the weight of the problem, she didn't realise how much it hurt me. She just said "sorry", and continued having her fun day. I stopped her, immediately. I said it was really a problem, when she said sorry again, I said I didn't want to continue anymore. I acted if it was the very end so she would realise the alternative for not-meeting. When I asked: "Now you know the alternative, you still don't want to meet?". "No", she said, "No"…. I was disappointed, I barely talked to her, I gave her all the initiative. I would only talk to her if she would start the conversation (why would I put effort into a friendship, when she won't?). Suddenly, she came begging me to be friends again. I was really sad so I accepted the offer. I still didn't put much effort into it, but we were friends again, sort of. But of course, some days later on a saturday, when I asked what she was up to today, she said she was going to some friends. I could not believe it, after everything I said, she would do this. She knows exactly the importance and my feelings about this matter, and she still prefers to hang out with her friends. I hated her, I still do. What she did, it's indescribable. I gave her so many chanced, and she decided to throw them away. A few days later, I told her. I told her that in my eyes she made her decision, she decided to betray my trust and friendship, she decided to throw it ALL away. I said it was over, I was done. I told her it was not about punishment, not about revenge. I said it was to show the weight of the situation. she has to know I do have boundaries, and she can't keep abusing them. She has to know for herself what importance I have to her, what I mean to her. I kept giving her chances, I trusted her to make use of it, but she didn't. I put endlessly effort into our friendship, but she barely does these days. She is really important to me, but I just don't know what to do?

Well i don't know how much help i can give but i just had to respond as your situation seems very close to how mine was (at least i think so) and in my case i unfortunately acted very similarly to your friend. I've always felt awkward around others so connecting with people and making friends has always been difficult for me and i hadn't done a good job considering i was almost a total loner, that and the fact that i've suffered from depression for years now and am still dealing with it made things worse. After high school things got even harder as i lost contact with the few (though emotional distant) friends i managed to have and being that the internet has always taken up a big part of my life it was no wonder that i was an escape for me. I began chatting with people online on a language exchange site (as i'm learning Chinese and thought it might help). I oddly found it easier to communicate and open up to these foreign strangers though i still had kept a pretty big distance emotionally. However one day i (20 years old at the time) ended up receiving a chat request from a Chinese guy (24) needing someone to go over his applications to colleges in Canada. This ended up leading to a good friendship as we messaged each other frequently for months. As time when on we continued to grow closer to one another and he soon became my best friend, someone who i could really talk to which did help with things like my depression. About 10 months into our friendship he ended up expressing feels of love for me and admitted it. While though i too began having more than just friendly feelings for him i told him i wasn't ready and just wanted to remain friends which he was okay with. However as time continued it became harder for fight my feels for him and i ended up telling him how i felt and we began dating; we started voice and later video messaging each other and as time went on and certain conversations led us to becoming very sexual. However while though things were good i would start feeling uncomfortable and begin withdrawing from him at times. This was a result of many problems of mine; i've always had a negative outlook on life (especially with relationships and men), low self esteem, trust issues and more most of which stemmed from my depression. Being that this was also my first relationship i stressed out a lot and i got scared that i was getting too close, that'd i'd get hurt and to prevent that from happening i continued putting distance between us and self sabotaging things, almost like i had to hurt him before he hurt me (messed up way of thinking i know). Now this didn't just happen once, nope it happened around 7 times, probably, during this time (yup so much so that i can't even remember the exact number i "ended" things with him). I'd tell him i didn't want to talk to him anymore, that i lost my feelings for him, that we didn't make a good match, that we should go our separate ways, etc. I even went as far as telling him i was dating someone i met at school and really didn't want to keep in contact with him, all of which were lies! (i deleted practically everything to do with him and we ended up not talking for 3 months). Although he'd always be there and i would end up running back, things would get good again only for me to end things and the cycled continued for months and months. I practically made self sabotaging into an art so much so that i even subconsciously led myself into a horrible situation where i ended up chatting with (okay i'll call it what it is, sexting) someone else. While though i had no intentions of doing that at first i somehow found my way onto that section of a chat room and even though i had some sense of it being wrong it didn't occur to me just how bad it was until afterwards. Although it only lasted a couple of minutes and i didn't take it seriously at the time nor was i really paying much attention (i was doing other things online as well) to it all i soon realized just how inappropriate and terrible it was. I confessed everything immediately to my boyfriend and honestly couldn't believe at what i just done, something i was so sure i would never do (especially after family experiences with cheating). He however didn't consider it to be cheating and not that awful though he was uncomfortable about it. He instead chose to see the bright side of it, that he could see how much i cared for him as i took this situation extremely seriously. You would think that i would learn to never mess up again but i still did! though it was with the continuation of these "break ups". During this time i was honestly a complete and total selfish bitch, i never took his feelings into consideration nor did i see and acknowledge his efforts at being understanding, making things work and sticking around. However I eventually pulled myself together as i FINALLY communicated all of my feelings and fears to him and after some major self reflection as well i realized my problems and have grown a lot as a person and as a girlfriend, we are now at a good place with our relationship. Its a miracle that he stayed and i'm completely lucky to have him and am confident that i've put all my self sabotaging to a complete end, i'm just going to give it my all and do the best that i possibly can. So finally to my point, maybe like me this friend of yours has similar doubts and worries about getting hurt. There might be underlining issues she has with herself and she is too afraid to be really close and commit to you, especially in this way. Whatever her problems you are clearly suffering and i totally see why you would want to end things completely with her, i in fact think that you should because honestly you can't be sure that she'll ever come around and deal with things fully (trust me it took A LOT of thought and effort for me to finally make it right in my situation especially considering the amount of relapses i had). I believe its best for you to completely distance yourself from her and move on however if you truly feel that she is extremely important to you and really want her in your life then you need to set some serious limitations on your friendship. Go into it assuming nothing more is going to happen and make sure you COMMUNICATE exactly how you feel when going back into it and don't drop certain topics when they are seriously bothering you and are becoming a major issue, avoiding things only makes it worse. Set boundaries and don't let anything sexual happen even if she's the one to start it and don't devote ALL of your attention on her and try forming new relationships as well, your young after all. If for some miracle she comes around just continue to be friends (though without dating others), test the waters to see if she's absolutely serious and ease your way into a romantic relationship which will require some serious communication skills from the both of you. Overall if you can't cut her out of your life completely you need to understand that things might never work out the way you want though i don't want to completely discourage your friendship if you wish to keep her in your life. Well i hope everything works out for you if you haven't already figured out a solution. I hope i was able to give some help in any way possible... that or i completely typed a heck of a lot about me and nothing that was useful in the end... yeah i hope it wasn't completely useless... sorry if it was. best wishes, kaili

First of all, I wish to thank you for your immense effort, and your huge reply. I'm convinced there aren't many people like you around, so I truly appreciate your help. :) In continuation of my story, I found out she has a new boyfriend. And of course, this isn't really that bad, since we weren't a couple. But the thing is, I asked her, explicitly, if she has, in any way, feelings to someone else, she would tell me. I deserved to know. As she absolutely agreed, she told me "no". It was just two weeks later I realised how much, how hard, how cold she lied directly towards my face. This is where I decided (unlike your boyfriend) to draw a line: I told myself to never give her a clue of my existence. It was hard, but I'm convinced I eventually made it. How painful this all might be, I have no regret "meeting" her. I am proud of the person I am today, and I couldn't have become like this without her. If she hadn't neglected me like she did, I wouldn't know now you shouldn't fully give yourself to someone else. That's just one of the MANY wisdoms I have learned. So I'm all good now, and the chapter of the distant, selfish "girlfriend" has been closed. In response of your story, I think you should be absolutely grateful for the boyfriend you have today. It takes a hell of a lot character to do what he did, and I respect him enormously for that. As for you, it's very good to hear you've found your true self. I wish you both the best of luck. And again, many, many thanks for your effort; it's much appreciated! Alex.