There’s a little situation that’s been kind of bothering me lately, involving one of my friends. I’d like to have your opinions on it.

I’m confused.

I have this pretty close friend, and we hang out normally every week if possible. We like to go shopping, try new restaurants, listen to music together, watch movies together, and things like that. Just normal “friend” stuff. It seems to me that when we’re together, we have a pretty good time. I consider her to be one of my best friends.

Lately, I’d say probably the last two months or so, things have changed with her. Here are my main issues with her right now:

1) She doesn’t seem to be as excited about life anymore. When we’re together, it’s like she’s sitting there with me, but mentally she isn’t “there“. Does that make sense? I notice she stares off into space a lot, and her usual vivacious attitude isn’t as vibrant as it used to be. She pretends to be happy, but I can tell she’s putting on an act. It’s starting to seem fake.

2) I’m an avid texter. I LOVE text messaging. I often text my friends throughout the day instead of calling them, since my phone service doesn’t get free minutes until after 9 PM. So, I’ll text her, and she doesn’t reply. She MAY reply hours later or so, when before, she used to reply to my messages within minutes. Now, I’m lucky if she replies to my messages at all! So, I’ve been cutting back on the messages.

3) When I do manage to get hold of her, our phone conversations tend to be very short. She always tells me, “I’ll call you back later,” and she never does. What the?

I’ve noticed these obvious changes in her personality, so naturally, I’ve tried talking to her about it. I’ll ask her, “what’s wrong? You’ve been acting weird lately,” and in this dazed manner she’ll blow me off by making excuses. Like, “oh, I have to go do laundry at home later and I’m not looking forward to it”. Okay, I’m not that stupid, I know it’s more than that! I’m polite though, so I don’t press her for information she’s clearly not ready to give.

About the text message thing…she used to reply to me so fast, and on a daily basis she ignores my text messages now. How do I know she’s ignoring them? Well, she has one of those little phone holders that clip onto your belt/purse, and she ALWAYS has hers clipped onto her belt. I KNOW she checks the messages right away, and I’m aware that means she’s ignoring me.

It hurts my feelings and confuses me why she’s doing this. It makes me feel like I’m an annoyance to her. We used to talk to each other all the time, we’d text back and forth and talk on the phone for like an hour, and now that doesn’t happen anymore. We do still hang out, but it’s not like it used to be. Obviously, there’s something on her mind. Even though I’ve tried a few times to talk to her about it and find out what’s bothering her, she brushes it off like nothing is wrong. It’s frustrating!

I did a childish experiment yesterday. I admit it’s really stupid, but I tried to do the same thing to her that she’s been doing to me. She (amazingly) texted me in the morning, and I ignored it. About an hour later, she re-sent the same text message, apparently thinking I didn’t receive it. I ignored that one too. About two hours later, she sends me a text message saying something along the lines of, “Hey, why aren’t you replying to my messages? What’s the deal?!” I ignored that one too, and then about half an hour later, she calls me. She’s like, “Hey, how are you? What’s going on?” and I said, “I’m okay, nothing much has been going on today, how about you?” and the conversation lasted about 45 seconds and then I told her, “Yeah, I’ll call you.” And, of course I didn’t. Because, that’s what she always does to me.

I know that was an immature thing to do, and I guess after this crap occurring for the last few months, I wanted her to see what it’s like to be blown off. She didn’t like it. Neither do I! I felt bad about what I did, so a few hours later, I texted her and apologized for not replying to her messages because “I was busy most of the day”. Which is true, I was helping my mom clean the house, and I had several graphics orders I was working on, and things like that. That message, of course, was ignored by her.

I don’t want it to be like this. I know my experiment yesterday was not helpful at all, it didn’t make things better; she only got confused and upset. I want our friendship to go back to normal, but I don’t know what to do about it. I’m the same as I’ve always been, and she has changed drastically. I don’t know if it’s me, or if things in her life are starting to get to her (I think it’s the latter).

What am I supposed to do? Do I leave her alone, or do I try to talk to her about it, even though she’s been blowing off my concerns when I’ve tried discussing it before? I want things to go back to normal.