We've worked together for 3 years and used to talk often. Our job requires to be out in town a lot with individual clients. But we'd have spare time between clients at the office. We started playing card games and talked about movies. She loves the MCU and Harry Potter so we'd nerd out on that. I asked her to lunches and we went a couple times. It was always fun and we'd joke/laugh. God I love to see her smile. She's a very lovely sweet kind person. Outgoing and nice to all but she can get feisty when something bugs her. She's so strong but doesn't see it. Seems like no one's ever really believed in her or shown her how important/special she is even her family which drives me crazy.
In April she got depressed which was crushing to see. I'd ask her to lunch/coffee/tea and she would agree, talk about it a bit and then feel better and laugh again. She'd say after she had a good time. After one lunch I came out and told her that I really hated seeing her so sad. She said don't worry about me I'll be okay (hates being a burden). I asked if she ever got out to do anything fun for herself (knew the answer was no). I pushed and asked if she'd want to go do something fun some night for her. She said yes. I made her shake on it. Was just trying to be funny but also show I thought it was important for her to not back out. She said not sure what day would work (busy a lot) I said we'd figure it out.
Ever since then she's totally blown me off. No texts/replies, turns down all attempts to meet for lunch/anything and doesn't talk to me anymore at the office when others are around let alone make eye contact. When it's just us she's in/out of the office before any significant conversation. I asked her if anything was wrong and she said "we're friends everything's fine" and "I was sad but feel better now." I don't buy that we're fine. I don't get it. At the very least we seemed good friends and now that's gone which hurts. Why? What happened? Did I ruin what friendship we had?
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It doesn’t sound like things are fine. I know people are busy but we tend to make time for the things we want to do, and put off the ones we don’t.
telling people no can be really hard for a lot of people and then avoiding them is easier.
Maybe tell her it’s ok if she doesn’t want to go out and you can continue to be friends as you value her friendship. That gives her an out (since you even shook hands on it) but also the option to choose. She might turn round and say “oh no let’s go out anyways” if she really wants to, but then at least you know.
Otherwise she will hopefully be ok again talking to you.
This feels like it rings true... unfortunately. I really didn't give her a choice. I mean, I always gave her the chance to say no (plenty of chances). But she really is the kind of person that has trouble saying no to people. I also think it's far too late to enact your suggestion though. It's been 9 months since this happened. What I've ended up doing for the past 3 months is just not attempting to reach out at all. Leaving the ball completely in her court. I thought if I just backed off and gave her the space she obviously wanted that maybe things would balance out to normal. But they haven't. And what I left her with was the air of whatever last attempt I made to ask her out. I didn't apologize for pushing. I think I may have irreparably damaged our friendship. Or hey, maybe for all I know in her mind we were never really very good friends anyway.
But either way I can at least make the step to apologize and relieve her of that pressure she's probably been under for the past 9 months. It's crazy how no matter how much you try to think about someone else... sometimes you're really still not thinking of them at all. At least not enough. Or in the right way. If I never get back the friendship we had, well, it sucks but that's life I guess. I wish I didn't push.
I hope you can get things sorted.
Maybe enough time has passed that things can be patched up. If she is up for a chat I would just honestly explain what happened and that it would be nice if you 2 could be friends (again)
You seem to have had good intentions to get her to go out with you when she was feeling down, that should count for something. I obviously don’t know the ins and outs of it all, but the way you describe it, it doesn’t sound like you did something that warrants the end of a friendship.
Regardless, we all make mistakes so don’t be too hard on yourself.
Maybe she just wants to be alone for some time, and she doesn't really want to talk about her issues. She might want to figure out / settle her problems before opening up again. Or she might be stressed about sthg.
If you want, you can still ask her for a coffee after lunch or in the afternoon. If she accepts, talk to her about random things, what you are planning to do during your WE etc. Then see how she reacts / what she responds. If she still seems bothers by sthg in her life and she doesn't talk about it, don't force the conversation, you can just say that if she needs someone to listen / or she needs help on sthg, you can be there. I think she will appreciate that you are here to listen, but that you don't force her to talk about her issues.
All I've wanted to do was get her mind off of what was bothering her. If she talked about issues it was because she was the one who volunteered that. I didn't try to pull it out of her.
She lost interest in you for some reason.