Friend is being distant after a fight?

[Anonymous]

My guy friend and myself had a massive fight. We were not talking for a week, until I reached out to him. He told me what hurt him and told me what I should do to avoid upsetting him and I promised him I'd work on it.

He asked for space, which I said I'd respect and leave him be. He ended up messaging me the next day and since then have been messaging daily, but he has been very cold despite messaging every day.

I thought it would be best to give him more space to make himself feel better, however he would get even more upset and think I genuinely do not want to be friends with him. So I am replying to him to be polite, but of course I want to talk to him, however he is making it difficult.

I do try to keep the conversation light-hearted most of the time, playful and sometimes also serious discussions about the world. But he still is cold. I know I hurt him, and I thought he would need a lot of space, but he keeps texting me daily with coldness?

I am not really sure what to do. I am trying to mend the relationship back to how it was similarly but he is being very cold about it.

Should I give him more space or just follow his lead in coldness?

[quaranta]

That is because even though you can forgive a person, that doesn't coincide with "trust". When the trust is gone, it's gone, and it takes a huge amount of time to rebuild, if ever. Because even though that person lives "okay" with what happened, they learnt by fact what you are capable of and since people don't change in like just one year or something, they will keep observing signs of what you do, to make sure you actually changed and wouldn't be able to do that anymore, on a long timespan. The memory remains but as much as it's not reconfirmed by repeating the same mistake or similar, during several months of work there could be some improvement in trust again.
This is a trap where many couples fall into: they argue, forgive each other, miss each other, and get back together. Not realizing the mutual trust gets destroyed more and more and has never time to rebuild, which leads to a chain of problems and a breakup at the very end.
So now you can definitely not be mad at each other, but you will need a long time to rebuild that trust that was there before and that was also allowing your connection to exist. I think, if he is still like that after 2 weeks, you might ask him what his plans are and if he wants to give it another chance to see if his trust in you will improve over the next months, or if it actually won't and he just wants to keep it more casual and superficial from now on but is just "lowering down" the contacts to get slowly used to the new frame. Most likely at the moment he is confused by very contrasting feelings and is trying to perceive you in the "new way" while still needing the "old way" which also interferes with his perception, so maybe wait a couple of weeks still.

A note for an alternate scenario: if he is abusive and controlling, he might be using this technique to give you the "silent treatment" and make you feel more guilty than what you should. Some people control their closer relations through guilt. So if you feel manipulated by this, that would be another discourse completely.

[Asker]

I messaged him yesterday asking about all this, he pretty much said he wants to keeps things casual in terms of conversation. He doesn't want anymore problems arising, though I can sense he misses the old times of what we use to have before we fought as he asked me to still keep the light-hearted jokes we use to share with one another. I had stated to him he would have to lead where this goes as I feel awkward and unsure, he didn't say anything about it but he knows what to expect. I said this was due to not wanting to cross boundaries or anything to upset him.

He did say he won't be as nice or forgiving from here onwards, I am not sure if he means that he won't be nice and fun around me anymore or just about if we have another problem again. He has been quite cold which is understandable. I did ask him to forgive me one more time so we can rebuild everything... but I have my limits too, I cannot be carrying all the weight by myself if he isn't willing to move past with me.

[quaranta]

I guess he got some reason to not believe the "rebuild everything" would work, and he wouldn't be wrong because in most cases trusting your partner again takes many months of work, depending on how bad the issue was or what they "discovered" about you.
If he believed there is room to give it another chance maybe he would. Maybe you had already similar problems in the past and he learnt by fact previous chances didn't work. Maybe he doesn't trust your plan to rebuild it, or your way to work on yourself, so he is not convinced about trusting you again.
Maybe you could reason about what to propose regarding the "rebuild everything", in terms of what plan, what agreement, what new rules you and he should adopt to give it another chance that makes sense. If it's just "with willpower" then it might sounds quite weak and not convincing, to him. There should be a perspective, to be able to see a hope, and so the motivation to retry.

[Asker]

You are right about the previous chances didn't work. He had mentioned it happened multiple times however he did not point it out to me at the time, so I would have not known it bothered him. He says he holds no grudges over what happened though he still sounds angry and upset. I asked him to give me one more chance and he said he would, though he is only messaging me when its convenient for him, or when he wants to give me some of his time and has stated he only wants to talk to the good side of me (e. g. happy and positive) and not the bad side (e. g. sad or anxious).

I feel so down, I do not want to be fake, ofc I will have bad days.. he just doesn't want to deal with it. Im not even sure if this is worth repairing rn.

[Demonatrix]

You apologised. It's on him to get over it, seeing as he's continuing to be an ass hat cut him loose.

[WanderingLoveWizard]

Just give him some time and space, he'll get over it.
The last thing you wanna do when you piss a guy off is keep poking the bear.
You might not think you are, but women have a way of doing it anyway even when they're not trying to

[Asker]

Yeah I know we are very notorious for it XD Hence why I did not know what to do, if he asked for space but still messaging me, does not make sense. I am letting him lead the steps so I can follow in his steps, to avoid pissing him off more

[WanderingLoveWizard]

You're doing it perfectly 👍

[ShiftingMonke]

If you've already decided to stop being friends with him as you say, just tell him. There's no point in any more feelings being hurt, just be done. Not everything is mendable.

[Asker]

I didn't say that in a serious way, we joked around about it cause we were pretty close friends, we both knew we liked each other a lot. He started the jokes originally, and then got butt hurt afterwards.

[ShiftingMonke]

Fair enough.. but if he's still being cold, then it seems like he's already hardened his heart to you. It's possible he's staying in touch because he enjoyed you, and you being in his life for as long as you have/as close as you were, it's almost a muscle memory to respond but his heart isn't in it anymore. Even if/when you apologized, he's still going to remember the hurtful things you've said. Granted, I've no idea what you said to hurt him so; not my business of course, but it seems to have struck deep. Not deep enough that you're completely cut out, but deep enough that he doesn't hold you to the same standard as before.

[Asker]

I told myself I'd try and make things work but if things become too emotionally exhausting, or things are futile in the sense that nothing has moved or changed in his behaviour I would have to distance myself, in a sense to just be an acquaintance... as hard as it is for me. I also really enjoyed him in my life too, it's hard to see someone like him go. But I cannot keep giving a one-sided relationship like this. He had told me he has no grudges against me, so I took it but seems like he still harbors some grief... and I can understand...

[ShiftingMonke]

It is what it is. If he considers himself an honorable person, and feels like that's been affronted, then his hands are tied so to speak. There's nothing really to be done, as it's a bad idea to try and change someone's mind about you. They came to a conclusion, if they are willing to see a different view, they'll find it- but more often than not, it's a Sisyphean Task to reach their good graces.

[Asker]

I had no intention to change his mind about me. I know what's done is done, I can only continue being myself as how I was before the fight. I am only human after all and cannot always be a perfect, happy human being as he wanted me to be. Conflicts will arise from time to time as how relationships usually work, but it is about how you come out of the fight and talk about the resolution that will either make or break a relationship. I know I am someone who will put in their 110% effort to make things ok, to the point where it becomes emotionally straining, and I will never go down that path again. Anyway, long stagnant. I just didn't know how to manage him if he is cold, if he has closed his heart then so be it. Mine will still be open, for the time being.

[Asker]

tangent* im dead irl fr

[ShiftingMonke]

I totally get that.. and you'd not be surprised the number of times I've heard similar stories. Either way, I wish you the best of luck no matter how this turns out.

[Asker]

Thanks :)

[boggboss]

Or explain how ubfeel and say you are not sure what to do

[rabbitzzz]

He is angry and doesn't want to see your face.

Show him something else, like titties.

[KrakenAttackin]

"Guy friend"... *SMDH*, you mean a friend zoned guy who is upset about you getting railed by Chad.

[OlderAndWiser]

Sounds like he is wanting to punish you.

[Asker]

I can feel this.. lol

[chronic22]

Dudes don't like being told what to do