A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:A month and a half ago, I ran into my best friend from grade school. We had also been friends in high school. She is the only person I spent significant time with for most of my grade school years, and that bond kind of spread to high school (we went to different schools), however, that bond for me at least, was a love and hate kind of thing, and sometimes just completely neutral and habitual. Well, I have had dreams about her in the 12 years since I last saw her, and I have wondered about her. So it was really interesting to run into her and catch up for 20 minutes or so, if only on the surface. But, I am the one who kind of let go of her when we were still teenagers, and I am one who rarely goes back to someone I let go. But I was feeling optimistic the day I saw her, and she texted me later and I responded saying I'd call her soon to hang out. Now almost two months have gone by and I haven't done anything to get back in touch with her.We are both socially isolated right now, and on the surface it would therefore make sense to hang out and catch up a bit more with one of your oldest friends...but I feel so needy and desperate right now, and so detached from her, that I would kind of be using her if we were to hang out. I'd love to tell her all about my life since we last saw one another, and I'd love to hear her life too because I like to hear the stories of the course of people's lives, but she'd probably flatter me (like she did when we recently ran into one another) and I probably wouldn't reciprocate because the part of me that wrote her off years ago still exists...so it just wouldn't be fair to her. I don't want to use her as a patch or a crutch when I'm in a bad place in life. We never saw eye to eye I guess. Now, if I were in a good place in life, I'd have no problem with the idea of hanging out, because I'd be so much less selfish and self absorbed than I feel right now.So, what to do? I'm already failing because I didn't live up to what I said when I last saw her-that we should hang out, but I also don't want to use her. But then I feel guilty because I told her I'd call, and I haven't yet...so twelve years on since I last rejected her, I have rejected her yet again, and she was always hyper-sensitive to rejection. What do I do? Just go my own way and not get in touch with her again, or try to hang out at least once? We also had a dichotomy going on. She was the hot one, and I was the nerd. So she feels intellectually deficient compared to me (she used to say that in the past), and I feel physically deficient compared to her. I don't know if this matters in the scheme of things, but it was an ongoing issue for us in the past, and it appears that not much has changed since then.
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female
reader, girl from bristol  +, writes (2 February 2010):
hi i think you should explain to her that you are not in a good place to be seeing her now but in the future you will call her if she is a good person she will respect you for being honest and telling her that you dont want to use her shows that you care
A
male
reader, Wombat  +, writes (2 February 2010):
My advice is do not go down any line where you do not feel 100% comfortable. If it fell aprt before, it will probabaly do so again
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