My friend keeps lying to me after I called her out on it. Idk what to do anymore

[Samkay]

TLDR: Became close friends with someone who drifted away after reconciling with old friends. Despite promises, she prioritized hanging out with them over me, even lying about it. Confrontations led to excuses and gaslighting. Now considering ending the friendship due to emotional toll and feeling undervalued. Unsure whether to confront again, cut ties, or match her level of effort, but leaning towards ending things. Feeling numb and stuck in deciding how to proceed.

The details:

Some background info:I have an online friend who I’ve be come really close to these past few years. We grew especially close after I was there for her for some pretty big drama that happened with her friend group. The drama resolved(I was there and supported her through all of that too) and honestly since then things have been different. I was genuinely happy that she got her old friends back and was excited for us to all hang out together and get to know each other better. I never expected that I would be cast to the side so she can focus on healing the broken friendships. She would ignore my messages for hours even though she was online with them, I would ask her if she wanted to hang out and every time she would reply that she’s hanging out with her friend group…literally every time. I eventually got dry with her because I felt like I was the only one putting in effort. It would be weeks before we would hang out/call again.I felt like she built me up so high and showed me how great it was to be her friend,just to rip it all away from me.  I eventually confronted her about the way she treated me and she explained that she was going through some pretty personal issues with her friends (I do agree that the issues she was having were extremely big and scary) and that she thought I was going through alot since I stopped messaging. She did make promises to be mindful of me and make more effort in our friendship. In my mind she was justified in treating me that way and I thought I was happy with that outcome. I was scared to lose her.
A few weeks go by, and lo and behold nothing had changed. In fact somehow it gets worse. After previously saying we were going to play Overwatch she asks if I’d be down to play fortnite with her and eddie. I was excited she never wants to play Fortnite with me….or play with me in general at this point of time. I was genuinely having fun and thought everyone else was too based off how we were all laughing, Eddie was sorta mansplainging fortnite to me and her even though we already know how to play but im use to that, im sure he meant it as nice it was just the kinda thing that would be better if he just didn’t. The day after I messaged her asking her if she noticed that he was doing that and she said yeah and we laughed about it. But then she stopped inviting me to hang out with her and Eddie…and only hung out with Eddie. I kept asking her if we could hang out or when she was available and she would always say should could the next day but then the next day would roll around and she would be online with him… completely ignoring the plans I was trying to make. One instance made me question our entire friendship and this same issue is causing me pain yet again. We were finally hanging out after her playing with him day after day. But we only played for like 2 hours before she said she was tired and needed to sleep. I was happy with the time I did hang out with her and wished her sweet dreams. I got on dead by daylight a game that’s she didn’t play with me for so long even though she’s the reason why I played in the first place. I was solo queueing when after a few games I got a invite from her to join her group. I was scared she ditched me to play dead by daylight with him and then saw me on and just invited me out of pitty…I didn’t even realize she was online. She had her discord hide her activity but then turned it back on when she invited me and it said she was playing for 30 mins… I hate it, I hate that she’s lying to me, tricking me, deciving me. I felt very betrayed because she’s never lied to me before and why does she feel the need to now? All I can think is because she doesn’t care about me as much anymore. I finally decide to have another conversation with her about what’s been happening and how it’s affecting me and our friendship. It felt like she had an excuse for everything. The dead by daylight issue was because she thought I was asleep and didn’t realize I was on….but then why did she hide her activity? It was directed at me and no one can convince me it wasn’t, I’ve been gaslit too much in this friendship. I tell her about how she doesn’t invite me anymore and she says she thought I was busy because I was pulling away again. I called bs on that and stated I tried getting her to play with me so much and I even went out to find fortnite custom maps for us to play together(she hates battle royal) this is important: she said that when I mentioned fortnite to her she thought I meant the battle royal and not custom maps. She let me believe I was crazy, I thought I was making all these connections in my head out of no where, when I was valid to make them.  She even joked that im like her friend who has schizophrenia…(he recently left her for this same *** im going through) and now we come to today. Today I saw eddie on fortnite, after she told me she was playing with him today. I saw she wasn’t playing anything on discord….i had to check if she was online on fortnite….she was and she was playing battle royal with him. I feel like my heart has shattered into a million pieces. I don’t care that she was playing Fortnite with him. It hurts extremely bad tho that this one an excuses of hers for basically ditching me for weeks, just to be a lie. She’s fine with playing battle royals or at least can put up with her dislike for them for him, but not for me when desperately reaching out. 

I want out of this friendship I don’t think I can handle this anymore. I do struggle with a lot of mental health issues and I am as open as I can about them and she was one of the people who I thought and she reassured she totally understood me.  I feel like I have 3 options 

1.block her on everything and never talk to her again, get her out of my life asap

2. Try for the 4+ time to talk to her about this

3. give her the same energy she gives me (I can’t do this option because I have tried in the past and it hurt too much that I ended up doing option 2 anyway.)

I feel so numb and stuck and not sure how to process and proceed with this.

Thank you in advance for anything you can offer. Sorry if things dont make sense I have a hard time trying to explain feelings and issues.
 

[Batya33]

1 hour ago, Samkay said:

block her on everything and never talk to her again, get her out of my life asap

This.  Did you post about her earlier? I'm sorry you're frustrated. Do you have friends in real life?

[Tinydance]

Well I understand it's really frustrating that she's ditching you. I know you said you were online friends for many years.  To be honest though you seem way too fixated on this friend.  I'm getting the impression that maybe you don't have any other friends? 

The thing is that people don't usually have only one friend. So your friend has other friends too and she's allowed to hang out with them too. I understand that now she's not playing any games with you at all basically which is disappointing. But she is allowed to play games with her other friends and she actually doesn't have an obligation to invite you to play with them. I have a lot of friends and sometimes I go for a coffee with one friend and don't invite the other friends. I'm allowed to catch up just with that friend and not the others. Just because she's online on Discord doesn't mean that she has to spend her time only on you. 

On the other hand if she basically never "hangs out" with you anymore then she probably is losing interest. But on your end you shouldn't suffocate her and act controlling like she's not allowed to have other friends. You should be doing the same. You should have other friends apart from her. Why are you so hurt that she's playing online games with Eddie or whoever? He's her friend so she's hanging out with him but it doesn't mean it's something against you.

Please find more friends and hobbies etc. It's not healthy to put your everything into only one person. Who is also an online friend, not in real life.

[Wiseman2]

Sorry this is happening. Agree please find other friends. Confronting her yet again won't improve anything. 

[catfeeder]

I didn't get all of the details, but I'll speak for myself. I respect the privacy of my friends, and I don't ask them to report to me anything they don't want to volunteer. Over the years we've had some natural divergences. These were not conflicts, just varying needs or desires to prioritize our focus in different directions. Over time we may tend to prioritize one another, at other times we have a looser flow.

I'd back off and match friend's efforts. If she reaches out, I'd enjoy our conversations without expectations that she 'must' inform me of anything. I'd also make efforts to find and cultivate different kinds and degrees of friendships to meet different needs, especially in-person relationships. And I would NOT expect that each of these friendships must remain constant and equally focused at all times.

Head high, and no need to turn a temporary divergence into a disaster. And certainly no need to burn a bridge whenever someone doesn't encourage you to be overly informed about their private choices.

[Cherylyn]

You're just wasting your time and energy on a liar and same with anyone who didn't think enough of you to treat you with integrity,  dignity and utmost respect.  Anyone who lies,  deceives,  betrays or plays any of those head trips and mind games,  is not worth the dirt underneath your shoes.  Why?  Because you can't look at that person the same way anymore let alone barely be able to give them eye contact.  That seed of distrust had been since firmly implanted within the deep recesses of your brain and nothing can ever erase it.  It is here to stay permanently. 

You need to move on.  Ignore,  block and delete this ex-friend everywhere so you can heal and recover.  Make this ex-friend,  out of sight,  out of mind. 

[Samkay]

12 hours ago, Batya33 said:

This.  Did you post about her earlier? I'm sorry you're frustrated. Do you have friends in real life?

I do have irl friends I hang out with and I have other online friends.  

[Samkay]

11 hours ago, Tinydance said:

Well I understand it's really frustrating that she's ditching you. I know you said you were online friends for many years.  To be honest though you seem way too fixated on this friend.  I'm getting the impression that maybe you don't have any other friends? 

The thing is that people don't usually have only one friend. So your friend has other friends too and she's allowed to hang out with them too. I understand that now she's not playing any games with you at all basically which is disappointing. But she is allowed to play games with her other friends and she actually doesn't have an obligation to invite you to play with them. I have a lot of friends and sometimes I go for a coffee with one friend and don't invite the other friends. I'm allowed to catch up just with that friend and not the others. Just because she's online on Discord doesn't mean that she has to spend her time only on you. 

On the other hand if she basically never "hangs out" with you anymore then she probably is losing interest. But on your end you shouldn't suffocate her and act controlling like she's not allowed to have other friends. You should be doing the same. You should have other friends apart from her. Why are you so hurt that she's playing online games with Eddie or whoever? He's her friend so she's hanging out with him but it doesn't mean it's something against you.

Please find more friends and hobbies etc. It's not healthy to put your everything into only one person. Who is also an online friend, not in real life.

I feel like it’s more the fact that she’s lying to me about when she’s hanging out with him that’s getting me irritated and confused. I asked her why she felts like she needs to hide from me when hanging out with him sometimes and she told me that it was all in my head and that I was making it up. And I felt like I was crazy for thinking this way for months, just to find out she actually IS hiding from me when playing with him. I know it sounds really controlling but I don’t care if she has new friends. I just wish that she didn’t keep telling me that im her best friend and her sister and then doesn’t put any efforts in. I feel like she tells me one thing so that I will stay and then acts a totally different way because she doesn’t actually believe what she’s telling me? It feels like she wants the comfort of me as a friend but then doesn’t actually want me as a friend. I think anyone would get hurt if their “best friend” suddenly starts ditching them for someone else? Is that controlling? I’m not trying to control her, I just wished she cared about me like how she says she does. I feel like I would rather her just tell me “im playing with eddie right now” then hide from me when playing with him. Because I just assume all the worse things, like why does she need to hide? Does she think I will get mad? Ive never yelled or been angry before with her? I think she thinks she’s protecting me maybe and doesn’t want to hurt my feelings? But I kept telling her it’s not specifically the eddie thing that’s getting me insecure in my friendship with her, it’s her lying to me. im aware checking her status’s is crazy but i feel like I need to, to make sure she’s not lying to me.  I would like to add I have more irl friends then her….she is strictly only online because she lives in a remote area. Me having irl friends is one of the reasons she used for her not hanging out with me because according to her she can’t tell when im hanging out with irl ppl or when im online, but that was just a lie because I would ask her directly to hang out.

[Samkay]

8 hours ago, catfeeder said:

I didn't get all of the details, but I'll speak for myself. I respect the privacy of my friends, and I don't ask them to report to me anything they don't want to volunteer. Over the years we've had some natural divergences. These were not conflicts, just varying needs or desires to prioritize our focus in different directions. Over time we may tend to prioritize one another, at other times we have a looser flow.

I'd back off and match friend's efforts. If she reaches out, I'd enjoy our conversations without expectations that she 'must' inform me of anything. I'd also make efforts to find and cultivate different kinds and degrees of friendships to meet different needs, especially in-person relationships. And I would NOT expect that each of these friendships must remain constant and equally focused at all times.

Head high, and no need to turn a temporary divergence into a disaster. And certainly no need to burn a bridge whenever someone doesn't encourage you to be overly informed about their private choices.

For me it’s important for a friendship especially a close one (she would always tell me how I’m her little sister) to be built on trust. I kinda feel like “why does she have to lie to me in the first place” because she tells me how she cares about our friendship but I have doubts. I use to believe her 100%, I would have been on her side no matter what because I trusted her so much. And she would tell me she felt the same. But now it’s weird because she is lying to me and I feel like I’m the one drowning in this friendship. I feel like I can’t take this anymore, her telling me stuff and I have to decide whether I believe it or have to be cautious with it. I know friendships change now and I feel like im confortable letting this one go because I don’t like how im acting and feeling about it. I’m just not sure how to end the friendship because have the half friendship we have been trying to have, where it’s only me reaching out but then she tells me she cares for me so much is messing with me. 

[Samkay]

2 hours ago, Cherylyn said:

You're just wasting your time and energy on a liar and same with anyone who didn't think enough of you to treat you with integrity,  dignity and utmost respect.  Anyone who lies,  deceives,  betrays or plays any of those head trips and mind games,  is not worth the dirt underneath your shoes.  Why?  Because you can't look at that person the same way anymore let alone barely be able to give them eye contact.  That seed of distrust had been since firmly implanted within the deep recesses of your brain and nothing can ever erase it.  It is here to stay permanently. 

You need to move on.  Ignore,  block and delete this ex-friend everywhere so you can heal and recover.  Make this ex-friend,  out of sight,  out of mind. 

The way you explained this is actually how im feeling. I feel like I can’t trust her anymore and I use to be able to trust it with ANYTHING. I kind of feel like I owe her an explanation on why im leaving her life because her old ex best friend blocked her without giving any reason at all. But maybe I don’t owe her it? I’m not entirely sure, I do know for sure that I hate when friendships are like this.

[Lambert]

14 hours ago, Samkay said:

I want out of this friendship

This says it all. Save yourself drama and just drift away. fights are fir when you want to work it out.  If there's nothing to be done, then move on. 

[Tinydance]

22 minutes ago, Samkay said:

I feel like it’s more the fact that she’s lying to me about when she’s hanging out with him that’s getting me irritated and confused. I asked her why she felts like she needs to hide from me when hanging out with him sometimes and she told me that it was all in my head and that I was making it up. And I felt like I was crazy for thinking this way for months, just to find out she actually IS hiding from me when playing with him. I know it sounds really controlling but I don’t care if she has new friends. I just wish that she didn’t keep telling me that im her best friend and her sister and then doesn’t put any efforts in. I feel like she tells me one thing so that I will stay and then acts a totally different way because she doesn’t actually believe what she’s telling me? It feels like she wants the comfort of me as a friend but then doesn’t actually want me as a friend. I think anyone would get hurt if their “best friend” suddenly starts ditching them for someone else? Is that controlling? I’m not trying to control her, I just wished she cared about me like how she says she does. I feel like I would rather her just tell me “im playing with eddie right now” then hide from me when playing with him. Because I just assume all the worse things, like why does she need to hide? Does she think I will get mad? Ive never yelled or been angry before with her? I think she thinks she’s protecting me maybe and doesn’t want to hurt my feelings? But I kept telling her it’s not specifically the eddie thing that’s getting me insecure in my friendship with her, it’s her lying to me. im aware checking her status’s is crazy but i feel like I need to, to make sure she’s not lying to me.  I would like to add I have more irl friends then her….she is strictly only online because she lives in a remote area. Me having irl friends is one of the reasons she used for her not hanging out with me because according to her she can’t tell when im hanging out with irl ppl or when im online, but that was just a lie because I would ask her directly to hang out.

Well I agree that lying isn't good. So it's bad she's lying because lying in itself is bad. But having said that, in my opinion she doesn't have to report to you at all. If she's playing games or hanging out with other friends, she has no obligation to always tell you: "By the way, I'm hanging out with X". I think it's fine for friends to tell each other just in conversation that they were hanging out with someone. Like for example: "So what were you up to yesterday? I was hanging out with Eddie." But it's not really normal that one friend always has to report to the other every time they're hanging out with other people. That aspect of it is actually controlling.

If you want to bring up with her why she's not really hanging out with you anymore or drifting then absolutely you can do that. But you don't have the right to question her why she's hanging out with Eddie or anyone else. Or why she's not inviting you to hang out with those people behave she doesn't actually have to.

I understand that you can see her status that she's online on Discord. But it would be the equivalent for example if I'm friends with my neighbour. And my neighbour can see I'm home and my lights are on and my car is in the driveway. Just because I'm home doesn't mean I actually owe it to my neighbour to hang out. I'm allowed to be home doing my own thing or hanging out with a different person at my house. It's the same thing with you seeing her on Discord.

[lostandhurt]

This is not unlike a romantic relationship where one person has certain expectations while the other has none or a lot less.

  You want your friend to match how you feel this friendship should be and when it doesn't happen you feel let down.

  Just like in a romantic relationship there are times when you accept them for who they are and not try and change them into who you want them to be or you step back and let nature take its course.  This means allowing them to be who they are without pressure from you.  Once you see who they choose to be then you decide if you want them in your life.  In this case lies are being told in my opinion to avoid conflict with you. 

Step back and let things cool off a little instead of forcing it. 

Lost

[Wiseman2]

14 hours ago, Samkay said:

1.block her on everything and never talk to her again, 

It seems like 1. would set you free and give you the most peace of mind. You've already tried talking to her and tried cooking things off to no avail. Unfortunately you can't make someone be your friend. 

[Cherylyn]

On 1/26/2024 at 5:58 PM, Samkay said:

The way you explained this is actually how im feeling. I feel like I can’t trust her anymore and I use to be able to trust it with ANYTHING. I kind of feel like I owe her an explanation on why im leaving her life because her old ex best friend blocked her without giving any reason at all. But maybe I don’t owe her it? I’m not entirely sure, I do know for sure that I hate when friendships are like this.

You don't owe her an explanation.  Simply go silent.  Break off all contact,  block and delete everywhere.  This is how you protect yourself,  feel safe and secure.  It's called enforcing healthy boundaries for yourself and you have every right to do so.  You don't owe her anything.  Don't waste your brain space and energy on people who treat you like _______.  😡

[MissCanuck]

You are very, very invested in this friend. 

This is your sign that you need to step away from this friendship, for your own good. It's not healthy anymore and she seems to have outgrown it and doesn't have the courage to tell you that directly. 

Do you think you might have stronger feelings for her than just a platonic friend? 

[Samkay]

On 1/26/2024 at 3:32 AM, Samkay said:

TLDR: Became close friends with someone who drifted away after reconciling with old friends. Despite promises, she prioritized hanging out with them over me, even lying about it. Confrontations led to excuses and gaslighting. Now considering ending the friendship due to emotional toll and feeling undervalued. Unsure whether to confront again, cut ties, or match her level of effort, but leaning towards ending things. Feeling numb and stuck in deciding how to proceed.

The details:

Some background info:I have an online friend who I’ve be come really close to these past few years. We grew especially close after I was there for her for some pretty big drama that happened with her friend group. The drama resolved(I was there and supported her through all of that too) and honestly since then things have been different. I was genuinely happy that she got her old friends back and was excited for us to all hang out together and get to know each other better. I never expected that I would be cast to the side so she can focus on healing the broken friendships. She would ignore my messages for hours even though she was online with them, I would ask her if she wanted to hang out and every time she would reply that she’s hanging out with her friend group…literally every time. I eventually got dry with her because I felt like I was the only one putting in effort. It would be weeks before we would hang out/call again.I felt like she built me up so high and showed me how great it was to be her friend,just to rip it all away from me.  I eventually confronted her about the way she treated me and she explained that she was going through some pretty personal issues with her friends (I do agree that the issues she was having were extremely big and scary) and that she thought I was going through alot since I stopped messaging. She did make promises to be mindful of me and make more effort in our friendship. In my mind she was justified in treating me that way and I thought I was happy with that outcome. I was scared to lose her.
A few weeks go by, and lo and behold nothing had changed. In fact somehow it gets worse. After previously saying we were going to play Overwatch she asks if I’d be down to play fortnite with her and eddie. I was excited she never wants to play Fortnite with me….or play with me in general at this point of time. I was genuinely having fun and thought everyone else was too based off how we were all laughing, Eddie was sorta mansplainging fortnite to me and her even though we already know how to play but im use to that, im sure he meant it as nice it was just the kinda thing that would be better if he just didn’t. The day after I messaged her asking her if she noticed that he was doing that and she said yeah and we laughed about it. But then she stopped inviting me to hang out with her and Eddie…and only hung out with Eddie. I kept asking her if we could hang out or when she was available and she would always say should could the next day but then the next day would roll around and she would be online with him… completely ignoring the plans I was trying to make. One instance made me question our entire friendship and this same issue is causing me pain yet again. We were finally hanging out after her playing with him day after day. But we only played for like 2 hours before she said she was tired and needed to sleep. I was happy with the time I did hang out with her and wished her sweet dreams. I got on dead by daylight a game that’s she didn’t play with me for so long even though she’s the reason why I played in the first place. I was solo queueing when after a few games I got a invite from her to join her group. I was scared she ditched me to play dead by daylight with him and then saw me on and just invited me out of pitty…I didn’t even realize she was online. She had her discord hide her activity but then turned it back on when she invited me and it said she was playing for 30 mins… I hate it, I hate that she’s lying to me, tricking me, deciving me. I felt very betrayed because she’s never lied to me before and why does she feel the need to now? All I can think is because she doesn’t care about me as much anymore. I finally decide to have another conversation with her about what’s been happening and how it’s affecting me and our friendship. It felt like she had an excuse for everything. The dead by daylight issue was because she thought I was asleep and didn’t realize I was on….but then why did she hide her activity? It was directed at me and no one can convince me it wasn’t, I’ve been gaslit too much in this friendship. I tell her about how she doesn’t invite me anymore and she says she thought I was busy because I was pulling away again. I called bs on that and stated I tried getting her to play with me so much and I even went out to find fortnite custom maps for us to play together(she hates battle royal) this is important: she said that when I mentioned fortnite to her she thought I meant the battle royal and not custom maps. She let me believe I was crazy, I thought I was making all these connections in my head out of no where, when I was valid to make them.  She even joked that im like her friend who has schizophrenia…(he recently left her for this same *** im going through) and now we come to today. Today I saw eddie on fortnite, after she told me she was playing with him today. I saw she wasn’t playing anything on discord….i had to check if she was online on fortnite….she was and she was playing battle royal with him. I feel like my heart has shattered into a million pieces. I don’t care that she was playing Fortnite with him. It hurts extremely bad tho that this one an excuses of hers for basically ditching me for weeks, just to be a lie. She’s fine with playing battle royals or at least can put up with her dislike for them for him, but not for me when desperately reaching out. 

I want out of this friendship I don’t think I can handle this anymore. I do struggle with a lot of mental health issues and I am as open as I can about them and she was one of the people who I thought and she reassured she totally understood me.  I feel like I have 3 options 

1.block her on everything and never talk to her again, get her out of my life asap

2. Try for the 4+ time to talk to her about this

3. give her the same energy she gives me (I can’t do this option because I have tried in the past and it hurt too much that I ended up doing option 2 anyway.)

I feel so numb and stuck and not sure how to process and proceed with this.

Thank you in advance for anything you can offer. Sorry if things dont make sense I have a hard time trying to explain feelings and issues.
 

UPDATE: hello! Thank you to everyone who responded to this! I would just like to say I did end up blocking her and have decided to go no contact. I felt like if I stayed in the friendship it wouldn’t be healthy for either of us. I felt like I was spiraling thinking about where this was going and decided it would be best to end it.