Problems With a Friendship

Let me start by making clear that my explanation is purely my point of view. It's likely that this post will show the other person, who I'll use a false name for just in case, in a negative light. That's not intentional, I'm just unable to phrase it in a neutral way.

On to the actual topic.
I was in a relationship years ago with somebody who wound up breaking my heart and leaving me for somebody else. Because of this, and also because of the way it was done, I fell into depression. I hid it from most people, not wanting to draw attention to it, but that turned out to be a mistake, since it wound up increasing my feelings of issolation, with which I had problems anyway. Things were getting steadily worse.
Skip ahead a few months, and by sheer chance I meet somebody whom I shall call Callum. Callum and I became friends pretty much instantly, despite my usual shyness, when we discovered we had a great deal many things in common. Since this was during the Summer Holidays, we spent entire days talking and having fun. It took a while, but eventually Callum pulled me out of the majority of my depression, and while I still have bouts of it occassionally, I'm far better now than I was back then.
We continued this friendship for three years, maybe longer, I lose track. We used to have arguments every once in a while, and we'd fall out for the rest of that evening, but by the next day we could fairly easily appologise to one another and carry on. Callum was literally the greatest friend I had ever had; willing to listen, a terrible sense of humour that I found funny anyway, and all round nice guy. Even after he began going to University and our time together became more limited, we remained strong friends, treating each other as though we were actually related. We were always able to talk about absolutely anything, and neither of us minded.
But a short while ago, things went massively downhill. We were still great friends, but talked less and less, as he became busier and busier. Fair enough, such is how things work, we weren't letting it affect us much. We eventually had another argument, which I saw as fairly minor at the time, which ended when both of us wound up saying something fairly harsh, and Callum claimed that he no longer wanted anything to do with me, whereupon he blocked me over messenger.
"Okay," I thought, "we'll spend some time apart, let ourselves cool down from it, and talk it over when we're ready, just like we always do."
Apparently not, since Callum has erased every form of contact we had with each other. Facebook, Xbox Live, various websites, everything. It's never gone that far before, and since he refuses to speak to me at all, I can't explain myself or try to talk things over, like I normally would. When I last tried, it got worse, with him immedeitly being aggressive towards me despite it having been almost a week, and I ended up just having to drop it entirely.

My main problem here is; I'm afraid that I've lost him forever. I don't make real friends easily, and I can often be difficult to understand since my mind tends to work strangely, but despite that Callum has been my friend no matter what for years, and always understood me. I've constantly lost decent friends over my years, but losing somebody as close to me as he... I don't think I'd be able to handle it without falling back into my depression. And while I have another close friend who is keeping me going, I can't stand the thought that I might really lose Callum forever, especially not under these circumstances.

Any advice concerning what I can do will be appreciated.

 

When do you interact with Callum physically?
Can't you talk to him then?

 

Well, the only times we interact face-to-face is when we've gone out of our way to meet, since we live pretty far away from each other. Probably should have mentioned that most of our communication was through the internet and phone.

 

Wow.....this is....messed up how could he do this.....omg.....I mean to be honest the least he can do is at least talk to you again I mean he didn't have to take it so far. In my opinion, and this may hurt you, but it's my opinion, I think you should really forget about him, He sounds like a really good friend but for him to just like abandon you like that I mean you guys argued before, friends argue all the time, me and my friends argue alot but we just stay friends because we are who we are, honestly i don't even know how I'm still friends with them lol after all the stuff that happens between us. But honestly Dark.....you really should just move on from him because I don't see him as a friend if he would do that to me.

 

D'you have his address? You could try writing him a letter, and explain what you just told us: You don't want to lose him as a friend, he means a lot to you, you don't really know what caused the fallout, and so on and so on.

A physical letter is harder to ignore than an e-mail, so he might be more responsive to that.

Maybe wait a few weeks before you send it (how long has it been since the fight?), give him some time to cool-down. If he's still unresponsive, unfortunately I think that's a sign to start moving on and trying to make new friends, even though it's hard. Or at least wait for him to make the first move.

 

Oh yeah that's a good suggestion I agree.

 

I can get his address fairly easily, so this is a viable suggestion. As for how long it's been; it's only been just about a week since the original fight, so I will wait for a bit more of a cool-down before doing that.

Just a week might seem like a short amount of time to start worrying about, but he doesn't normally say things he doesn't mean. To the point where I've hardly ever heard him be sarcastic, even in a joking manner. And considering how drastic removing every form of contact seems, that's what's got me so worried.

 

The most likely thing here is, since I don't know the full extent of your argument, that he just needs some time away from you. Maybe after a bit he may cool off and talk to you again as it seems whatever the argument was it was pretty devastating and in his anger toward you he felt he needed to erase all forms of contact of you from his life. I reckon he may come to you soon enough. If not then I would go with what Snapdragon said and send him a letter, since a personal letter always holds more weight then an email or PM as it's not really done any more, don't fret I reckon he will subside if he does recieve a letter from you, as it shows how much he means to you- he would have to be incredibly heartless to ignore it.

 

The problem with that is that he's viable to just ignore the letter and rip it or something.

Dark, if you do know his address, I suggest going there physically to try and resolve the issue. If he's a great friend like you say, then something's bound to get resolved.

 

While I agree that seeing him face-to-face would be ideal to fix it, we live too far away for it to be possible. There's about two hours of driving distance between us, which I'd be fine with doing if I were able to drive myself, but it's not a favour I'd be able to ask of anybody.

 

Do you know anyone that lives close to him?

 

How long has it been since he blocked you? :x
If it's fairly recent, e.g. a week or so, then he possibly needs more time to cool down and think things through. He's probably stressing about this too, as your friendship is strong and he has to juggle his university work on top of it.

However, if it's been longer than that then yeah, you should talk to him. I know you've probably tried this, but maybe calling im to see if he could drive to you oe day when he isn't busy (like a weekend) so you two can talk things through?

 

I agree with Ploo-Hems.

If it's only been a week or so, give him some more space / time.

You never did say how long it's been.

 

That might be possible, I haven't tried that yet because it's not been all that long yet, and I'd feel awkward to try talking to him like that so soon.

I did say, but it was in one of the normal posts rather than the thread-starting post, so it was pretty easy to miss.
It's been a week, or thereabouts, since the original fight, so I will give him some more time before I do much more towards reconciling.

 

Whopsies, didn't see that post. :'D

But yeah, waiting for him to blow off steam (and you to feel better) would be best.
When you can/do talk to him though, I'm sure he'll understand it was just a minor thing (again, he probably blew up over stress and such).
I wish you the best of luck. c:

 

Yeah, then. I'd probably give it another week or two before attempting to contact him again.

 

As others have mentioned, he probably needs time to cool off. What he's currently doing isn't normal behaviour for him, so it's reasonable to suspect that he's under different or stressful circumstances at present. These may be to do with the university, or they may be because of something else. There's the possibility that what you said was so bad, it drove him to do this, but I don't get that impression from your post. You seem to believe that it's external circumstances as well.

If he's not ready now, it's reasonable to wait a while longer before trying to contact him. He may be more receptive when the pressures he's currently under are removed. I don't know your friend at all, but most people would be hesitant to throw away a three year friendship over a single incident.

If he does not allow you to reconcile, you can place the blame for the end of the friendship on him, and move on that way. While not a nice outcome, blaming him is far better than breeding self-loathing by blaming yourself, especially if you're prone to depression and the like. Also, he is the one being unreceptive and cold, not you.

 

P, your advice makes a lot of sense to me, since I tend to be pretty logically minded, so thank you for that.

As it happens, I briefly spoke to Callum earlier today, initially not to discuss this. We have by no means reconciled yet, he still seems pretty 'off' with me.
It turns out there were some external circumstances, which I won't go into, but he also said that he has taken a lot from me lately, which may be true, though I think most of that is down to mutual misunderstanding. The end result of the conversation was him stating that he wanted time; to cool down, get over the external problems, and think things through straight. Given a few weeks, I think he may allow us to talk things through properly, which we'll do verbally so as to ensure there's no miscommunication, and see what happens.
Even though the situation hasn't been completely resolved, there's little more that can be recommended except to wait and see now. A mod can now lock this thread, and I'll post the eventual outcome in the Spam Zone, for those who are interested in what happens.

 

Since P pretty much explained what may be the problem, I will probably simply be repeating what he said...

College and the like can be very stressful, which can lead to be being extremely easily irritated to other things. I really hate that this happened, Dark, and I hope the two of you rekindle your friendship, and I'm sorry that I didn't really say anything useful :x

 

~Closed~ upon request. I hope things get better for you two, and just let me or someone else on staff if you'd like this reopened for any reason.