Friendships

This is probably not OCD but I have made a post about this guy. So long story short, last week I texted him asking how his day went with his mom and all that. So he then texts me “how was your day” and I said good and I said “yours” and he said “tough” “I’m going to bed ttyl “ I asked what happened and what’s wrong and never get a response. Next day at work he’s not talking to me so I thought to myself to just wait and give him space. Hours later I eventually ask him at work if he was okay and he said he’ll talk to me after work. Never does. Still never talks to me. The next day is Sunday and he still never texts me so I continue getting ready for church and ended up staying hom and telling him “I’m staying home this Sunday” “I’m proud of you for getting baptized” still no answer until finally Monday night or Tuesday morning he responds with “THX” I come in to work today and my cousin (manager) says he asked her if (the other manager) was going to church tomorrow she tells him “she said no” and then my cousin says “did you ask Bree?” (That’s my name) and he says “I really don’t want to talk to her right now”) he asks my cousin will she go to church with him. I keep overthinking “what in the world did I do” I’m trying to figure out what happened. I feel crazy for wondering what happened for him to all of sudden do this. I just like him as a friend but now I’m starting to dislike him period and have permanently deleted our messages and blocked him today. I took my time and thought hard before blocking and deleting. Maybe he’ll talk to me maybe not but we’re adults and I’m trying to figure out what i did because I’m really confused

(Post also goes into topics of moral scrupulosity and a mention of abuse.) - Hi, so I’m not here to seek reassurance—although I understand and acknowledge my obsessive-compulsive tendencies are feeding into this and my anxiety around it—but I’d really like other people’s input on this. I had a lost a friendship a month ago. It was over Discord. I am very active in fandom, and was in a character role play server with other adult fans for a little over a year. I had met this person in said server, who would go on to be my friend. We became very close, to the point where we both shared our mental health-related struggles (on my end I shared that I have both autism and OCD). I expressed that I wanted to do more stuff in my real-life and build a career in the arts for myself on several occasions and the high-energy atmosphere was generally overwhelming to me. I communicated this with them and other server members. The server I was a part of has high standards for in-character role play. Many of the writers in there are very talented, and are able to write practically novella-length responses to each other. This response length is normal and high literacy is expected. I’ve been doing this hobby in different fanbases for over 10 years, and I’ve noticed that as I’ve gotten older I’ve had less and less energy for longer responses. I had a hard time accepting this until very recently, because role play is a lot of fun for me and my people-pleasing tendencies makes me want to write longer and longer responses for them. I want to continue doing this hobby, but I just don’t have the time, energy, or dedication to it like I used to have. So, back to my friendship with this other person and I: we had a role play with our characters going, and I’ve been growing more and more distant from the server. I want to emphasize: I wasn’t distant for any kind of negative reason. I still liked all of my mutuals and friends on there, and talking and exchanging banter when I could, but my general interest was waning. This wasn’t due to any member of the server; I had no personal qualms or gripes with anyone to cause this distance. It was a combination of my interests changing at that time and wanting to put my focus toward other things. I hadn’t responded to my friend’s role play exchange at this point in time for around three months. I hardly ever have a gap in responses like that. Again, it was a combination of all the factors I listed before that contributed to it. I was so sure I’d be able to muster the energy to respond, and I’d assure them I would before, but it never happened. This gap in response time had hurt them. I apologized to them one-on-one about this, and we had a nice heart-to-heart about it. I was so scared that they’d take my distance and lack of socializing in the server as malicious, but they seemed to understand that all of it wasn’t intentional. I had thought we had come to a greater understanding, learned what I could do to be a more attentive and better friend to meet their needs, and could move on from this as stronger friends. Two weeks pass, I’m not very active in the server again, but I made an effort to reach back out to them one-on-one and give them an update on my side of things. I had more time to sit with my thoughts and assess how I want to put myself out there on the server again, or even if I wanted to, still a bit intimidated by it and throwing myself in, being as insecure as I am. I had a better understanding of my new relationship to role play as a hobby, and explained to them that it’s changed, alluding to how I couldn’t output as much as I used to. I was given a very short response, essentially telling me that they’re sorry to hear that and hope I find what I’m looking for. I felt my gut twist up at seeing this, because of our previous conversation from the beginning of the month made it sound like we were on good terms. I then go back into the server, out of our private correspondence, and see a vague post being made by them a minute or two after our exchange. They said that the person they were venting about and being upset with had been victimizing themselves and called their actions abusive. I took this to mean, based on the vagueness and timing of the post, that this had to be about me. I am extremely sensitive around the subject matter of abuse, and I spiraled immediately. I didn’t talk to them after this, thinking that if they really perceived me this way, that I don’t want to do more damage than I already have, despite me really wanting to explain myself. It took me a couple of days to ground myself and assess the situation, but I found it in myself to finally leave the server. What held me back was the fear that I’d be retaliated against privately by other mutuals from the server if they had seen my departure. This didn’t happen. I haven’t heard anything from these old friends and mutuals since me leaving the server. It’s been a little over a month since this happened, but I’m still guilt-ridden, confused, hurting, and conflicted. I’m a whirlwind of doubt, uncertainty, and shame. Does any of what I described here sound abusive? Was I abusive in this dynamic? Was I in the wrong on all of this? Should I reach back out to them and apologize? And if so, how? I don’t know if I want to talk to them again after this, either. Does that make me selfish? I’m at a loss of what to do and how to perceive it all. Thank you for reading.

Ok...so I need help navigating a relationship I have. I met this guy in trade school bc he kept following me around to talk to me and so we became friends and we kept in contact after leaving the school. He occasionally visits for a few hours maybe a few times a year and most of our interactions are over text. That's essentially all the necessary background. 2 problems 1. This person once had feelings for me, which I did not return because I just didn't feel the same way. He jokingly called me cruel because of it and one of my loved ones even joked that I was racist for rejecting him. Now I can't stop thinking about those things, even though I'm 80% sure they weren't serious. I know I'm not cruel for not having caught feelings for him, and I was extremely careful to let him down as gently as possible and as soon as possible so as not to give false hope. I also know that his race was not the reason I didn't catch feelings. Regardless, these comments still stick in my head. 2. This person is draining to me unintentionally. Our senses of humor kind of clash and our conversations are stiff and awkward because we have little in common and can rarely find things to talk together about that aren't sad or about our relationships with people who treated us poorly. It doesn't feel natural even after years of talking. He doesn't seem to understand me half the time but will pretend to and I've noticed I avoid starting conversations with him when we're not in person, so neither of us are perfect to one another. Major views of ours are also conflicting as well, as in, I am not exactly accepted around this person as a non-binary person, and this person defends those who want my rights taken from me. This is political, and I don't like to break relationships over politics, but it ads this undercurrent of tension. This person is also often taking risks and getting into accidents, so even more stress there in worrying about his safety. Every time we talk, I feel a pit of anxiety in my stomach and I worry I'll hear of another accident. I have trouble understanding him and he has trouble understanding me as well. We both struggle to communicate with frequent misunderstandings and I'm unsure why. It stresses me out when I struggle to read his meanings and tone and because of that, I particularly misunderstand him a lot, especially over text. His levels of sarcasm and irony are often too advanced for me to interpret and so I don't know when he's joking vs when he's serious vs when he's upset. Because I have so much trouble telling his emotions and he's not the type of person you really open up to about stuff like that, it's hard to navigate so I get very stressed and anxious never knowing if my responses are socially appropriate to the mood of the conversation. This is really frustrating, because from what it seems, he's a great person and there is no reason why we shouldn't be friends. He's different from me and interesting and tells great stories that make for thoughtful conversations to follow, yet I often wish he would never contact me because of the stress, and that he would not like to visit me or leave sooner, and that makes me feel really evil and a terrible friend. Right now I feel like I'm talking behind his back too. It feels bad. And now my OCD wants to tell me that not only am I a bad friend and person for this, but also racist, because a friend put that idea in my head after I rejected his romantic advance. Idk how to feel about this and what to do moving forward. Why does being friends with him stress me out so much? I only ever felt this way with one other person, but that was in highschool, and because the person was extremely high energy and extroverted while I'm very much not. This guy is not as extremely extroverted. Just a risk-taker who likes to poke fun a lot and confuse people for giggles. Idk. I want to stay friends because he's done nothing wrong, and he's a good guy, but it's draining and overwhelming.