What's the matter with my best friend?

[Mallika]

Hello,

I'm actually writing this as I'm concerned about what might be going on with my best friend. We became close in high school and remained so throughout college, keeping in touch, sharing both mundane events and secrets with one another over the past five years though we were in different continents.

However, in October last year, he began showing signs of avoidance. He'd say things like "I'm just really busy," and would avoid replying to my texts. I eventually got the message and stopped texting him, since he clearly didn't want to talk and I respected that.

More recently, I happened to notice that I only had 10 mutual friends with him on Facebook, while we previously had over a 100 mutual friends. I looked into it and realised two things: (1) he un-friended me, because I could only see "Add friend" on his profile and not "Message" as we would with those who are Facebook friends; and (2) he had un-friended most of our other friends, many of whom he had been good friends with.

I'm genuinely concerned about his mental health and I wish I knew what was happening. He clearly has something going on; I want to reach out to him but I want to respect his boundaries since he doesn't entertain conversation with me anymore. I could reach out to another one of his close friends and ask if they know what might be happening with him, but I don't want to come across as too intrusive. He did have a girl in his life, but I don't know if she could be related to any of this.

What should I do? Has anyone met with a similar situation?

Thank you

[Rivière]

I think when someone does something does something like that, it's so easy to think the worst. And rightfully so because you've been so close to him, and suddenly he's blanking everybody out.

I've been in a similar situation. I had a male friend from school who I'd meet up with and we'd visit places with one or two other friends. We'd hang out a lot and share stories. He always talked about moving away because he hated the area. Eventually after university, he did. Though for a short while he and I would share brief exchanges, suddenly he removed everybody from school off his friends list. Every friend he'd made.

It turned out there wasn't anything wrong. He just wanted to move forward and past the 'school' chapter of his life. He didn't want ties to his old life, which we were, and he wanted to make a new life for himself that didn't revolve around the area where he grew up.

I understand his decision. Though I have a few school friends still on my Facebook page, I removed most of them. I want to move forward with my life. School wasn't exactly an A+ time of my life. Though the friends I did make were lovely at the time, that's all it was. It was just a time period and as I grew older, so did they. We all have different commitments now. Some got married and had kids, others moved far away and got jobs.

This isn't to say any of this is true with your friend, but it's more of a possibility than anything. I don't see any harm in you messaging a mutual friend and seeing if everything is ok with him. He was your best friend and you want to look out for him is all.

[Everglow.]

Hey,

I can understand your concern here too and I agree with Sarah that messaging a mutual friend to check in is definitely justified, even if it just puts your mind to rest about the situation. There could be plenty of reasons for him slipping away and not staying in touch and I don't see any harm in making sure he is okay.

I also had a similar situation whereby a friend of mine who I'd been through school with and been close with for over 10 years suddenly deleted all social media accounts and I had no way to contact him. Knowing he had been through many issues with his home life and his mental health hadn't been it's best, I asked someone I knew to contact someone he knew to check in. Luckily I also ran into him in the street and found out he was ok, but for many reasons had distanced himself from social media.

Hopefully the reasoning behind it is innocent. That being said I can understand why you're worried and I would be too purely because the behaviour isn't what you're used to in him, and you were so close before all of this started happening.

[Mallika]

Thank you so much Sarah and Hollie for your advice.

After seeing your replies this morning, I reached out to a mutual friend who was really close to my best friend (let's call him V). This mutual friend told me that he had a similar experience with V, whereby V stopped talking him and avoided him. So he had a similar experience as me.

This definitely makes me think that what the both of you mentioned about people feeling like "moving on" might have been the case with V.

I'm happy I got some closure on this matter. At least now I know that he has seriously been avoiding people for some reason right now. If V were to ever reach out to me again, my door will be open for him.