Dear Lacey:

I am 21 and my best friend, Steve, was a great guy but at times very selfish and said derogatory things about his other friends when they were not around. I had a dinner party where I drank too much, so Steve and I didn’t get to talk much that night. Instead of accepting my apology the next day, he ignored me and refused to answer any calls!

No one else who was there can believe he is making such a big deal about it, but he refuses to have anything to do with me. We were supposed to go to a concert the next week, and I sent the tickets to him so he could go, but he ripped them up. His old friends say this is typical of him. He also has a real issue with lying – in the past he has lied for no reason at all.

My question isn’t so much how do I restore the friendship, because I’m not sure I want a friend like this, but I was wondering if you had any advice on how I could move on and not be so sad for losing his friendship? I really don’t understand what happened. I don’t deal well with people hurting me.

Cliff

Dear Cliff:

Cliff, trust me, NO ONE deals well with hurt feelings, so you’re not alone. I don’t know why there is always so much pressure to pretend like we’re not upset, or to hurry up and feel better, when anger and sadness are perfectly normal feelings. Especially when you have been hurt by someone close to you. True, it doesn’t feel good to work through these emotions, but they have an important purpose in our lives: to allow us to physically release the tension they create (through crying, etc.) as well as to give us time to reflect on what has happened and how we want to live our lives going forward.

Are you absolutely positive the night you were drinking that you didn’t say or do something offensive that you don’t remember? It sounds as though the other people who were there didn’t seem to think so, which is a good sign, and since you’re 21, it’s fairly common to drink excessively once in a while. But if you find that this situation repeats itself in the future, where you drink too much and have to make apologies the next day, you may need to take a look at your drinking habits and whether they’re impacting your ability to maintain healthy relationships.

As for Steve, your instincts are correct that you probably haven’t lost much when it comes to his friendship. You should be able to count on your friends rather than have to wonder if they’re going to turn on you at any moment. I’m thinking it’s possible, given his extreme reaction after the dinner party, that he was using that as an excuse for something else that was bothering him about you. What that is, you may never know, seeing as how he chose to pick a fight rather than sit down and have a rational discussion with you.

Unfortunately there’s no magic cure for hurt feelings. I can think of things that happened 10 years ago that still make me cringe – the only good thing is that with time the memories have faded and I don’t think about it all day, like I used to! So give it time. Surround yourself with good people. Reflect on what you can do differently the next time someone like Steve comes into your life. And don’t be too hard on yourself.

Lacey