Re-connecting with an old friend and I don't know how I feel about it

[odkits]

As the title of my thread has already stated, I'm in the process of re-connecting with someone I was previously very close with and I don't know how I feel about the situation. I still have some anger from the way our friendship was put on hold by her, and I don't know if I can fully reconcile everything that she did and the hurt she caused me.

After meeting through mutual friends, we immediately had this connection and chemistry and became very close friends - four, five-hour long phone calls at a time, spending evenings together just the two of us, in addition to hanging out with other friends - and we eventually developed something more, even if it was a one-time hook up. The timing of this situation was terrible, as she left for college the day after we hooked up, and I knew things wouldn't work out for us as a couple. Nevertheless, she made a huge impact on my life and I know I did the same for her because she told me she loved me shortly after leaving for school.

However, we had a falling out about a month after she left and we spoke very sporadically while she was away. I tried my best to maintain contact with her - asking her for updates on her life and messaging her every once in a while to see how she was doing - but she became pretty cold and distant and basically wouldn't give me the time of day.

After getting the cold shoulder more than a few times, I decided I couldn't deal with being treated so poorly, not only as someone she supposedly "loved" but just as a friend in general, and basically cut her out of my life - deleted her number, de-friended her from facebook, etc. I still thought about her a lot, but I was doing fine for the last couple of months. We hadn't really spoken since the beginning of the year - I had made her a very sweet and considerate birthday gift to which I received a simple thank you and a message telling me that I was a great guy but I deserved to be with someone better than her - but she messaged me about a month ago asking me to go to dinner with her. I had a legitimate conflict and couldn't go, but I told her that maybe we could have dinner another time over the summer - I was very brief in my response but not rude or anything of the sort.

After that message, we exchanged a few other messages in which she stated that she wanted to be friends again and wanted to see me, etc. I couldn't help but get pulled back into her charm and I started responding like the old friend I once was - joking around with her and responding with longer messages than were necessary. She joked back on occasion but her responses were still somewhat distant and definitely not like the ones we had previously exchanged last summer.

Furthermore, I did see her at a party this past weekend. We greeted each other with a hug and did a bit of joking around, but we didn't really talk at all. It wasn't awkward by any means but it still felt distant, just like in her messages. We have mutual friends so it's inevitable that we will see each other again, but I'm wondering how I should act when I do see her because things (our friendship for one) have definitely changed between us.

In the back of mind, I've questioned her motives for wanting to be friends again because she really did treat me poorly while she was away, and I don't know how I should feel about this whole situation. It's very frustrating because I had previously spent so much time thinking about her and wishing that we could reconnect as friends, but now I'm also concerned that I'll eventually develop feelings for her again if we continue to talk and hang out. The situation still isn't ideal because she will go back to school in the fall and I'm afraid the same thing will happen when she leaves, i.e. she'll become distant and put our friendship on hold again.

Any thoughts or advice is much appreciated, and thank you for taking the time to read and/or comment.

[IndiReloaded]

All relationships of any length experience periods of problems. This is as true of friends as husband & wife.

You need to spend some quiet time and think about what you get out of a friendship with this person. Is she someone you admire and value in your life? Does she satisfy certain needs you may have? Could you rely on this person to be there for you in a true time of need? My experience is that truly good friends are as rare as life-partners. In fact, the relationships can be somewhat similar, esp for male-female friendships.

Sometimes, life just gets in the way of things being ideal. I'm sure there must have been a background to the reason things dropped out for you two, nothing ever happens in a vacuum.

Also, are you sure you are being honest in your intent regarding this gal? Generally, M-F relationships have an undertone of wanting to go romantic, except someone is usually unavailable for some reason. Are you being friends with this gal but would really prefer her as a partner? That usually explains the 'push/pull' dynamic of these situations. This requires honesty and good boundaries, if so. Check your motives here.

So, maybe you should think about these things. Make some decisions about what you want. Then, if you are unsure about how this fits with her wants/needs, you should have a somewhat serious, private conversation about past hurts and the future. Go for a quiet lunch, walk, picnic in the park or some such. If you both truly care about each other, this should be something you can both manage. Just be clear about the ground rules upfront and what you hope to accomplish.

If however, you find she wounds you deeply and affects your life in a negative way, it might be best to cut ties however much that might hurt. Just do this in a kind way. Life is long and sometimes these things are more of a timing issue than a lack of caring. Understand?

Good luck.

[odkits]

IndiReloaded, you bring up some brilliant points and arise some interesting questions that I really need to ask myself...thank you so much for your help and insight.

To answer your questions, aside from the connection I felt to her, she made me feel unique and special and she accepted me for everything that I am as a person. She not only enjoyed my company and all of the conversations we shared, but she challenged me to look beyond my normal boundaries and she exposed me to new ways of thinking and acting, all of which were positive. I opened myself up completely to her emotionally, which I had never done with anyone else, and she did the same with me. Our friendship truly was something I had never felt before and that's why I cherished her and her friendship so much (this was before she left for school and we had our falling out).

I think a big part of me is trying to recapture all of those feelings and emotions, but I really don't know if that is realistic at this point. She has since spent a year at school and away from home, and I know she has changed as a person, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. She will continue to grow and change as a person, but I think I'm still somewhat stuck in the past and the way our friendship once operated and it's been difficult for me to look toward the future.

And if I'm being completely honest with myself, I do still have romantic feelings for her. We hooked up only one time before she left, but both of us described what we had as "special." I went into our friendship with the sole intention of being just her friend, but after we hooked up, I hoped that our friendship would lead to something more. Those feelings had somewhat subsided since she treated me so poorly, but I will always be attracted to her - physically, emotionally, and intellectually.

If I look at things objectively, or as objectively as I can, it wouldn't make sense for us to be in any sort of romantic relationship now. She leaves for school again in a few months, making a boyfriend-girlfriend situation unrealistic. Furthermore, she is a few years younger than I am, and I don't think she is looking for a serious relationship at the moment, whereas I definitely am. We are in two different places in our lives, and as you mentioned in your post, the timing is just not there.

Now I just have to decide if a friendship is worth it. Since our falling out, I feel like I've put in a lot of effort to make our friendship work but she has done little to return the favor, and I think we both can agree that isn't fair to me. I don't want to toot my own horn, but I believe that I am a really good guy and I deserve to be treated as such, whether as a friend or something more.