Tug-Of-War

[factboy01]

Well I ' m having some long , enduring friendship issues. My friend and I met in 7th grade and we seemed like we were becoming good friends . Then, 8th grade year he changed , I guess you could say . We seemed to have become rivals ( who were nearly always against each other) . We ' ve been really sporadic when it comes to even talking. Now, everything seems awkward talking at all . In my opinion , this isn 't a friendship , it 's a frenemy. Many times I ' ve referenced this as similar to the " frenemyship" between professional tennis players Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic. It's been a war of on and off silence , it 's a tug - of- war . We go back to back. I want it stop. In my opinion, this started because of him, but we're both to blame. The thing is I also feel at fault. I feel as if I acted immaturely back in 8 th grade. I don't want to talk with becauseI don' t know him well plus what doI say ?I have two reasons why he may have acted this way . We' re both the same ethnicity , which is Navajo. We 've been ranked in the top 35 of our class . We ' re smart . We' re the two highest Navajo guys in our class . Ibelieve it has to do with the fact we 're Navajos and we' re very highly ranked with no one else. In ways , we' re extremely similar yet it ' s those similarities that drive us away. What should I do? I reasons wish to resolve this super-ultra complex friendship. I want us to at least be good friends not strangers whom so happenly know each other and randomly conversely hardly. I can't stand this tension anymore. It's been three years of this still going, seemingly. Please help. I really need assistance.

[Elenin]

I am in sort of the exact situation as you are in. I met my "friend" in 6th grade, I didn't have a cell, so we couldn't exchange numbers. We talked nearly every day in the beginning of 8th grade (we had 1 class together), and then suddenly, right after Thanksgiving break, he ignored me till the end of January, and once P.E. met again for the 3rd quarter, we were talking again, but, it didn't feel the same. In March '10, he tried to get me to talk to him because I was noticably down, he stuck by me and didn't force me to talk. After that day, we didn't talk much for the rest of the year. The same goes with this school year, as he just looks past me and treats me like a complete stranger, and I can't help but get affected by it. It's tough. It really is.

Have you done anything found in the sticky to try and save the broken friendship?

[factboy01]

Actually noI haven't. What would you do?

[jason_smitty]

If you want to try to make the friendship into a real friendship ask him to hang out and find things you can talk about that you have in common that are also not things that result in being directly competitive with each other; the areas you do feel competitive could also be things that you could help each other get better at, kind of a team idea. Just a thought.