People who you think are your friends, but aren't.

Have you ever been friends with someone, just to realize, they aren't your friend?

I don't know about you, but when I'm around people at work, or school, that I get to know very well. I tend to automatically put people in the "friend" status. If we become friendly, talk about various things, and enjoy each others company, I consider that friendship! Just as long as I think they're cool, and I don't secretly hate their guts, or vice versa.

This brings me to believe that anyone who is nice towards me, and sometimes talks to me is a friend. Unfortunately, that's not always the case....

I had a friend, or at-least I thought she was my friend....

Let's call her Shelly.

I met Shelly in college, along with an entire gang of Graphic Designers, we all knew each other, and became friends with each other. It was about 30 of us, and of course there were certain people I enjoyed the company of more. We had sub-groups within. There was a particular group of graphic designers, that I always thought of as the misfits. I leaned towards that group because they were more interesting than most of the other Graphic Designers, and I was more of a misfit myself. Don't get me wrong though, EVERYONE was friends with everyone, we all knew each other. But at the end of the day, there was a difference with who we hung out with.

Shelly was a part of the bigger group, so I didn't hang out with her as much later on, but she was one of the first people at my college that I had started to talk to, and hang out with on the premises. She was also one of the first people in college, and possibly one of the first non-relative, or online friend, to find out that I was gay. (That's kind of a big deal, well for me anyways...) I had also added her as a sister on facebook, (Which she told me, made her day.). She was a cool person and It was fun to be around her, she really was like a sister to me... (Especially since my actually sister, was only about 13 at the time, I never had an older sibling type. My siblings were always 8-10 years younger than me, so it was very different.)

She had graduated a semester before everyone else, but even then, we would still talk, and she invited the whole group to a fun feast at Denny's. She even made a Facebook event, it was something like "'School name' last supper".. etc..

After I had completed college with my associates in Graphic Design, I was not able to go for my bachelors degree due to financial reasons. (Which lead me to 2 volunteer jobs, retail, and another office job. It took 7 years just for me to get a job that was clerical/graphic design)

Fast forward to two years later, I'm working retail, and it's March 2013, my college loan company was giving me trouble. So, I asked some of my friends from college on facebook, as to what they did to solve whatever problem I was having at the time with that particular company. Unfortunately all of the people I asked had chosen a different loan company, except for one person, Shelly! I thought, well that's good, I'll ask her if she has had issues with them and see what she says! First, she told me the company that she uses was the exact one that I also use. But when I asked her if the loan company gave her any problems, like they were doing to me, she never responded.
 Facebook has a nice feature that tells you if someone read your message or not, it told me that she did see it, and just decided not to answer. Even if the company didn't give her any issues, it would have been nice to at least say yes, or no. If she didn't have any problems with them, she could have just said so, I'd understand. It was really important at the time for me to find out this information. I found it wasn't cool to just leave me high and dry, and may be even rude that she didn't bother to answer! I wasn't asking her for money, or a kidney! It was just a simple question!

Of course I never ended up finding out anything, as I re-type this post in 2019, I don't even remember what it was I needed to find out (I checked my old messages, and all I asked her was if she had problems with the company, I didn't really explain myself.) lol..

Another friend sent me a video that she had found, it was a comedy video about the company, which was very true parody that basically made fun of them for the companies bad behavior.
Aside from this supposed friend of mine, everyone that I had asked responded and they were all concerned about me, and they were just like how a friend would and should act, the only one that didn't exactly act like a friend was this girl I assumed was my friend...

Now we flash forward to yesterday the 12th of June 2013. I'm at work in retail, at the register,  and I notice a familiar face! It's Shelly, who I assume is my friend.
It was so much fun to talk to her, we talked about jobs, an item she was getting, and even how she went to the pride parade in the city.
So when I got home, I thought I would send her a message on facebook, saying that it was nice to see her again and that maybe we should hang out some time.

I also said something about how I was getting a new phone, and I showed her my professional Facebook account that she wasn't friends with.

So I'm thinking that she'll see it, and maybe we'll hang out soon, and catch up or something.
But when I logged onto facebook, it showed she viewed the message, but I didn't have any new messages.
I had messaged another friend that very day, and it said he did not view the message, so I knew there wasn't anything buggy going on.
This made me think for a moment, I thought about all of the times I had posted on her statuses on facebook (Which wasn't much at all, I am not that annoying person that likes everything lol). But I remembered she didn't respond to those either! That's when the gears started to click...

Remember when I said I added her as my sister on facebook? Well, she took me off  as her brother  a long time ago. Which I had noticed months prior.

So I started to realize, maybe she isn't my friend? Maybe she never was? She was just being nice to me...

"She doesn't seem to care about me, she's just nice... She was just a nice person... the entire time..."

She didn't bother to respond to 70% of the messages I've sent her, and the statuses I posted on, sometimes a like goes a long way too.
Prior to the two recent messages, the last messages that I sent her were from two years ago when I asked her about college related things, which she actually responded to.
It seems to me, that after college she just kind of looked the other way. Like she was only a college friend, or maybe she was just friendly to me because I was friends with her friends?
Whatever the reason, it looks to me like she doesn't really care about me as I thought she did.
I consider everyone my friend, especially, if they're nice to me. But it doesn't always mean they consider me a friend, and I think that is actually how it is, she doesn't consider me a friend, just someone she knows/knew.
It's just annoying to put so much work into being friends with someone, when in reality, it was a one way street. Why waste my time talking to you, if you didn't see me as a friend.

Update to 2015: The whole college gang decided to get together at Dave & Busters, many people simply said if they could go or not. Only a few came in the long run. Shelly was one of the invited, but not only did she not come, but she also never responded to say she couldn't make it, which is what everyone else did. I find it strange she wouldn't even respond to anyone else in our group of friends.

Update around 2016-2017: She unfriended me on Facebook, which is hella rude, because I was about to unfriend her! Later, I noticed she unfriended most of the people from college. As of 2018, it looks like she got rid of everyone on Facebook!

Honestly, I don't even think she was actually a nice person, I think she might just be fake. Like she acted nice to everyone in college, but once she left, she just stopped talking to me, and everyone else for that matter. Perhaps she had something to gain by being nice to everyone, if she didn't plan on being friends with anyone, why even bother in the first place?

All I know, is I don't like her. I'm a friendly guy, I feel most people like me as a person. But if you're going to be nice, and pretend to be my friend, when you don't feel the same way, then you're up to no good, and I don't trust you as far as I can throw you! (Granted, I'm probably too weak to throw a an adult human :P jk) This has also caused me to be more careful with friends in the future, to make sure they genuinely enjoy my company. Which is also annoying because I'm always worried that everyone hates me already, so it's not like there's any pressure or anything!...

The funny thing is, there was another girl in college. She was always the smart one, with high grades, and one of the leaders of the Graphic Design club. I was always intimidated by her, and I didn't really talk to her. Her on the other hand, still has everyone from college, and after seeing her Facebook posts, is a really cool person! I only realized this until after college, and now I wish I was more social with her, since she's pretty damn cool! Unlike other people ... *Flips hair*.
Honestly, I kind of look up to her too. Which was also similar with Shelly, I saw her as an older sister type.

I've also posted this one Quora!