Just like anything in life, all friendships are not created equal. And that’s okay. It’s no use comparing your friendship with someone else’s friendship, because at the heart of it all four of you are very different people, have very different personalities and needs from your relationship. You might want different things from your connections, and that’s absolutely fine. All that matters is that your friendships are having a positive impact on your life, whatever that may look like for you.

For the woman in this story though, her long-term friendship with Y has brought just as much drama as it has benefits. Because whenever something good happens in this woman’s life, Y is there to bring her down. And now things are going bad for her? Well of course Y is not there for her – though she is present in her life still, with plenty of demands of her own.

Read on to find out what they are.

AITA for not coming home for the birth of my friend’s baby?

My friend and I (both 36, female) have been friends for around ten to twelve years. We have had our ups and downs, but we have always been there for each other in times of need… mostly.

In 2018 I got my dream job after working in ****** jobs for several years. The job entailed that I would live abroad for many years.

My friend ‘Y’ was happy for me to a certain degree, but she was also sad that I would be moving. I had always been the one that had mostly had her **** together. Y has always been happy, but also made snide remarks every once in a while when things were finally going well.

I lost weight at one point and then got comments about how I looked better before. Or that I only cared about material things when I bought my car.

And there was one topic that always caused friction between the pair.

One of the subjects where we do not see eye to eye is on the matter of family and children. I have no need for either a husband or children. I have focused on my career, and children have never been an aspiration of mine.

Y on the other hand has always wanted both and has never understood why I don’t feel the same. This has actually brought a lot of tension between us because she kept on pushing to analyse why I don’t want kids, using private and painful events in my past to try to find the reason.

When I moved I tried to schedule weekly calls with her but she was always too busy. Our contact went down to maybe a text every three months. I see this as both of our fault, but she blames me for abandoning her for my own “selfish needs”.

She now has a kind partner and they are expecting their first child this month. And I want to stress how happy I am for her.

But things have been very different in this woman’s life recently.

These last eighteen months have been the hardest of my life. My father died at a very young age from sudden cardiac arrest while I was in total lockdown.

It took more than one week before I got accepted on a plane which would take me to a neighboring country. I had to quarantine myself for two weeks while planning the funeral with my sister. After two months, the borders to the country I am stationed at opened and I had to return.

But returning meant sitting in full isolation for sometimes months at a time due to local restrictions. And I am alone here, with no friends or family. Only my fur babies to keep me sane.

I only managed to go to my favourite country, where my sister lives, to be with family during Christmas and the anniversary of the death of our father.

And now Y has taken issue with her most recent plans.

I have to work all summer, but in September I plan to go and be with my sister for one month and my mother will also come.

Y heard about this and got furious with me because I would not come to visit her and the baby before 2022.

I tried to tell her that for my mental health I need this month with my family. Traveling to my home country would also entail one week in quarantine.

Y is now telling me that I should prioritize her and the baby as her friend. That if I don’t then she will no longer “nurture” a dead end friendship.

Wow. The sheer audacity of Y to try to force her friend to come visit at a time when it would be a logistical nightmare.

Honestly, Y sounds really selfish, and they generally don’t sound like a good friendship match.

It might not be the end of the world if this friendship does reach a ‘dead end’.

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Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person agreed that Y was not a friend.

While others explained that friends don’t bring you down like that.

Meanwhile, this Redditor urged her to continue prioritising her family.

Some people really seem to need others to be at their beck and call in order to prove that they actually care about them. All they can see are their own desires and they fail to recognise others’ contexts when they’re failing to meet their demands. There is a word for this kind of person: selfish.

Y is an incredibly selfish person, and a terrible friend. All those snide little comments she makes? It sounds like her jealousy working its way out. As for trying to psychoanalyse someone who simply does not want the same things that you want, potentially even hurting them in the process? That’s really not okay, and it’s definitely not the behaviour of a friend.

So Y is having a baby. Sure, that’s a big moment for her. Congratulations. But demanding her friend – who is going through a tough time, living abroad during a pandemic and grieving the untimely death of her father – come visit her instead of spending time reconnecting and recharging with her mother and sister, both of whom are also facing the same grief? Yeah, she’s not a friend at all.

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