Sooner or later, something inevitable happens in every society: Your best friend, the person you spend most of your time with, meets someone wonderful and you are left alone. Of course, you are happy for your friend, you are happy that she is happy, but you also need attention and love, you end up lonely, sad and neglected.
What to do?
1) You can let these feelings slide until they erupt into an ugly fight.
2) You can lay it all out in a heartfelt monologue that's sure to make your friend feel guilty, embarrassed, or nervous.
Or 3) You can talk calmly like two adults. The first two options may seem easy to implement, but if you want a long-lasting and healthy friendship, let's choose 3).
Speak in front of you
Many connotations, hidden meanings and non-verbal symbols are lost in messages. It's difficult to communicate effectively through a cell phone screen, so a face-to-face conversation is the right thing to do.
When you are in front of each other you communicate your emotions more easily and you can see her reaction in real time. You don't want to leave anything open to interpretation, speak openly and clearly.
Plan the meeting in advance with your friend, which should look like you are organizing a meeting with the boss. Express that you need to talk and then suggest a place and a time.
Don't go unprepared and emotionally charged
It would be ideal to write down the key points that you will talk about in a letter. That way, the conversation will stay on topic and not get emotional quickly.
Keep the tone of the conversation neutral. The point is not to attack your friend for spending so much time with your boyfriend. The goal is to understand what's going on. Listen and gather as much information as possible to understand how she feels about this situation.
Communicate feelings without going off topic
The best of the best is to stick to the facts. Tell what happened before with both of you and compare it to what is happening now. For example: if you used to spend every Saturday together, now you don't spend a single day together. After that, talk about how this fact makes you feel.
Use as many sentences starting with "I" as possible. "I feel this way", not "you make me feel this way".
Use a soft tone, stay calm and don't react with hands or facial expressions.
But if the friend starts to feel bad...
Leave the conversation there. If you continue to make your arguments and the friend continues to defend herself, nothing good will come out of this conversation, it will just end in a fight. Make it clear that you understand why she is feeling upset or upset and leave the conversation at that. You can say something like "I understand why you feel this way, but I don't want to get heated about this."
