Dear Prudence,
“Caroline” and I have been friends for a long time (about six or seven), and we have all the makings of being best friends. We come to each other with big news and petty gossip, work out tough situations, and have great friend chemistry when it comes to just easily hanging out.
However, I feel like we’re not aligned on actually getting together. We’re always in a cycle of saying we need to catch up and see each other, but whenever I try to initiate plans, one of three things happens: 1) She invites me to a group hang with other people. 2) She says she has an hour to go for a walk before another event. 3) She doesn’t really commit to plans until it’s too late and something else has come up. As a perfect example, we recently saw each other for about half an hour before she went to see a movie with her co-workers, and at the time, she suggested meeting up on the following Sunday to cook dinner together. I texted on Friday to confirm, but the next time I heard from her was late Sunday evening, explaining that she just had a busy day running errands.
I know she cares about me and thinks of me as one of her closest friends and inner circle, and I don’t think this is an issue of her intentionally trying to keep me at arm’s length. I believe she just has trouble managing her schedule and committing to plans. For my part, I usually have a pretty secure attachment to my friends and don’t have a lot of friction when it comes to socializing, but I just can’t seem to hit my stride with Caroline even after all this time. (For additional context, we don’t have kids, and we both have pretty flexible work schedules.)
Would you recommend bringing this up with her? It does hurt to feel like a low priority to someone I have a good connection with. Or should I just let it go and accept that she’s just like this and we’re going to see each other for a quick coffee every other month and always wonder why we don’t do it more often?
—Looking for the Friend Zone