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I need advice on a friend. Sorry if this is long.
I’m 16/f and I have this best friend Katie. (not her real name; she’s also 16) We became best friends in grammar school. We went to a small, private elementary school. There was another boy in our class, Ben. Katie and Ben never got along really well, but after 5th grade, they ended up going to a public middle school together, ended their feud and became friends (I was at a different school). She developed an intense crush on Ben and she firmly believed he was interested in her too. She made subtle advances but they never amounted to anything. Her friendship with him soon died after he became popular (in the time that I knew him, he was a friendless geek) and after he discovered that she liked him, but she apparently didn’t get the message that he didn’t really like her back.
However, I remember having talked to Jason, a friend of Ben’s, who went to our old school together. Jason told me that Ben told him that Katie was chasing after him, and that Ben really wasn’t interested in her. Knowing Katie, her idea of how other people think are skewed. She was confident that Ben liked her, but she probably picked up signals from him that weren’t really there.
They ended up going to the same high school together. He lost his popularity and became a nerdy loner again. Katie started going out with this other guy, Danny. She thought she was totally in love with him and all that, and lost her virginity to him a few months ago. Recently, Ben got transferred to a new school and Katie is really depressed. She’s always liked Ben and she only got together with Danny to get over him, but it didn’t really work.
Katie is really sad and upset and she wants to talk about it with me, but I really don’t know what to tell her. I’m torn between whether I should break it to her about what Jason told me awhile back, that Ben was never really interested in her. I’m afraid that it would be really bitchy and mean and coldhearted for me to tell her that, but at the same time I don’t think it’s really good that she have this deluded idea of Ben having liked her, when he really didn’t. It’s just that I’ve never been in any sort of situation like this before and I don’t know what advice to give her.
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All anyone can really do is be there for her. Let her talk to you about him. Listen to her while shes talking about him. Care that she likes him and that shes hurting. Time heals the pain. Yes give her a 2-5 month she will have moved on and forgotten all about ben. I don't think you should tell her about him not liking her, at this point I don't think it matters anymore. Just be her friend for a while. You may not know what to say ot her when shes talking about him but it will help her just to know that she can talk to you about him and that your there for her and that you care enough to listen to her. Your doing a great thing.
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Don't tell her. He is gone now. Time heals all wounds. She'll get over him eventually. It may take awhile, but she will, and there is really no point in telling her. It will probably make it worse if you do actually. Just help her move on.
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