So, in the time since I made both of the previous posts, myself and Mary remained extremely close friends just like we always were before I admitted I'd developed feelings for her somewhere along the way. I'd moved on from the idea of becoming her partner and she hadn't bought it up since. It seemed very much like we were now both on the same page, we were still the best of friends who share a deep platonic relationship due to how long we've known each other. As we all know, when we're adults we all have busy lives, we lose contact for a bit, happens to everyone but we were still talking and meeting up when our schedules aligned.

However, she went dead cold to me all of a sudden, completely without warning, out of the blue. Either extremely short or one word answers, then later on I would stop worrying because she would go back to the way she'd talk to me on a whim. On third to last interaction we were chatting about my at the time 3 year old nephew and how he's doing. I sent a picture that was just me and him playing with one of his lego sets, it's a nice little picture that to me just shows an uncle sharing what he loved as a kid with his nephew. She made a comment(can't remember the exact wording) about how he's a handsome chap, all I said was "yeah I've got some competition now, I'm not the cover girl anymore"(to give you some further context he's the first boy born in the immediate family besides myself). The conversation went on for a while after with no red flags being detected.

On our second to last interaction we were talking about cooking, something we both enjoy doing. I mentioned how I was actually in the process of cooking something whilst we were texting and sent her a picture of it. This is where the conversation suddenly took a turn. She said "that looks nice. By the way, going back to our previous conversation, please don't do that again, that made me feel uncomfortable." Now I won't lie to you all, I was taken aback and considering the conversation before this had happened about 2 weeks prior I had to go back in our logs and remind myself of what might have been said. I was totally lost and asked her to clue me in since I genuinely didn't know what she was talking about.

She told me it was the comment I made about me having competition now. I respected what she was saying even if I didn't fully understand what the issue was. After that she went totally dead, tried our usual conversation but totally blanked. Fair enough, I respected her not talking to me for unintentionally upsetting her and just let her get on with it. No point adding fuel to the fire. I'd been busy with work commitments, family, friends, etc then almost 7 months later, guess who decides to message me, asking how I am. I did my usual yeah im good how're you speech(even though I wasn't, I was a little taken aback by how she just came back in like she hadn't totally ignored me for something I'm not even sure whether or not I did). She all of a sudden tells me she wants to apologise. I asked her why.

Turns out the reason she'd gone so blunt with her responses to me is she'd started seeing someone. Fair enough, good on her, I'm happy for her, I'd expect her to feel the same for me. Here's the kicker. Apparently this guy had a problem with me talking to Mary at all, ever, even way before this whole incident. This conversation was the first i was even hearing about him. She told me "the words never came from someone else" I don't know if she means the guy physically took her phone and messaged me as her or he was forcing her to send that to me, I didn't ask in fairness. All I know is the guy turned out to not be very nice to her supposedly e.g emotionally abusive.

I told her I need some space and time to think and take this all on board which she understood. I know its obviously horrible what she went through if she is telling me the truth, but I can't help but feel let down and deflated from the fact that she totally blanked me who I thought she valued a lot more than that and I'm seriously doubting if we were even really that close to begin with or was it completely one sided. No sympathy wanted, just advice.