Hi BP people,

since my last CMV helped me a lot, I thought it would be a good idea to ask for your opinions on this issue. I could come up with quite a few red pill explanations to my problem, but I am really interested in blue pill points of view.

You could perhaps help me solve a real-life issue.

I think it's a PPD relevant question because for me it's a gender issue. Never had this problem with male friends but with all my female friends. I know that many of you have made different experiences. Sample size and stuff. But I have seen it happen to a lot of other guys, too.

Short version: All my close male/female friendships seem to have a "honeymoon"-phase that lasts between 0.5-2 years. After that she changes or maybe only changes her behavior and then as a result the friendship goes sour.

This actually was the reason I came to /trp in the first place.

I am 35 and all my friendships with women had and have this problem. Started when I was about 22. Didn't have a close female friend before.

I have about 10 great male friends. Some of them since high school. I also have a lot of buddies. I can basically just go out alone and I will meet someone I know to hang out with sooner or later. No problems there.

One difference between my close male friends and my close female friends is that I hang out with my female friends more often. Not because they were more important, but "going out less and making it count" was always the M.O in my male circle of friends.

I currently have one close female friend. We have been friends for almost 3 years.

One thing that always changes in my friendships with women is that they completely stop giving emotional support after the above mentioned honeymoon phase. This is a real problem for me because it's important to me.

I have a hard time opening up emotionally in real-life. (Not online, so don't get the wrong impression). I am a good actor and I try not to show weakness in real-life. The sad thing is that I would really like to open up, because it helps me a lot. Gives me a lot of energy. Another reason why it's difficult for me to open up is because I always fear that I might get an "why would I care"- reaction.

Now somehow, all the female friends I had were very empathetic (probably one of the reason I became friends with them in the first place) and could look through this act. And so they put real effort into making me open up. Like assuring me it's ok to open up and creating an atmosphere I felt comfortable in. Or they just pried and pried until I opened up.

And that was great. Helped me a lot. And I always told them afterwards that they had really helped me and how it was difficult for me to open up, but that I am very thankful because I am a guy who secretly wants to open up.

But without fail after 0.5 year or even 2 years they stop doing it. I could understand it if it was after a few weeks or a few months. As in "I just have to make a good first impression". But after 2 years?

The frustrating thing is that by then I trust them a lot and they wouldn't need to pry anymore. Sometimes I even bring stuff up, thinking that they'd support me. But they don't.

Sometimes they just change the topic. That hurts because it comes across as "why would I care about your problems?". When I ask them later why they changed the topic, they always say "I wanted to take your mind off it." Now I don't understand that, because they didn't do it before and because they know that I am a guy who wants to open up. I had always told them before that they really helped me by listening.

When I specifically ask why they don't ask what's up with me even if they know that I am not well, they say "well, I got the feeling that you don't wanna talk about it, so I didn't pry". Again, I don't understand it, because they did pry in the beginning of the friendship and I always told them that they helped me by doing it.

I value friendship because you get to know the person more and more over time. But it feels like they know me less and less over the years.

They also stop showing compassion but focus on solutions. That doesn't help me because I can find solutions for almost any problem I have to face on my own, thank you. Seeing that they care about how I feel would give me the energy I need to work out solutions. (It's funny because of the trope "men give you solutions when you just want them to listen". I know that it's funny).

Or compliments. I am a sucker for compliments. I get them a lot during the first 0.5-2 years. Then they completely stop.

Everything I mentioned always ends up to an extend that I can get more support by female buddies I hardly know. That makes me doubt the value of a close friendship where I put a lot of time and effort in. It seems like I could get more out of having lots of female buddies and I wouldn't even have to invest anything. Please don't think that I am looking at friendships from an economic point of view. But in this case I do have to think about it.

Things that don't change after the "honeymoon phase":

We still spend much time together. (This was the case in every single one of my friendships). They always invite me wherever they go. Say to a party of a friend of them, or they invite me to go climbing with them. So I never feel left out. If anything, I sometimes feel that they invite me too much. Of course sometimes for different reasons we meet less or more for weeks or months. Life.

I think this is a good indicator that they still like me, respect me and value our friendship.

Please don't think that they just are shitty friends/women. They are not.

And from time to time they do show that they know me and that they care just like in the honeymoon phase. For example I was at a party with my close female friend and they only had small drinking glasses. I said "damn, I hate small glasses." At another party I said "Oh, a blue drinking glass. I love blue drinking glasses." Now about two weeks ago, a whole year after the two parties, she said "guitars, I have a little present for you. Saw them at a shop and immediately thought of you." Gave me two giant blue drinking glasses. That was one of my favorite awwww moments of 2015.

So, it's not all bad, but I miss the emotional support and other things, but I don't want this post to be even more novel-length.

Oh, I have to emphasize that it was never a "friendzone"- thing. Even if you don't believe it, please just assume it was always a mutual platonic friendship for the sake of this thread. Thinking about it, I had the same issue in some of my LTRs, too.

I am not really interested in red pill opinions here because I can come up with lots of red pill explanations and red pill solutions on my own.

That was it. If you have any ideas, please share. Sometimes, asking the right questions helps, so please shoot. If you can think of something I could try out, that would be great, too.

You could really help me out here. I don't want to lose her, but I feel very disappointed and think about ending our friendship.