Dear Rachel: My Best Friend is Pulling Away

Dear Rachel,I'm in a pretty sucky place with my "best friend" right now. Lately, she's been making plans with all of our friends (and the guy she knows I like) and not inviting me at all, and when she DOES invite me, she makes it sound like I'm the last one invited... you know, like the plans have already been made and she thought she should invite me too. It's like I'm an afterthought.Aside from leaving me out, she loves to talk about herself and how she's so lucky. She's wealthy and has a great family, but she still manages to vent a thousand problems to me.Also, sometimes when I text her, she totally blows me off and ignores the text, but 10 minutes later she'll tweet via her iPhone. Frustrating! I guess the problem is that she isn't treating me like a best friend, when I feel like I go above and beyond for her.How do you suggest I go about getting out of this?Thank you so much,Jessica Hi Jessica,Ugh. This is hard. Especially because the feeling left out thing totally snowballs, right? The more you feel ignored, the more paranoid and negative you get.It's time to stop reacting to everything this girl does and make some decisions about what YOU want from this friendship. First, I want you to make a list of the SPECIFIC things this friend is doing to bug you. Things that have actual dates and times, like, "Last Monday you invited me somewhere after your plans were made and it felt like I was a last minute addition." The fact that she vents a thousand problems to you isn't really specific – think of a real time when that happened.Then, I would just casually ask her what's up. NOT via text. Do not text this. It is so easy for her to get out of it via text. SAY something, with your actual mouth, like, "It seems like we haven't been hanging out that much lately. Are we okay?" She may deny it. Okay, she probably will deny it.If she denies it, you do two things: first, share your specific examples. Don't be rude about it – keep your tone of voice steady and calm. Just the facts, ma'am. You can say, "Do you know what I mean?" so she doesn't feel attacked.Second, tell her what you need. Be vulnerable. Say something like, "I really miss our friendship. I feel like we're growing apart and I want to make sure that doesn't happen." Give her a chance to respond. She may surprise you. If she promises to be more connected, agree to it and see what happens.If she never follows up, or you do and nothing happens, you've got your answer. You guys are growing apart. She is pulling away. And that's going to suck indeed. But at least you won't be left constantly interpreting her actions, getting paranoid and anxious and resentful. You can move on and find someone else to be a much better friend to you.This post originally appeared on teenvogue.com