I know my title is pretty bland, but i could not think of anything else to title it lol. Maybe I’ll think of something better at the end.

Anyways, I (23M) moved out to a new state with my bestfriend (22M) of 10 years where we are living together. I was moving out for a new job and my bestfriend had been living at his mom’s and wanted to leave. We basically had talked about moving together at least two years before, but really got talking like 6 months beforehand. I was in college at this time and my friend had been working.

I originally wanted to post about how I could talk to my bestfriend about me potentially not drive him to work anymore. My friend does not have a car (I do) and so I have been driving him to work ever since we moved out here. I believe it is important to note that I offered to drive him to work. I would just say that since starting my new job, I super exhausted during the day and can’t mentally fully relax or be done for the day because I have to drive my roomie to work at night. It’s only about 10-15 min drive to get to his job, I guess I just really want to be able to be done for the day.

However, I was doing some more thinking about WHY I feel this way and I think it’s because I feel like we’re not really friends anymore.

To back up a little, when we first moved out here, my bestfriend had brought a puppy with him. I was super excited at first because I thought it would be amazing (I did not grow up with animals aside from a turtle that still lives with my immediate family) I quickly realized what it meant to live with a dog, let alone a new born puppy and was not having it lol. The barking, peeing, pooping and all. What really bothered me was that because my roommate worked at night, the puppy would cry at night since he would be alone. We have separate rooms, so the puppy would be alone and I in my room, but the constant crying always kept me up. I never knew what to do and had to console my roommate about what to do, but he would only really suggest that the puppy would have to learn to be alone. That did not really help me so i was stuck with that.

I will also note that this is no longer a problem as the puppy is no longer with us sadly. I bring this up because at the time when the bill came, I paid for it (I put it on my credit card) because my friend literally could not. He could not pay for it in cash and I assuming his credit was bad because he would not be approved for a credit card the vet had offered as payment. My friend did eventually pay me back in installments, but the bill has gotten so large because i already had a big payment i needed to pay off, which i am still paying for.

So far as you are reading this, you might be thinking my bestfriend was not forcing my hand at all and this is all on me. I totally agree. I am the one who made these choices. I bring these instances up because I feel like they are examples of me showing care and love in our friendship, but I do not feel the same energy being reciprocated.

I noticed it a bit during my second-year in college as everytime we would call, the majority of our conversations would revolve around the things going on his life and rarely did he ask about what was going on in my life. in those times he did ask, he never really asked follow up questions about particular instances. While whatever was going on in his life, I would give genuinely want to know what was going on and trying to figure out how to help him (if applicable) I also just don’t feel like he cares about me and my milestones. As I mentioned, I recently graduated college and he never said congrats to me or really celebrate me. Especially how college was a tough time for me (he wouldn’t know because he never really asked about how it was /:) Even now I feel like he does not seem as invested in my life as I wish he would be.

Back to me driving my friend to work. I also want to mention how since I moved to a new state, I don’t know anyone and want to make new friends, but find it somewhat difficult to go out and make plans because it has to be outside the time i take him to work. like for example, i may have to leave an event early because i need to take him to work. i was also thinking about asking if he was planning on saving up for his own, so that he can take himself to work to give me more free time.

he also got a boyfriend recently, which i am excited for him!! that also means though that we have less time to hang out and stuff (which is cool.) i did tell like a month ago (before getting his boyfriend) that i fee like we’ve been spending less time together as we used too, which y’know, i understand because we have lives and all, but i don’t know.

i’m not sure if i even communicated all of my thoughts or if they make sense. I’m not sure if I really want to continue this friendship and continue to go the extra mile I feel that I am putting into this friendship. i really want to seek genuine advice on how to go about this friendship. i know we’ve been friends for most of our lives (we met in 7th grade,) but i just feel like i’m not truly getting back what i want in a friendship. especially as bestfriends. thank you for any advice and reading all of this lol.

tl;dr - i (23m) do not feel like my relationship with my bestfriend (22m) is not balanced as i feel like i am putting in my more effort to keep this friendship alive.