What Can I Do?

What's your question?
I had a friend, and she was my best friend. We got in a fight and now she's ignoring me. I will greet her in the hall and she walks away. If she ever does reply it's one word answers. I've apologized like seven times and she hasn't even though it was both of our faults. the worst part is it happened two months ago and no matter how much I try to talk to her she keeps pushing me aside and ignoring me. She only talks to me when she needs something and then I'm given the silent treatment again. This really hurts as she was my best friend since fourth grade and that was ruined overnight. What can I do? Should I stop talking to her? Should I move on? I just really want her to talk to me again.

Mr. Bobcat:
Dear What Can I Do,

This is a situation that so many people have been in and is one of the trickiest to handle. There is no perfect answer or solution; you and your friend might never have the same relationship you did before. While it is important to know that, you don’t have to accept it. Since you’ve known each other for so long, it’s not probable, likely, or expected that you could just forget her or never talk to her again, and the same goes for her. Instead, remember your fun times and your hard times - they are what’s made your relationship so strong before the fight. Accept that she might not want to be best friends with you anymore, but you can still be friends in the future. Keep her as an acquaintance at the very least, so that if she later wants to reconnect with you, you can give it a go. If you don’t think you can or want to reconnect, that's fine as well, and your bestie can deal with that. Sometimes people aren’t ready when we want them to be, which hurts, but it’s important to respect that. Forcing her to hang out with you might hurt you both in the long run.

You will both find new friends and people to hang out with – time, change, and circumstances make this inevitable. You might be friends with each other again, but you might not. The thing with friendship is that it’s a two-way street, so you can’t force her to stay friends with you, and that means you’re not responsible for staying friends with her. There are plenty of other people in the Jr. High who are very friendly, so if you can remember to keep an open mind to new people and ideas, (or maybe even old people and ideas, just to be extra open), I think you’ll find someone that could be your new best friend. I say new because they could probably never totally replace your old one and that probably wouldn’t be ideal anyways, as you’d most likely go down the same broken path that led you here, asking for advice from your school mascot. That advice will end with: if you want to at least be friends with this person, try being patient, keeping a couple, (but no more than), tabs on them, and stay at a close enough range that if she ever wants to reach out to you, she’ll be able, but a far enough distance so both of you can still move on with your lives and not be too hurt. I wish you luck and happiness!

Mr. Bobcat