"You have other friends beside me, right?"

I had just moved back to Toronto after a few years abroad. I'd never had very many friends, and the few I had left were moving away just as I had moved back. I was unemployed, friendless and very much down in the dumps when one of my best friends - we'll call her T - told me she was moving back as well.

I was elated. T and I had been friends for a long time, and I couldn't wait to hang out with her again. We could go shopping - window shopping in my case - and just talk. One of the things you lose in a long-distance friendship is that sense of immediacy and nearness and I couldn't wait to have that again.

So, she moved back, and we met up. I was effusive - this was so great! we could hang out all the time now! it would be just like college! - and she... wasn't. Unlike me, she had a great career, plenty of friends and if she was down in the dumps, she certainly didn't share it. She listened to me babble on about mutual friend A who was now living abroad, mutual friend B who'd moved away for work, and finally she asked, "You have other friends beside me, right?"

To this day, I'm not sure if she meant it in a joking manner or not. Does it matter? Faced with the prospect of a clingy college friend wanting to reestablish what was, to her, an old connection, she was naturally wary. Who can blame her for wanting to establish that I would not be sticking exclusively to her, limpet-like?

I laughed - I think. Of course I had other friends, I reassured her. I doubt she believed me. We kept chatting after that, but I have no recollection of what, because I was in shock. You might always suspect that your friend values your friendship less than you do, but to have it brought home to you in such a way was jarring to say the least.

The evening ground on, and it was time to say good night. "We should do this again!" she chirped, "Now that we're in the same city!" to which i mumbled something along the lines of sure, yes, we should. I did not hear from her again for more than six months - and when I did, it was because I had reached out.

In fact, every time we've interacted has been because I've reached out. She always sounds effusive and enthusiastic, "Why don't we do this more often?" and I can barely stop myself from replying, "well, what's stopping you?"