Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

I thought I was friends with Emily. I've been to her place, she's been to mine. We've watched movies together.

One time, I arranged to meet her up at the arcades. She never showed up. I called her cell phones that night a couple of times. At first it would ring with no answer. Then, it would immediately kick into the voice mail mode, indicating that she turned off her cell phone or something. That's when I gave up and went home.

I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, e.g. that maybe she got into a car accident or something. So I waited to hear from her. Weeks went by with no apology or excuse or any direct contact from her (though I knew she was okay, because she was hanging out with her other friends).

During this time, I complained to Mei about Emily's ditching me, and my calling her, and her not picking up, nor returning my calls the next day or ever, for that matter. Mei said Emily's just like that sometimes. That was when I first greatly lowered my respect for Emily.

After a couple of months, Emily and I would randomly meet maybe twice a year at events we'd both be going to. I was still waiting for, but not really expecting an explanation of some sort.

When she got a Facebook account, I tried to renew the friendship by asking for the best way to contact her (she's almost never on MSN), and she told me to e-mail her. So I did. I asked about her interests. She listed them. They weren't at all things I was interested in, but I picked one topic (World War II), and researched as much as I could about it on Wikipedia so as to have a decent conversation.

In one e-mail, I invited her to watch a movie with me, and she said she thought it was awkward to be alone with me so soon after my breakup with Mei, and that I should instead invite her to group activities.

As an introvert, I am almost never involved in group activities, and told her so, but I said the next time she's in a group activity (and she apparently goes, every weekend, to Karaoke with Mei, Eezu, and others), to invite me along as well.

Months went by, and I never heard from her again.

I decided that my relationship with Emily is essentially dead, and told Mei so. She said I was being paranoid.

Then, Emily appeared online on MSN one day:

Neb: I'm disappointed with our degenerating relationship.
Em: :( To be honest with you, I think everyone is disappointed in me
Neb: Are you gonna do anything about it?
Em: what can I do Neb... you suggest and I will listen
Neb: Make yourself easier to reach. If you never reply to e-mails, let people know that when they ask for your e-mail and give out your cell number instead, or whatever your preferred method of communication is.
Neb: That's the preventative step for stopping further decline. But since you're already in trouble, *YOU* need to reach out to people and put in the effort in restablishing the relationships.
Em: well, I do my best Neb but being a grad student does not afford me a lot of time
Em: Are you that upset?
Neb: It's pretty bad, our status, yeah.
Em: seriously, I'm sorry. You must be busy yourself and I really don't know if you'd want to hang out with me anyway
Neb: If I don't want to hang out with you anymore, it would be more due to your treatment of me than my being busy.
Em: seriously Neb, why do you take things so personally. I bet you that all your friends don't keep track of you all the time and I bet you that you don't do the same for them. I mean, you should take half the responsibility too. There are two people in a relatioship which means both sides are equally responsible so I can't blame myself completely
Neb: That two people are in a relationship does not automatically mean that both are equally responsible for things that happen in that relationship.
Neb: As for me taking things personally, I don't think I am, really. I'm just letting you know I'm not happy with the way things are going between us right now. I wasn't sure that you realized this.
Em: I give up. I don't think I could say or do anything to change your mind. It really surprises me because there are plenty of people that I talk to only once a year... people I don't even see face to face anymore and they don't take things personally. I'm unconvinced of what you're saying so I'll leave it at that
Neb: I'm not even sure what it is you're trying to change my mind about. Are you trying to convince me that I'm taking things personally, or what?
Neb: Your closing statements seem to be in contrast with your earlier "You tell me, and I'll listen."

In retrospect, it appears to me that Em was assuming that I was trying to be argumentative, and focusing on blame. Rather, I was under the impression that she was seeking advice about what to do, since she had been having problems with all her friends, and I was trying to give her advice. Her responses did not make any sense to me, given what I was saying to her. It was as if she was having her own conversation, without actually reading the text I sent.

The next day:

Mei: Neb, why did you bother Emily like that?
Neb: You told me to stop bugging you about Emily and to talk to her directly.
Mei: Yeah but not irrationally like that.
Neb: Note that the way you phrase your opening statement sounds accusatory and would put most people immediately on the defensive.
Neb: Why do you think I was being irrational?
Neb: I was just telling her what I tell you: I don't like her treatment of me, and that our friendship is dying.
Neb: What did I say, specifically, that you found to be irrational?
Mei: Her and you are not friends
Mei: Acquaintances
Neb: I'm cynically bemused that you immediately assume I'm at fault without asking to hear my side of the story first.
Neb: I'm not sure that I used the key word "friend" when I spoke to her.
Neb: Is there anythign else about what I said that you found to be "irrational", other than my mistaking my relationship with Emily to be one of friendship?
Mei: I don't know, I don't really feel like talking to you anymore. You are doing the same thing to me too. It's irritating. It's not that we (Emily and ) are being bad. We are just living our lives.
Neb: What is this "same thing" that I am doing to you?
Mei: Irritating me
Neb: There isn't enough information in that sentence for me to know what it is that I am doing that is irritating you, so I cannot "stop" irritating you until I know specifically what behaviour I should stop doing, or what behaviour I should start doing.
Mei: You accuse me of being a bad friend.
Neb: When did I do that?
Mei: I don't know. I don't wanna be talking about it either. because I don't know.
Neb: It's not my intention to accuse you of being a bad friend. However, since I don't know what it is that I did that makes you think I made that accusation, I don't know what to change so that you don't receive this misunderstanding again in the future.
Mei: I don't know either.
Neb: Could it be that perhaps I never made this accusation in the first place?
Mei: I don't know.
Neb: Because of the accusatory tone in the beginning, e.g. that I was being irrational with Emily, I'm concerned that Emily may have misrepresented the things I said when she spoke to you about it, thus making me look bad or otherwise giving you a bad impression of me.
Mei: You have been giving me a bad impression for quite a while now
Neb: I'm further concerned that this preset image that Emily created for you may have influenced your interpretation of what I'm saying, e.g. for example leading you to believe that I may have been accusing you of things. Neb: If a bad impression is present, I think it's a different "bad impression". E.g. I may have portrayed myself as whiny, lonely, a loser, etc., but not accusing you of being a bad friend.
Neb: Specifically, I think I have presented myself to you as being self-pitying, rather than mean or aggressive.
Mei: You are trying to make me feel bad
Neb: No, at least, I'm not trying to make you feel bad about yourself. The actual goal was to make you feel bad about me, to pity me.
Mei: and trying to get me to do things that's completely ridiculous. trying to have me get a girlfriend and stuff
Mei: I do pity you for not having a decent communication skills.
Mei: and social decency
Neb: Ok, fine.
Neb: So giving this lack of skills, it is discouraging for me that I had to no longer consider Emily to be a friend, and now it seems I may be at risk of losing you as a friend as well.
Mei: Yeah. I was really embarrassed to hear about you talking to Emily like that.
Mei: I was like, "God, I'm so embarrassed that he's my ex boyfriend"
Mei: You are the one who's making me think this way
Mei: by being so pityful
Neb: Again, I am asking for an example of something I said that was particularly bad.
Mei: I try to, but every time I do that you argue with it and then I dont wanna talk about it anymore
Neb: Without such an example, I'll not know what I said which you don't approve of, and will probably continue to mix it in with my every day conversations, since I think they are perfectly reasonable things to say.
Neb: Remember that time when you, Eezu, and I went to Hooters, and you got pissed at me, because you thought the conversation between Eezu and I went a certain way, and when I told you it went some other way, you figured I must be lying, until I pulled out the chat log and showed you that I wasn't?
Neb: I'm hoping that this is not one of those situations, because it's frustrating for me to lose a friend via that friend believing false information about me.
Mei: Gotta leave now.
Mei: bye
Neb: See ya.

The "trying to get you to pity me" remark near the middle of my conversation with Mei may need some explanation. After we broke up, Mei began dating again, while I had a lot of trouble meeting girls to go out with me. I was jealous, and I resented society in general due to my beliefs that girls have it a lot easier than guys in this respect (I won't get into defending those beliefs for this particular post; maybe a later one). So I tried to guilt trip her. It's not something I'm proud of, and I realized what I was doing, but I had a lot of trouble stopping it. I forced myself to admit to Mei (and to myself, outloud) that I was trying to make her feel guilty. That took a lot of guts on my part to do, and I broke down in tears when I did finally get it out and told her that. So that's what the "I was trying to get you to pity me" refers to.

Omake:

WCN: farts turn me on
Neb: I'm in a bad mood right now.
WCN: why?
Neb: There seems to be a chain reaction of me losing a lot of friends going on.
WCN: :( sorry to hear that
Neb: I'll probably get all emo and post the chat logs on my blog and stuff.

The general advice I got from various people is to apologize to Mei. So here's how that went:

Neb: Mei Mei!
Mei: What's up
Neb: I didn't mean to embarass you!
Mei: Ok.
Neb: I think there was misunderstanding between Emily and me!
Mei: Ok
Neb: How come you don't come over on Saturday for Rock Band?
Mei: I don't know.
Neb: Mei Mei!
Mei: What?
Neb: How come?
Mei: I'm sorta turned off by you these days
Neb: What did I do!?
Mei: Made me regret that I dated you for 3 years
Neb: That's not a helpful statement.

(5 minutes of silence)

Neb: Ok, look Mei, I'll be straightforward with you, because it looks like being all nice and apologetic and willing to take blame even if I don't think I deserve it for the sake of maintaining civility isn't working.
Neb: I am (was?) interested in maintaining a friendship with you. I told you I don't think Emily likes me, and you told me that it's all in my head and that I should talk to her.
Neb: So I did talk to her. And I feel I was being perfectly reasonable when speaking to her. I think she got angry with me because she misunderstood what I was trying to say to her.
Neb: She told me she was having problems with a lot of her friends, and I thought she was asking me for advice on what to do about it, because she said something like "Tell me what to do and I'll listen".
Neb: So I told her all the things she did wrong, and what she should have done instead. I think she interpreted this as me blaming her for the problem between me and her.
Neb: She then started ignoring me so that there was no possibility for me to clear up the misunderstanding.
Neb: Then, the next day, you start complaining to me, and saying I did something wrong, but you won't actually tell me what it is that I did wrong.
Neb: Even just now, you did it. I'm trying to help the friendship between you and me by understanding what it is I did that you didn't like, so that I can avoid doing it again in the future.
Neb: In other words, I am perfectly willing to put effort in changing what my natural actions and desires are to make you happy, you who isn't even my girlfriend anymore.
Neb: But you're not even willing to tell me what it is that I need to change to make you happy. You seems to WANT it to remain secret, so that I will always fail to meet your expectations and make you dislike me more and more over time.
Neb: I don't know why you want that -- maybe it's because you have ulterior reasons for wanting to end the friendship between us, but you want to make it seem like my fault that our friendship is ending so as to rid yourself of guilt or something -- but if that's what you want, then fine: just tell me you don't want to be friends anymore.
Neb: It's unfair for you to pretend to want to be friends with me, have me go through all this effort and emotional aggravation trying to please you, if you don't even want to be my friend.

(30 minutes later)

Mei: Neb, not everyone can explain their behavior and feelings with words.
Mei: I'm not keeping anything secret. I just don't know what to say
Neb: Did you read the chatlog between Emily and I?
Mei: No.
Neb: So why did you automatically assume I was being irrational towards Emily?
Mei: According to things Emily told me
Neb: Why is it, that when I told you that you shouldn't get too angry at me without hearing my side of the story first, you didn't immediately ask to hear my side of the story, and instead remained angry at me based on the things Emily said?
Mei: Telling all the things she did wrong, to me, is bullshit.
Neb: You didn't even know what I said to her. You STILL don't know what I said to her.
Mei: I do not care.
Mei: Anymore
Mei: All you do to me these days is give me troubles
Neb: Exactly. You don't care about what actually happened. All you care about is that Emily complained to you abotu me, and thus you have problems, and thus those problems must be my fault, because it's guaranteed that Emily couldn't possibly be at fault.
Neb: When I complain to you that Emily mistreats me, you tell me it's all in my head. When Emily complains to you that I mistreat her, I must have really mistreated her.
Neb: You don't care what was said, who said what, or what was done. You don't need evidence or facts. You've already made up your mind that I'm wrong about Emily mistreating me, and she's right about me mistreating her.
Neb: Here's the information I want from you, Mei: Are you still interested in being friends?

(11 minutes later)

Neb: So you won't even tell me whether or not you want to stay friends with me. This exactly reinforces my theory about you wanting to end the friendship, but you want me to be formally the one to end the friendship so that you can claim you tried your best to stay friends with me, but I'm the one who fucked everything up.

(21 minutes later)

Mei: Fine. I don't want to be friends with you. And you can blame it on me.