Thanksgiving bird lasts through spring (and counting)

From a reader: “Last Thanksgiving weekend, I received a voice mail from a very close friend’s boyfriend about an upcoming birthday dinner for my friend--to be a fairly intimate affair of the two of them, plus me and my husband. I lost the voice mail (with several others) before I could return his call, but I thought I had his number and left a voice mail and several text messages with no response.

“Well, I was mortified to realize AFTER the birthday that I had called my mortgage lender instead.

“I immediately apologized to my friend by voicemail, email, Facebook, you name it--MULTIPLE times--asking for a chance to take the two of them out for dinner, suggesting places, etc.,-- and never got a response. Finally, around February, she responded to one of my pleas with a long dramatic tale of how badly I had hurt her, she had never asked me for anything, how could I forget her 40th, etc. I was furious at the response and said so, apologizing again, and wanting to put the whole thing behind us.

“Fast forward to now, after several additional invites to social events, to which she has either not responded or RSVP’ed with a No. I am heartsick at not having her in my life anymore over what is essentially a lost voice mail, and wonder what else I can do to fix it? My husband thinks I need to walk away and never look back, but I miss her friendship and feel terribly that she thinks I somehow do not care about her enough to celebrate her birthday, which could not be further from the truth. Is there any other effort I can make? Or do I need to let the friendship go and find a way to forgive myself?”

So are you wondering 1. Why she didn’t call her friend on her 40th, 2. Why the friend is throwing such a profound and enduring hissy fit over a missed birthday, 3. Both, 4. What bigger thing the friend is upset about that the writer left out, or 5. [fill in the blank]?

- Carolyn Hax