My birthday went well, I got to spend it with a lot of the people I love. My best friends (excluding the bffl who is home tonight) came over and baked with me, and it was a lot of fun. All three of the netball mates I invited came, and I think they had a good time, talking not just amongst themselves but with my school friends as well.

You know who didn't come. I don't know if I've explained this fully before, but the past 3 birthdays, he has said he would come and then didn't, for various reasons. This was his last chance, in my mind, and I think I was pretty clear to him about that as well.

About 2 hours after my party had started, I messaged him asking if he was coming, and he asked 'was that tonight?' and explained he'd been sick and hadn't checked facebook, saying he'd take me out for coffee and that he was sorry he couldn't make it, cos he lives quite far away and there were no more trains that late. Also that he was sorry for being a shit friend, to which I replied that he fucking was.

When I got home last night, I drunk messaged him, telling him how sad and disappointed I was that he didn't show, and how hard I try to keep our friendship and how his actions make me feel like I don't matter to him. It was pretty coherent for barely being able to see and type. There was a bunch of 'sorry I'm drunk, this is stupid, don't listen' bits but for the most part, it was a well articulated message and I enjoyed that being drunk, I could just say whatever shit I wanted and only take responsibility for the consequences if I chose to in the morning, or I could fob it off under 'I was drunk, I don't know what I was saying.'

The message he sent back, my best friend admitted that it made her feel warm inside, and keep in mind, that this friend hates his guts. Okay, I'll put it here, because it was sweet and worth recording.

You do matter Lucy... I really was down with the flu n didn't realise today was the 7th. By the time I realised the last train to wollongong had left. I really do feel exactly how shitty a friend I am but you do matter. When your sober and not quite so justifiably hating my guts I'll take you out to dinner as an apology. Whereever you want to go. You do matter Luce and I am sorry.

I don't know what to do now. I know I need to follow the 'three strikes and you're out' mentality but it's so, so hard for me to do. Writing him off is terrible, it makes me feel terrible. It's not proportional to our friendship, the level of terrible-ness that I have attached to letting him go. Some other people I was close to once, I just shrug and it doesn't effect me at all.

And I don't even know if I like him now, just last week I was thinking we're pretty plutonic now, from my side as well as his, but then his happens, and it makes me clear the board and reconsider all my options. From highest to lowest, I could go all out, tell him I still have feelings for him and if he was to break up with Georgia, he should be with me. Actually, even higher than that would be to tell him he should break up with her and be with me, but that's a little unrealistic, considering in three weeks I am out of here and they've been dating nearly 3 years.

Second, I could tell him that because my feelings for him have always been a lot more complicated compared to other friends, he gets held to a different standard and while missing a few birthdays isn't exactly murdering somebody, it does hurt a lot more when he does it than someone else. And that that he should realise by now that hating his guts is a state that is pretty much totally incompatible with my DNA, and I never seem to manage it, regardless of situation.

However, it's not a maintainable situation and I feel like I need to find some resolution. I could do something about it.

I could call him, and tell him I want to have a long conversation about us and our relationship. I could say that I recognise that the things I'm about to say may be purely one sided and that he may not have realised that this side of things still existed, but that honest communication has always been a real problem for us and that I'm doing this to end drama, not create or extend it.

Ever since high school it's been incredibly important to me to stay friends because like, in Year 12, he was the most important thing I had going on. He was like my best friend and at the time, we were both messing things up because for me, it was this new thing that I hadn't ever had experience with and I always assumed he knew what he was doing and looking back, I kind of see he were making it up as he went along, pretty much the same way. The problem was he was just too outwardly confident and I had an insane amount of faith in him so I never saw doubt or confusion from his side, and it didn't tend to occur to me that my behaviour and communication wasn't clear, and that he wasn't in total control of the situation, which I felt like he was.

I am so confused. I don't know what I want to do.

I don't want to stop being friends, I never do. It's a well documented fact that I tend to resist that at all costs, but I told myself, if he didn't come this year, it'd be like, 3 strikes and you're out. Because if I never put any kind of consequences on anything, there just ends up being all this bad feeling and right now, I feel like this is how our relationship is, that because I forgive anything because it's him, and it's complicated, I never feel resolved.

So I'm hoping that by talking it out with him, I'll get that satisfaction of being understood, which is all I ever really tend to want. Like, especially why my birthdays matter, I want him here then, when I'm with all my friends and it's something I've planned and worked to make good. Cos like, he knows me, because we talk and that's my personality and how I feel about stuff and that's important, but sometimes I wish he knew more of my life and was more a part of it. He's never been to my house or met any of my other friends.

There are people you share your life with, like your family and people you work with, and the friends you spend a lot of time around, that know how you spend your days and that you talk about the little things with, and then there are the people you just 'catch up' with, and its just like giving a run down on everything they've missed and I don't like him being in that category. Like, if we had it my way, we'd actually go out and do things and hang out for the sake of hanging out, not just meeting up because we have a quota of times we have to meet up to still be in the category of friends.

So I think I have decided... I will message him tomorrow and tell him that we should do dinner, and I'll try my hardest to be honest and tell him this in person. Whether that means telling him I still have feelings for him, I suppose that'll have to depend on whether I decide I do or not. I'm still very very confused, more than ever.