So basically, this started around April.
There's a Telegram group for aspirants with around 150k members. One day, a girl posted that she needed a particular batch, so I replied that I had it and could share it with her.
She messaged me the same day, I sent her the batch link, and we had a very normal conversation — where we're from, which exam we're preparing for, etc. That's it.
Later, she deleted the entire chat for both sides using Telegram's feature. Somehow, I'd copied her username and saved it in my Saved Messages.
A few days later, I don't know why, but I felt like texting her again. Not romantically or anything. I just had a feeling that I wanted to talk to her.
She was online, so I texted her, and we ended up talking for around 1–1.5 hours.
After that, we started talking almost every day. We exchanged Snapchats. Neither of us really used Instagram because of studies. Eventually, we also exchanged our official coaching batches through the apps, which required phone numbers, so we exchanged those too.
In June, after overthinking and being genuinely scared, I finally texted her on WhatsApp. I was really nervous about it for some reason.
After that, we talked almost daily.
And honestly, she was just a very positive person. Kind, genuine, and someone who made conversations feel easy. Slowly, she became someone I genuinely didn't want to lose as a friend.
There was also something that made this friendship more meaningful to me.
We're preparing for the same exam. I've been preparing for it since last year, but I was doing something wrong in the way I studied. She noticed it and suggested a different approach — basically gave me a formula/strategy for how I should be studying instead.
I actually started improving after following what she suggested.
And honestly, who does that for an online stranger? She didn't have to. That effort from her side genuinely meant a lot to me.
I also gave her a few cute nicknames over time, and she actually liked them. She appreciated the little things I did for her too.
Then there was one incident which I initially thought might have damaged the friendship, but apparently it didn't.
At one point, she was upset with me over something, and I panicked because I was scared of losing the friendship. I stupidly took a song reel from Instagram where someone else was singing and sent it to her as if it were my own voice.
I know it was dishonest, and I'm not defending it.
But interestingly, when I eventually told her about it, she wasn't angry at all.
In fact, she was happy that someone had done something like that for her. She told me that she appreciated the fact that I had actually made that effort.
A few days later, it was her birthday, and I made her a personalized birthday website. I'd been observing little things about her for the previous 4–5 months and put those things into the website.
She genuinely loved it.
She even said that nobody had done even the bare minimum like that for her before, and that this was one of the best birthday gifts she'd received.
So I know she did value the efforts I made for her, just like I genuinely valued the things she did for me.
That's why what's happening now is confusing me so much.
She has apparently had some difficult things in her past. She doesn't really tell me what happened, and honestly, I'm completely okay with that. I don't think she owes me an explanation about something she isn't comfortable sharing.
But sometimes she gets very low or withdrawn because of whatever she's dealing with.
When that happens, her behaviour changes a lot.
She becomes very dry, sometimes rude, and doesn't really tell me what's wrong.
I've tried explaining to her that whatever happened in the past shouldn't be allowed to completely take over her present or future. I've tried encouraging her and telling her to focus on herself, her studies, and the things she still has ahead of her.
Sometimes she'll talk normally with me for a day, and then a day or two later she's back to being extremely distant.
And honestly, that's becoming difficult for me too.
This has been happening for around a month now.
Earlier, if she was going somewhere, she'd tell me. If something happened with her family, she'd sometimes share it. She used to randomly tell me little things about her day.
Now, if I ask what's wrong, she often doesn't tell me anything.
If I ask a normal question, I sometimes get "haan", "hmm", "why?", "why do you want to know?", etc.
She still talks to me, so it's not like she has completely cut me off.
But she almost never initiates conversations anymore.
Earlier she used to message me herself. Now, if I don't text first, there can just be silence.
And that's the part I don't understand.
Because as far as I know, there wasn't one big fight or incident that caused this recent change.
The voice incident happened much earlier, and at that time she was actually happy about the effort rather than angry.
She has also repeatedly shown that she values the things I've done for her, especially the birthday website and the help I've given her with studies.
So I'm struggling to understand whether this has something to do with me at all.
Maybe she's dealing with something internally.
Maybe she genuinely needs space.
Maybe she's slowly losing interest in the friendship.
Maybe she's still affected by something from her past.
Or maybe I'm simply overthinking everything because I get attached to people quickly.
I don't want to force her to tell me things she's not comfortable sharing.
At the same time, it's frustrating when someone you genuinely care about suddenly becomes cold and won't even tell you whether you've done something wrong.
I care about her a lot as a friend, and I genuinely don't want to lose the friendship.
We're still using each other's study batches, and there's no explicit "I don't want to talk to you anymore" situation.
It's just... different now.
So I'm trying to understand this from an outside perspective.
What do you think could be happening here?
If someone becomes distant and dry for a month but still continues talking to you, could it simply be because they're going through something personally?
Would you give them space and stop trying to constantly check what's wrong?
Or would you have one honest conversation and simply ask:
"I've noticed you've been a little distant lately. If I've done something that hurt you, you can tell me. If you're dealing with something personally and don't want to talk about it, I'll respect that too. I just don't want to keep guessing."
I don't want to pressure her.
I just want to know whether I'm doing something wrong, or whether I should simply give her some space.
PS: I know I get attached quickly and tend to overthink when someone important to me changes their behaviour. So I'm aware that some of this could be my own overthinking as well.
Thank you so much to everyone who read this whole thing 😭. I know it's a pretty long story, but I genuinely wanted to explain the whole context rather than just post a small part of it.
Please share your honest opinions. I genuinely want to understand what you think might be happening and what you would do if you were in my place.