I guess you guys are right and I am sorry if I offended anyone. I will try and talk to her and see what it really is.

Thanks anyway!

I would love to bring it up but it is still an issue of actually getting in touch with her or see her...

We used to be able to talk and chat for a really long periods of time. We did meet each other last Wednesday and she was all smiles and laughs. This was after not seeing each other after...3-4 months? However, we have not spoken since then, even if we managed to start a conversation between us that...suddenly just died out. I do not know, she used to be able to, at least, communicate with me when her days were over but now it is hardly...anything anymore.

She seems to always prioritise her colleagues before me. I can understand that one prefer to hang out with your fellow PhD candidates and researcher friends since you are spending time and working with them 8 hours a day, seven days a week. But it just makes me pretty upset that it feels like I am being "a last resort" on her list, despite her saying that she wants to hang out with me more.

I don't know, I am confused and I don't know if this is a common behaviour among doctoral students or if I am just being needy. (I apologise if I am painting everyone under the same brush!)

Hey all,

Please bare with my english as it is not my native language.

Long backstory short: we used to study together for our masters degree, both in interaction design. We had several projects together and we really enjoyed each others company. We lost contact but since a year ago, we reconnected and started hanging out, even though it has not been much (Six times during almost a year). We seemed to always enjoy each others company, often resulting in lots of laughs and feeling relaxed and being ourselves. We exchanged christmas gifts, had dinner at each others houses (I did all the cooking), and I bought her a birthday gift that she quoted saying "I don't like it, I _love_ it". Every time we manage to see each other, she is ventilating about her work, her colleagues, her boss and she enjoys hearing about everything of my work as an industry professional. Sadly, there have been certain moments where we had to postpone or cancel our plans since her PhD is consuming a lot of her free time.

However she seems to put friends in a certain "order". Sometimes she puts all attention on me but suddenly she enters a long period of "inactivity" even though I see that she is online on social medias. We used to talk a lot with each other, often long conversations into the night but that has suddenly stopped. Is it normal for me, as a "regular" guy to wonder if she is doing this to ignore me or is she just too focused on her work? For example: a "normal" person would just invite someone to hang out with their colleagues since they were going to the same event but she seemed always reluctant to do that. Is it that she prefers to prioritise colleagues ahead of me?

I understand and respect her choice and that her line of work requires much from her but I cannot help to feel constantly neglected by her.

Maybe I am just reading too much into this but I would love hear all your opinions!