Friendship flipping-flopping, how to balance it?

There's a lot going on in your relationship, but one thing stood out to me that I'd like to address. You're assuming that because Wendy will remain in DC, then Amber's behavior should not be affected in response to her presence. This seems to be kind of a stretch. For one thing, if they are good friends, then the prospect of Wendy being around long term may not do anything to reduce Amber's delight in having her friend here right now. Intellectually it might seem to you as though Amber should automatically internalize that Wendy's here to stay and that her arrival should therefore be no big thing, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect Amber to a) automatically infer your line of reasoning or b) behave according to your assumptions about how she should feel. In addition, Wendy is staying with Amber until she gets her own place. This can be a huge upheaval for Amber. While her feelings toward Wendy might be nothing but positive, having someone move to town and live with you short term is very disruptive to routine, adds a lot of stress, and requires some cognitive processing resources. You seem to be ignoring that. If Amber is feeling spread thin she'll likely see your demands on her as insensitive. Given what you've said about Wendy's arrival, how you think it shouldn't affect Amber, and the expectations and demands you're putting on Amber at what may be a stressful time, it does seem to me like you are being insensitive. You now seem to be at a point where you're beginning to consider the friendship as a transactional relationship, and that you've put in but are being prevented from taking out. I think if you value the friendship for real, you ought to give Amber the benefit of the doubt and make more generous assumptions, i.e. she's stressed, she's got an old friend in town who requires time and attention, and maybe now is the time to offer support and/or give her some room instead of demanding validation and increased closeness.

Your expectations seem high. You were upset that she didn't respond to a text for 3 hours? Many people forget to respond to their texts for 3 days. Some people forget to respond at all to some of their texts. Tracking her movements and FB posts and then getting upset with her for prioritizing other things above you is quite demanding. You seem to be excusing your behavior. You say "I know it's bad for me to make Amber my go-to, but ... it's hard when you're deaf." Amber is deaf and she seems to have more than one friend, so clearly deafness does not doom a person to have only 1 friend. You then said you're trying to improve your neediness, but it's hard because you're lonely and love to socialize. Many many people in this world are lonely and love to socialize. That does not give you a free pass to keep being needy. I suggest you change your mentality. Instead of saying "I know I should change X, but ... I'm deaf / lonely / want socializing", be very committed to improving those things with no excuses. Read books, join groups, see a therapist, do whatever it takes. Right now, it sounds like you expect Amber to be The Best Friend Ever (e.g. accept your needy demands), but you only want to be a mediocre friend back (be jealous & needy). Why the double standard?

This isn't about you. The world is bigger than this. I get the whole deaf community thing, but it has been said before - you gotta branch out somehow. Amber does not "owe" you what you think she does. Here's another suggestion: Try to imagine friendships like the sport of Surfing. Sometimes one wave (or friendship crests) sometimes another. Get off the "Amber" wave, paddle out, and find another "friendship wave" to ride for a while. Maybe a long long while. Give Amber a breather. You can not not not make someone be responsive if they are not being so, so shift your focus to something else more positive.

You know, not being friends anymore isn't that hard to get used to. What's way, way, way harder to get used to is having the person who you were at some point incredibly close with... suddenly have someone else they're being that close with and not really wanting to address that fact with you. I am going through it now, personally, with the person who has been one of my best friends for awhile now, and it is miserable, but I think in the end it does still pass. I don't think it's weird to have someone you were that close to, at all, nor is it strange or unusual to feel hurt when that closeness passes, but if you can manage to ride it out, you can usually end up maintaining the friendship just fine. And a few times in my life, that person has at some later point also come back to being one of my closest friends. Life can be a bit of a roller-coaster, and that part sucks, but I don't think there's much to do about it other than engage in every distraction you can find and still make friendly overtures to the person whenever you can, and see what happens later. It's actually kind of nice to see someone ask this because the other night I was kind of grinding my teeth about my friend coming to me with a long thing about how the person I'd kind of suspected was the new BFF was turning out to be less perfect than previously imagined, and now I think I feel a bit more hopeful again about that all sorting itself out in future. I don't know why people do this, except that I don't think there's really a good social script for, "I know you've been my best friend except that I think now this other person is my best friend, but I do still like you so please don't hate me?" At least in my case, I'm pretty sure that avoidance of actually dealing with the issue is in some way a gesture of affection. If she didn't care, she wouldn't keep trying to smooth things over. If she cared as much as I wanted her to, she'd still be around more. So, she cares... well, something between those two, and I expect I'll figure it out over time. I put more effort into spending time with other people and other activities, and I think so far that's been going okay.

Being needy is not the same as being lonely. You need to find ways to solve your neediness, on your own; a therapist might be useful in this process, as might http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0809132230/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/. Other people cannot give you the validation you seem to be craving. And that's not because they're not trying hard enough; it's because it is actually impossible to get the validation you need from a healthy adult relationship.

Couple things. First, being busy or overwhelmed--just because her schedule hasn't changed in the last month or whatever doesn't mean that the situation at work hasn't changed, or that she isn't feeling burnt out, or experiencing some depression, or any number of things that could make her flaky and avoidant right now, even if she wasn't a month ago. Stress is a cumulative thing for a lot of people, and workplace stress especially so. A minor disagreement with a coworker can easily snowball and make the whole situation crappy. Making time for going out with other friends doesn't mean that the above isn't true--maybe it was a friend's birthday, or a long-standing engagement, or maybe someone caught her in the right mood at the right time and everything just happened to work out that evening. Second, the Wendy thing. When your best friend lives far away, I think that it's pretty reasonable to basically put the rest of your life on pause for the week or two that you get to see them. If Wendy's just come back to the area you live in, they're still coasting on that oh my god, I haven't seen you in forever kind of feeling. Once Wendy's been there for a while, things will probably start to balance out again. You do sound needy, and you sound intensely unhappy. The only suggestion I have, unfortunately, is to develop hobbies and interests that you can do on your own, and to practice enjoying being with yourself. I realise that's a difficult thing, but it's not impossible. Look for places on the internet where you can be part of a community--hobby boards and the like are great for that sort of thing, as is fandom. Phases like this are, in my experience, normal in almost all long-term friendships. Dealing with them maturely and without causing drama gives you +10 friendship ability, though, and probably strengthens the relationship in the long run.

You may do better in a literal sense, but some people are just not going to give this to you, unfortunately. And I think it is way more helpful to view this as a reflection of their perspective/their particular way of operating than as an affront to you in particular. The more you sit around trying to relate Amber's behavior back to you or your actions, the more you are just going to feel angry and bewildered and work yourself up. Your perspective is understandable and your feelings are valid, and I don't think you should take implications that you are some sort of stalker in this situation seriously. This is an internet forum and no one here can say what the particularities of your situation are or can tell you precisely why Amber is reacting the way she is.

Another comment here - your last question talks a lot about how stressful your life is at the moment. It sounds like you have a lot of difficult situations going on. Could your feelings of attachment to Amber maybe partly be a reflection of the general state of feeling challenged that you are in right now? Just something to consider. It is hard to gain perspective on things sometimes if you are struggling.

Try backing off for a while. You will continue to feel hurt, but do your best not to communicate that with Amber in any way. You perceived your talk with her, expressing your hurt feelings, as taking a lot of energy and effort on your part. It took a lot of energy and effort on her part too, being the recipient of your hurt feelings and expectations. That kind of communication may make her less likely, not more likely, to want to spend time with you. On the other hand, if you're the kind of friend that will make her feel supported and happy and lighter, the kind of friend she can call without worrying that you're going to blame her or ask her for things she's not willing to give, you might see more of her.