Advice for someone missing his friend

so me (30M) and my friend (35F) have known each other for about 3 years. I consider her to be a close friend and we have had a really lovely friendship over the years.

we are both performers and are currently in a play together. prior to rehearsals starting I offered to drive us to and from work. 2nd week of rehearsals our car rides started to feel off. from my perspective it felt like connecting with her was like pulling teeth. like any attempt to engage in convo even at the small talk level was met with one word answers and/or a generally disinterested vibe. I asked her on two separate occasions if something was up or if she was upset with me and both times she confirmed she wasn’t.

on Halloween I get a text from her saying she would like to discontinue carpooling, saying it had nothing to do with me but she “feels energetically off“ and “needs a second”. I say okay and for her to take her time.

a couple days later I text asking if I could check in to clarify if what she said means she would also like me to give her space at rehearsal. within this text I also say it’s hard not to take this personally and asked if there’s anything I’m doing to make our car rides weird. she says she thinks “space is fine” and that she’s not sure why our car rides are weird. she hypothesizes that at that time I was in the middle of a breakup and moving apartments and thought she maybe was taking on emotional energy that wasn’t hers. this felt strange to me because it’s not like I was dumping me relationship woes on her during our car ride. i had asked for her advice on something regarding my break up once. but otherwise I made an explicit effort to NOT be an emotional drain despite what I was going through personally. at any rate, I told her I understood and that I would follow her lead when she’s ready to reconnect.

a week goes by. we don’t talk at all in person or via text. we don’t make eye contact at work. basically going about like the other person doesn’t exist. this week was really hard for me. like I said, I really cherished this friendship and having to be at work everyday while flat out ignoring each other was heartbreaking. at the end of this week I shoot her a message first apologizing for reaching out despite the agreed upon space. I tell her it’s been difficult sidestepping around each other at work and asked if she was open to talking out the weirdness between us, while acknowledging if she wasn’t ready for that then I would respect and back off.

in her response she said she realized in therapy that leading up to when we paused carpooling, she felt like her boundaries were being crossed, but she could not name what those boundaries were/are. however she did call out that when I asked to check in about if she wanted space at rehearsal, I didn’t wait of her to say yes or no to being checked in with, which felt like a crossed boundary. she mentioned how she felt like what we were doing felt like romantic relationship maintenance which isn’t what she signed up for. she reiterated that she still wants to be friends but just needs a second and is sorry if the time she needs is longer than I’d like it to be.

I text back an apology for crossing her boundaries. I affirm that it is not my attention to treat her or our friendship as a romantic relationship. I let her know that conflict is difficult for me because all I want to do is swarm in and fix things, while also acknowledging that conflict means sitting in discomfort and honoring each others needs which I’ve struggled to do and so I apologized and told her I’d leave her be till she‘s ready.

admittedly this text I sent was quite long. In retrospect I recognize how i was over explaining as a result of my triggered anxious attachment. this in turn clearly put off and triggered her because her next response was “I hear you. I’ve been hearing you and I need this emotional dumping to please stop. I’ve asked for space. I still need space. You’re apologizing but you’re still not honoring my ask. Please don’t respond to this text. We can talk later.“

and that was the last exchange we had. this was a month ago. since then we have opened our show and have been performing it 8 times a week. we haven’t spoken a word to each other unless necessary for work. no eye contact, no acknowledgment of the other in passing. Nothing. a month in it still really breaks my heart. when I found out we’d both be doing this show I was so excited because I’d get to share this experience with my friend who I care for. but most of this process has been us pretending the other doesn’t exist and it guts. being in this indefinite period of no contact for a month for what remains an unclear reason guts me. I miss my friend a great deal. and so I guess what I’m looking for in posting is any sympathy, feedback on how I handled things, and/or advice on how to grieve this friendship seemingly toppling over.

much thanks and love in advance