Anyway, I (24M) work as a bartender at a restaurant and very quickly befriended one of the new hires at the start of this year. Me & her almost instantly grew a very close connection, enough for everyone in the restaurant to notice and many to even think we were hooking up lol. I'll be honest I really wanted to for a while, but I eventually did genuinely accept my role as friend. Over the course of the months, we & her would get to know each other, grab food before or after out shared shifts, call all the time, text all the time, sometimes even go to her place to hang out. Our friendship grew so strong that we started calling each other "best friends," even getting to introducing each other to our respective friend groups. The emotional support, compliments, encouragement, occasional gifts, frequent check-ins ("gassing up" as we call it), etc made me really believe her words that I am in fact, "best friend."
However, our dynamic recently seemed to have changed from my end? She has a friend who lives out of state and always has, the two of them are strictly online friends. He recently started college at the beginning of September, and ever since then she has been in Discord calls with him I kid you not, daily. Not a problem in and of itself, but it's become highly disappointing to me knowing that the frequent, near constant contact & connection that the two of them have, she & I used to have. When she used to call or text me almost every day after work, she would now call her friend. She would call me first thing in the morning and/or at night, she now calls this friend. And their calls supposedly last for hours, sometimes an entire day. I tried to communicate my feeling of abandonment but I don't think she fully understood since she just brushed it off and said "no I've always talked to him since I've known you; I try to balance all of my friends evenly," and then proceeded to do a bad job at balancing her friends evenly.
I subdue myself and tell myself "she's just a friend, you're asking too much. If she were your partner, then you'd be justified in having a concern." However the feelings of abandonment do come up. It's been weeks since she's invited me out anywhere, she said no to my most recent hangout offers, she doesn't even send me memes at midnight like she used to lol. Part of me does feel the need to reach out to her and let me emotions be clear, but there's another part of my brain telling me that I'd be complicating things and that I'd be expecting too much of someone who is clearly no longer willing or able to give me the attention.
Idk. What does reddit think? I'm more than happy to provide any further context and information if asked btw.
TLDR: I have a friend from work who I've been getting to know all year long. The two of us are pretty close in my eyes and claims to highly value me as a "best friend." However, another friend of hers has recently been "stealing" her attention from me, for lack of a better term. I'm left feeling a little confused and a little abandoned and I'd like to talk to her about it, hoping for some adjustment, however I don't want to upset her or come across as too needy/clingy.