"Xander says we're not friends." A miserable and confused Buffy told her mother when she got home that afternoon. "That we never were. I thought we were friends, I really did and I don't understand why he thinks we're not, friends I mean. Why doesn't he think we were friends? Because I told him we were friends, before all this happened, I know I said it to him, so why doesn't he think we were ever friends?"
Joyce's heart went out to her daughter, the sight of her confusion and pain was heart breaking, but she had to be honest with her daughter. "I think Xander's realizing that no, you two were not friends. Just saying it's not enough, Buffy, you have to build a friendship and neither of you really bothered to build a friendship. Tell me when and how you told him you considered him an friend?"
"Well, I told you how Amy's mother was a witch and cursed me -?"
"Yes, after I finally knew the truth." Joyce shook her head. "Not the important part right now, how did you tell him you were friends?"
"Well, I felt drunk because of the curse, I told Xander he was like one of the girls, that was how comfortable I was with him."
Joyce snorted. "You drove a metaphorical knife into his teenage male heart and you think that says friends. You might have felt comfortable with him, but saying it like that would be crushing to his male ego. Xander isn't a girl, he likes being male and can't imagine himself as female."
"It didn't stop him from asking me out a couple months later." Buffy answered, petulantly. "And being pissed because I liked Angel instead of him."
"And that's part of the problem, Buffy." Joyce took a seat on the couch by her daughter. "Angel was a vampire, the soul didn't change that. He was still a demon in a dead body and Xander had reason to hate vampires. He had two reasons to hang out with you, a crush and the fact that you being the Slayer meant he could help destroy vampires. And there you were, liking a vampire. It was a double shot. Real vampires are monsters, Buffy and the only thing that kept Angel from being a monster was a curse, which gave him a choice on whether to be a monster or not. A curse you refused to find out anything about because it would have derailed your fairytale. Xander's facing the fact that his reasons for being your 'friend' don't constitute real friendship and your reasons for being 'friends' don't either. He's trying to decide if he really wants to be your friend and he's informed you of what you need to do to prove you want to be real friends as well."
"So Xander put up with me treating him like that because he had a crush on me and because he wanted to help me fight vampires." Buffy realized. "And I didn't want his help because I thought helping me would get him killed like Pike was. He let me hurt him and he's decided not to let me hurt him anymore. And he doesn't need to help me destroy vampires because Dr. Zabuto is teaching him how to do it himself."
"And with the variables of no longer having a crush on you because of how you treated him and stopping him from destroying Angelus and you letting Angelus go and because he doesn't need you to be part of his own efforts against vampires it's given him the space to realize, you never had a friendship to begin with. Just reasons to be around each other and those reasons aren't enough to pretend to be friends."
"But I miss him, doesn't that prove we were friends?"
"What do you miss about him?"
"Well, I -." Buffy shrugged. "He asked me that too and I told him he makes jokes, lame ones, but still jokes and helped me."
"Which you didn't want him doing anyway." Joyce reminded her.
"He thinks what I miss about him is him entertaining me and me hurting him, all to make myself feel better. He pointed out I kind of gave him shit jobs to do, ones I never thought about having anyone else do. Took advantage of him."
"Part of trying to get him to stop trying to help you, treating him as less than."
"I guess." Buffy mumbled.
"Buffy, Xander's right," Joyce informed her daughter. "you and Xander are not friends and if you want to change that, you have to make an effort to actually be a friend. Which is something I don't think you've ever done before. You had a clique of fellow mean girls at Hemery and you bullied people, but none of them were ever friends, just people who ran in a pack with you and helped you tear apart other people. The only real friend I think you ever had before we came to Sunnydale was your cousin Celia and her death devasted you. It may even have been part of why you became a mean girl, to isolate yourself from that kind of pain again."
"And than I became the Slayer, lost all my so-called friends and met Pike, who stood by and helped me and died." Buffy whispered, feeling miserable. "And I convinced myself I loved Angel because he couldn't die and leave me and it cost other people their lives instead."
"So now you do what Xander asked you to do, give him space to make decisions for himself and take the time to make your own decisions. Once you've decided, maybe then you can build a real friendship."