Friendship Breakups: The Painful End of Platonic Relationships
Friend breakups arguably are the worst kind of break up, in my opinion. As we discuss the role of love and different kind of love in our lives this month, friendship is something I wanted to talk about. What is a friend break up ,you may ask? A friend break up is when you and one or multiple of your friends have a falling out. Now this can be just as simple as drifting apart as you grow and evolve in your lives, which may not be as painful, or it can be an argument or incident that leads to this person / people not being a part of your life anymore.
I don't know about you but my friends have played a huge role in my life, from being the shoulder to cry on over any or all of my drama, hanging out during and after school and being a phone call away. When I was in 4th grade, we moved to a new school district and then after 5th grade I went off to middle school and my best friend, had gone to a different school so it felt like I was starting over again. Finally in HS I felt like I had found my core group and I thought we'd be friends forever, they'd be in my wedding, be involved in my kids lives, and more.
Disclaimer - to respect the privacy of these people, I will be keeping this story a little vague and not disclosing any names. The focus of this blog post is meant to help people who also are going through a friend break up and how to continue to move forward.
Our group of 5 continued to keep in touch through college, we'd hang out during breaks and after college. 4 out of 5 of us lived in our home town after college. The pandemic hit and we found ways to do things at home and still continued keeping our close knit group. The summer of 2020 is when things took a turn for the worst. One of our friends got a super cool position interning in a location that did not have the best cell service so we had talked about visiting her, except when the plan was made, I was not on the call. When told about the dates later, I already had prior commitments and could not make it so instead I thought to send her a care package to make sure she knew I was still thinking of her. I spent so much time, and money honestly creating this package, filling it with things I knew she liked, I even hand painted the gift bag and gave it to the other girls to give to my friend.
That weekend came, and afterwards it seemed like all 3 girls just stopped talking to me. It was completely out of nowhere and after multiple attempts of reaching out or trying to ask what was wrong and being met with silence, I finally gave up. My life changed dramatically during that time, and it was something that still hurts a little to this day because I honestly had never imagined my life without these girls. But, I had to move on. Here's how I did it and maybe you can too!
I moved. This was purely a timing thing, but I moved within 2 months of this happening, not super far away but far enough where I wasn't around our hometown where I could still potentially run into them. Funnily enough, now even being back home, I still have not run into them.
Social media - I was lucky in the sense that I was the one that probably used social media the most within that group -- after all it kinda ended up being my job, but because of this I was not constantly seeing their posts or being reminded of the situation at all. If you are not in this boat, I would recommend muting your ex-friends, and taking them off of your close friends list. Out of sight, out of mind.
You can try a couple times to mend the relationship if you really want to, but after failed attempts you have to move on. I tried as well because these were relationships that were super important to me, but I had to learn that just because these people were important to me, that didn't mean I was important to them.
Lean on your network / support system -- similar to a regular breakup I surrounded myself with other friends and eventually as time went on, things got easier.
Yes, you will have the urge to reach out to them and yes it will be hard not telling them everything that's going on. But with time, you'll find new people in your corner.
I never got closure, to this day. And thats okay, it happens. But I will admit that it was one of the hardest and most emotional things I went through. I think it's just always hard when the people who you seem to know everything about suddenly feel like strangers. I hope if you're going through this, you hang in there. There will be other friends, and other people that come into your life that care so much more about you. You won't miss them anymore after a while. You'll still cherish the memories you had together, but it won't be as painful thinking about them anymore.
Looking back now, if these girls reached out (which some did even during this incident) would I still be willing to chat with them? Yes, probably. In my situation I found my own closure, so I wouldn't mind. But would we be best friends again? Probably not. Simply because I think this incident helped me shape the standard of those who I want to let into my life and those who I do not. This also helped me create boundaries for myself and my relationships. All in all this period taught me a lot about myself.
To wrap up, if you're going through this, hang in there!! And if you've been through a friend break up, be sure to share your story with us via IG DMs or email, we'd love to hear what you did / how you went through it.
Do you have a friend break up story you’d like to get off your chest? Or anything else about love and different types of relationships? If so, submit your piece here and we’ll reach out if we want to publish it!