The friendship “break-up”
I think the title is pretty self explanatory. And most of us, sadly, should be able to associate with it pretty immediately. While it usually doesn’t have a label put to it. The fact that our friend group changes over time is a clear example that there is a drifting apart. And even though drifting apart seems like a normal part of life, I believe we often let go of people without acknowledging the fact that they contributed a lot to our life.
Hence, having recently been on the verge of reconciliation with a good friend whom I actively dissociated myself with I could not help but contemplate my actions. I can’t even imagine how much of a weird person I am to use the word dissociated when talking of a good friend. This is again one of the reasons I feel there is an urgent need to talk about this.
I feel that just because amatonormativity is so popular, people often see romantic relationships as “more important” than friendship. This I’ve come to realise is extremely flawed. Having suffered the loss of a good friend has clearly made me realise how much importance their friendship was to me. There is an urgent need to discuss the importance of a friendship and even more of a need to realise how much it can hurt when suddenly someone you think you knew and trusted decides you’re no longer an important part of their life.
As I have experienced, friendship breakups are hard. It is never easy to fill up the loss of a person in your life, especially when they mean a lot to you. Friends are often like a daily routine in life, sometimes you get so used to them, talking to them, having fun with them. It’s these little things like the assurances they give you, the support you know you always have and the feeling that there is someone out their rooting for you even when you’re not thinking of them that you crave. I bet everyone would find it incredibly weird if their routine lacked meals at proper times or washroom breaks. Incredibly I feel it’s no different from the loss of a friend in your life.
Romantic break ups have so much cultural weight. Movies, books, songs. There is universal acknowledgement that romantic breakups are hard emotionally and mentally. They are so popular that entire scientific studies in neuro physical fields are dedicated solely to it. You can talk about breaking up with a significant other on social media even rant about it and expect sympathy. Yet, nobody ever talks about breaking up with friends. It is strange how there are popular notions of remembering your first kiss, first love and such and yet no one remembers the friend who taught them to ride a bike or that friend who stood up for them when they hadn’t done their homework.
In my case I was foolish enough to let go of a close friend without realising how close I was. I simply ignored conversation with them barring the niceties when in person. I was foolhardy and thought that why would I need a person in my life when I’m perfectly capable of doing everything on my own. This is a paradox. So while it is entirely fine to be self dependent and self loving. One simply cannot let go of the emotional support. The need to interact with someone at the end of the day. The need to know that someone always has your back in the toughest of times. And all this while I hadn’t even thought of what they were going through.
I eventually realised my folly when a few months later I was mentally fatigued and somehow I had no one who knew what I was going through. No one to talk to me and help me out. And this friend was one of those who wasn’t the best person to give solutions but a very good listener. Perhaps at that time that is exactly what I wanted. This is when I realised how much we need as many good friends as we can get. Being the selfish person I am I hadn’t even given a thought about how this other person would be feeling. Had this been a romantic relationship we’d probably be devastated, trying to win each other back and questioning ourselves as to what went wrong. However, to me this just felt normal. I cannot speak for my friend and I’m pretty sure they being the better person would’ve thought hard about this when they weren’t even at fault. I myself acknowledged only months later as to how petty I was at letting go of my friend.
Having acknowledged these feeling helped me reach the conclusion that friendship is a bond that should be cherished more than its current status quo indicates. I sincerely believe we should show more gratitude towards people and try our best to not just “lose touch” with them. It takes a lot of effort to develop a relationship and forging a good friendship is the toughest of them all. For it is based on many more values that a romantic relationship can ever fathom. Misunderstanding, poor communication, jealousy and just not keeping in touch are too poor a reason to break up something so essential to human life. Nurturing a good friendship with the right kind of people and never letting go of them should be something we should strive for everyday. Meanwhile I look forward to reconciling with my friend over coffee. Should be awkward at first, but we’ll get back to where we were, eventually.
