After reading this article by Melissa Dahl on The Cut, I realized that I may have had more friendship breakups than I thought. The concept of a "friendship breakup" never really occurred to me, and I've only encountered it now. But it's a deeply thought-provoking subject to explore.
I know about the act of "cutting ties" with people and this term "FO", short for "friendship over", which some people from my generation use similarly to say that they have cut ties with a friend of theirs. In these contexts, it is usually clearly apparent to both parties that the friendship has ended. So, in my mind, this is what pops up when I read "friendship breakup".
However, as I read further through this article, it became clear to me that there are cases when it's actually ambiguous. Those friendships which just fade away as you gradually drift apart from each other. It's the kind of "breakup" without closure. And perhaps one where you would be hard-pressed to get closure, since it will be awkward to broach the subject with the person in question.
The ambiguity, the feeling of "not knowing" why the friendship just fell apart is probably the main reason why these types of "friendship breakups" hurt more than romantic relationships.
With romantic relationships, it's often understood between both parties why it fell apart because it is made explicitly clear. You talk it out and you tell the other person that it's over. With some friendship breakups, it's not at all clear why you grew apart and just stopped talking to each other.
In my life, I have only considered one person with whom I have completely cut ties. She was my best friend when I studied abroad, and without going into too much detail, things gradually fell apart because it was getting more toxic. We couldn't see eye to eye and the expectations that we had from the friendship were widely disparate. Things accumulated and escalated until such a point when the bubble just burst and there was no other way to repair the friendship. It ended on a bad note.
But as Dahl recounts in her article, there are friendships that end in ambiguity. And that resonated with me because I think it cannot be avoided that certain friendships just naturally drift apart. For one, most of our friendships are formed during high school and college, so once we graduate and go our separate ways, those friendships just fade away until we happen to reconnect or meet in person unexpectedly.
I have made some good friends while in college and high school, and for some of them, although we don't talk as much with each other, whenever we do get to catch up, it feels as though nothing has changed in our friendship, except the physical distance and the frequency at which we see each other.
However, I also have some friends, or at the very least, I still consider them friends. I'm not sure if the feeling is mutual. I feel as though they have become distant, and upon reflection, I think it may be because we just don't share the same interests anymore, or we don't click like we used to.
Another reason why friendship breakups happen, according to the article, is because of conflict. In particular, when conflicts happen, Dr. Beverley Fehr, a social psychology professor at the University of Winnipeg, suggests that the natural response to deal with it, i.e. to talk it out, may not be the best way to resolve the conflict. In some cases, she says that avoiding the conflict may be more appropriate, albeit it's still on a case-by-case basis. But, in general, unlike romantic relationships, the way to address conflicts in friendships is to put some distance in between.
And I can relate with that. I am a very conflict-avoidant person, whether it be in friendships or potential romantic relationships. I don't like conflicts, and there were a couple of big conflicts that I had with friends throughout my life, apart from the friend with whom I cut ties.
When I had a huge fight with my best friend in college, my initial response was actually to try and resolve the matter as quickly as possible. But because we had different approaches to it, we both resorted to avoidance. We stopped talking to each other and we didn't want to be around each other for a whole week.
The only problem with that was, at the time, we were part of a committee working on an event, in which we had to coordinate with each other. So after a week, I decided to try and make amends. Fortunately, we both had the same thing in mind, so we made up and from that point on, we never had any spat that caused us to give each other the cold shoulder.
I don't know how other people deal with friendship breakups. To be honest, I'm not the type to wallow in the pain of losing a friend. From all of the experiences I've had, I have learned to treasure the ones who, despite our differences and past conflicts, still consider me a friend even when they've seen the worst of me.
As painful as it is to lose a friend, I've learned to be gracious to those who may have silently cut ties with me, and to be open to the possibility of reconnecting and rekindling the friendship I've had with some people with whom I've grown apart.
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