When friendships change

I never had much success making friends growing up.  We moved three times before settling in Georgia in 4th grade.  I remember ferociously praying for a best friend friend, but instead I got bullied on an off until senior year of high school.  It wasn’t until college that I met girls (and guys) who truly cared about me. They invested in me, shared with me, challenged me, and ran around campus dressed as ninjas with me (yes, we were those freshmen).  Spending time with them changed me and how I related to others for the better, and being with them was my new home. Finally, I started to feel secure in my friendships and in the community we had.

Senior year, Lydia, one of my core friends, started spending more time with a different group.  She was finishing up classes for her major that year, and she naturally became closer with the folks in the same courses.  Logistics be damned, I quickly became jealous and internalized the hurt. I reverted back to my middle school mindset and couldn’t understand why Lydia didn’t want to be my friend anymore.




Years later, Megan was a new girl at work.  She was the exuberant kind of person you instantly love.  The time we spent together was always good and deep and real, and when she got a new job at a different company, I was certain our friendship would transcend the situation.  She seemed to agree, and her verbal invitation to a rooftop dinner party (date and time TBD) kept me hopeful. Soon after, she stopped responding to my texts. I was perplexed and crushed.




Around the same time, Jasmine and I were in a tight knit tell-each-other-everything small group together and in an awkward group shift, our third member separated from the group and just Jasmine and I were left.  I reached out to her to see what her thoughts were and if she’d like to keep getting together. Despite my repeated messages, she didn’t respond for an entire semester. I’ll spare you the embarrassing details, but I did not handle it well as I waited.

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I always thought adults didn’t have to deal with the emotional baggage of friendship break ups, but I’m just now starting to identify and explore my struggle and how I can do better.  Here’s where I am so far.

Social media presents this idea that we’ll be friends forever, but that’s not true.

I was in one of the first groups of Facebook users, and back in 2006, it was a place to connect with friends.  But people aren’t time capsules. They change and grow. Never before has humanity had this social media glue to keep people together when they’d naturally fall apart, but the glue isn’t strong enough to maintain deep relationships in our transient, short-term society.  Long distance, new commitments, and shifting interests make a difference to friendships that Facebook can’t completely bridge.

You don’t deserve people’s attention.

This is a harsh one, but hear me out.  Placing expectations and demands on the time and attention of others isn’t love.  If that’s your main idea of friendship, you’re not being a good friend. Yes, committed relationships are worth fighting for, but if the other person has already checked out or has other opportunities they’re moving toward, don’t allow yourself to be someone who holds others back.

If you place your worth in the people around you, you’re gonna have a bad time.

It wasn’t until I admitted and owned the struggle of my past friendship vacuum that I realized I needed to figure out how to fill the need with something that isn’t dependent on others.  As much as I joke about needing handcuffs so my friends can’t leave me (never out loud, of course), life is change that doesn’t ask for permission. Finding security and love within myself and other stable places (family, faith, nature, etc.) is proving to be one of the best antidotes to my white knuckled grip on others and their opinions of me.

When someone no longer wants to invest in the friendship, know when it’s time to let go.

When my friendships changed, I interpreted it as rejection.  This led to feeling devalued and worrying that something was “wrong with me,” which bred insecurity I still carry now.  Don’t do this. Don’t fixate on where to place the blame. Don’t grasp for reasons that might not be there. There’s no nice way to put this, but sometimes people just aren’t that into you, and that’s okay.  You’re okay. Every relationship is not meant to last, and obsessing over the ones that are sunsetting could keep you from seeing the sunrises. You have value and goodness and beauty to share with the world.  Not everyone’s going to recognize it, but the ones who do are absolutely worth your time. The ones who don’t simply aren’t.

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Self awareness has been the first step to recovery, and If you have any other wisdom to add, I am all ears!  I have many years ahead of me still (I hope), and I’m sure I’ll go through plenty more ups and downs. My goal is to treat others and myself with grace and understanding.  To release control over my life and to not strive to change the things I have no power over. To be thankful for the friends I do have and to not waste my time on the people who aren’t interested in a two-way relationship.  In the end, that's the best way I can respect myself, and I hope my true friends keep me to it.