Is there a right way to end a friendship?
That's the question Alex Williams raised in the New York Times this weekend.
One 40-year-old woman she spoke to who had realized a friendship was over "took the 'bad-boyfriend approach' and just stopped calling," Williams reported. "After the friend made a few spurned overtures -- and after some awkward conversations about why Ms. Brunner was always too busy to get together -- the friend got the hint. Years later, however, the breakup still feels unresolved."
Unlike virtual act of "defriending" on Facebook, phasing out a friend in real life, Williams wrote, "plays out like a divorce in miniature -- a tangle of awkward exchanges, made-up excuses, hurt feelings and lingering ill will," Williams wrote. And there's no set formula for going about it.
I've heard this complaint before. Just the other night, a friend of mine in her late 20s told me that she was invited to a mutual friend's wedding -- someone she hadn't spent real time with in over a year. The bride-to-be cornered her at a group gathering and asked if she'd received the invitation, telling her she was one of the "only friends " she included on her list from New York. My friend, mortified, couldn't bring herself to tell the bride she wasn't planning to attend -- she has two other weddings to travel to that summer, and, at the end of the day, just doesn't feel as close to the bride as the bride feels to her. She's eventually going to have to tell her no but feels like she's in uncertain territory. Where's the script for this? Where's the "Breakup Bible" for friendships?
In her Times piece, Williams suggested it's normal -- even natural -- to desire to let go of friends over time, and noted there's even a sociological term for it: socioemotional selectivity theory. She reports that the psychology professor who minted the phrase, Laura L. Carstensen of the Stanford Center on Longevity, has identified ages where we increase and decrease the number of relationships in our lives, According to Carstensen, we trim down our list for the first time after age 17, allow our social circle to widen in our 30s and tighten it again when we reach our 40s. Carstensen told the Times: "When time horizons are long, as they typically are in youth, we're collectors, we're explorers, we're interested in all sorts of things that are novel."
Today on Role/Reboot, blogger Kerry Cohen wrote a moving depiction of a breakup from the vantage point of the woman whose "novelty" has worn off. Her friend withdrew after they were both married in a move that Cohen never understood -- a fact painfully driven home through a series of awkward exchanges brought on by chance encounters, where Cohen's efforts to reach out and reconnect with the friend she missed were met with scorn:
I barely made it home before the tears came."What is wrong with me?" I asked my husband. "Why did she do that?"
He held me. "Shhh," he said. "You didn't do anything."
But I didn't believe him. All my life I'd assumed -- as so many of us do -- that there was something unlovable about me. It's why I'd had those issues with boys. She knew that. All my life I'd held that shameful belief, had trusted her with it even, and then, in my mind, she had confirmed it as true.
What do you think: Is it best to bring things to a head and force a clean break from a friendship that's no longer bringing joy to your life? Or do you prefer the passive approach of phasing out a friendship, potentially dragging out any awkwardness but avoiding direct confrontation?
Follow Jessica Pearce Rotondi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lanewyorkaise
guess i now know where my lines in the sand are and i defend my boundaries a lot better than i used to when it comes to friends in my life.
Example: I wasn't enjoying a recent friendship of mine (10 years going) due to the competitive nature of my ex-friend. It's just who he was as a person. He had a lot of great qualities, but also some that were in conflict with mine. I told him that it was a big effort to be around him. I took my responsibility in the matter. I mean, I was playing into the dynamic as much as he was creating it. The point that I got through to him was that we were very different in a lot of ways and the friendship was too tough for me to maintain. I complimented his strong qualities and respectfully bowed out of the friendship. No animosity, just an understanding that not everyone in the world gets along.
I was impressed with the outcome. I didn't avoid him, lie to him, or be fake to him. I was honest with him, and nobody can criticize you for being open and vulnerable.
Good Luck!
I moved overseas more than 5 years ago, and naively thought I would again meet a group of kindred spirits. It became far more the case of love the one you're with.
An acquaintance from back home took me under her wing, and we became identified as 'best friends'. Truth be told, we never had more than a surface level relationship, in spite of spending most of our free time together. She was there - in her own way - during a very difficult time for me, and whilst I know we aren't ever going to be genuinely close, I have a lot of love for her and value her kindness.
Interestingly, I have recently returned home and spent time with my 'real' friends. These relationships change as people do. Priorities shift, and I think the friendships which last the test of time are those where patience and kindness and the taking the opportunities to connect become the most important aspects. I was pleasantly surprised how resilient our friendships have been, and my dependance on them has moved from a selfish expectation of picking up from where we left off, to it being a privilege to see them again.