friendship

Up until a little over a week ago, I had never had a big falling out with a friend. Obviously I’m not still close with every friend I’ve ever made, but all of the friendships I no longer have ended through a gradual and mutual loss of touch. There was no screaming, crying, “I’m done, f*** you” argument that went down resulting in blocking each other on all social media platforms and telling our other friends they don’t have to choose sides, even though they really do (and it better be mine).

With the falling out I just had, all of that stuff didn’t happen exactly like that. Although, there was definitely crying, a bit of screaming, and the “f*** you” was not explicitly stated, but for sure implied.

In order to uphold the privacy of those involved in this incident, including myself, I’m not going to explain what happened. But, I do want to address what I learned from going through this experience for the first time.

Firstly, honesty really is the best policy. Good friendships are built on truth-telling. If something your friend did hurts you, tell them. If you did something that you’re worried might hurt them, tell them. An open dialogue is really the only way to have a true friendship. If you can’t be honest with your friend, they aren’t seeing every part of you. Therefore, they aren’t friends with you, they’re friends with a version of you that you think they want. A lack of honesty shows that you don’t respect your friend enough to even give them a chance to react. If you feel you can’t be honest with your friend, you should take a step back and question why that is. Is it because you’re worried they will respond badly? Or is it because you don’t care enough about them or yourself to present even a whiff of conflict that could make anything less than picture-perfect? Either way, you better re-evaluate that whole friendship and how close you and that person really are.

Secondly, if someone is really your friend, you should never have to defend how you feel to them. Feelings aren’t controllable and invalidating something that someone can’t control will make them feel belittled and hurt. I’ve been both the belittler and the belittlee, and neither is constructive. A big part of a real, true friendship is trusting that the other person has your best interest as much as it is having their best interest. If they are truly your friend and they are explaining a feeling that hurts you or seems silly, they are doing so because they think that, as your friend, you will be willing to hear them out and attempt to understand that feeling. If a friend is coming to you with feelings they are struggling with, or vice versa, it is your job as their friend to listen and see where they’re coming from.

The next thing I’ve realized is how important it is to trust your gut. This is more of a general statement rather than being specific to friendship, but it matters as much in this area as any other. If that little voice in your head or that pit in your stomach is telling you that something your friend did or said isn’t quite right, it probably isn’t. The person you should trust most in the world is yourself, and sometimes when our brains are avoiding an issue, our bodies take over and remind us of it. Sometimes people’s reactions to what you decide to do isn’t what you hoped, but if you feel deep down that you did the right thing, you did. You can only control you; you are not responsible for anyone else’s lack of maturity or unfair response.

Sometimes it’s really difficult to realize that something, or someone, isn’t good for you. The last thing I’ve learned after this recent event in my life is that friends will come and go, and that’s okay. In the entirety of your life, you will be friends with countless people; some for years, some for months, some for mere days. It’s natural to have an array of different people you’re closest to at every stage in your life. My recent friend “break-up” hurt a lot, but I’ve been able to realize that I have so many people left to meet. Maybe I will reconnect with them someday and we will be able to forgive and forget, and maybe we won’t. Either way, throughout all of this, I have learned what a true friend really looks like for me. I’ve realized that there should be standards that people need to meet in order to be my friend just as much as to be my boyfriend. Remember: “not everybody deserves to know you like that.”

There’s a quote that I found a few months ago that I’ve come to really love. It reads, “be so rooted in yourself that nobody’s absence or presence can disturb your inner peace.” I make this out to be that if you have really worked on yourself, on being content as you are, the coming and going of other people won’t have such a detrimental impact on your mental health. A year and a half ago, I don’t think I could have handled the recent falling out I had, but because I have put so much work into myself over the past 18 months, I’ve been able to come to terms with it. While I was obviously upset, I’ve pushed through and know that I’m going to be okay. Make sure your “inner peace” is secure enough that if something unexpected happens, you have enough love and trust in yourself to fall back on.