The heartbreak of a friend breakup-and how to deal with it
When you’re a kid, it seems that making friends is pretty easy. You find someone who shares a love of treehouses and books and bam! Instant friendship. Adulthood hits and you make friends at work, in your neighborhood, or out on the town. These friendships take more work than before as you no longer have a scheduled class with all your besties. The time eventually and unfortunately comes when either you have a spat that ends a friendship completely or you just simply grow apart and no longer see/hear from that person. On the playground, you saw everyone all the time so even if you started to separate you could still salvage a friendship. Any disagreements were handled after school behind the gym or on a three way call with your unbiased friends. Easy peasy. Those solutions don’t apply to adult life, you could meet Karen in the parking lot after work, but is it worth it? (Spoiler: It’s not. )
As a reasonably well rounded woman who has gone through her share of friends, here is my advice on how to handle any break-ups or breakdowns.
If the break-up blindsides you
Do your best to not dwell on it. Think rationally on what caused the split and if the friendship is worth saving, make the effort.
If it isn’t then don’t worry or overthink it. Sometimes you might have a friend who wasn’t the best and though others maybe saw it first, you might need more convincing. This happened to me and the “friend” took it upon herself to silently end things. Though I was upset at first, I realized that she did me a favor. You don’t need bad friends in your life ever.
If you realize one day that you haven’t seen or spoken to a friend in more than a month
Reach out! If it’s a good friend and you have totally different interests or paths, but when you talk/get together its a great time go after that. Thanks to social media there are friends you can go months and years without seeing in person but because of a little comment or like you can talk everyday if you want.
Much like with the break-up, this can happen with friends. You drift apart for a reason unknown to you until you here from a friend of a friend that they ended up moving to Siberia to lead an elk cult. Do you want to join an elk cult? No, you do not.
Work break-ups are pretty tough, honestly
But at the same time, they don’t have to be awful. Say that you and Karen got in a fight over something unimportant, nothing that will affect your jobs. And you both might be upset enough to want to take it outside or trash talk around the watercooler. BUT that will affect your jobs. So my best advice in this situation is to be kind. Be cordial. You don’t need to overact, you just need to be polite and when you clock out, call your partner and rant. Keep your own head up; self-preservation is the best thing.
I thought we had a great bond and then they moved floors/buildings/stores
And now you never hear from them or it’s very rare and they have a new buddy to go to happy hours with. Well, this is a fact of life. On occasion you are faced with “convenience friends,” who, like the name states, are only around when it’s easy. This is where you either reach out or recognize that you may have been bonded over having similar shifts or neighboring offices, and now that you don’t you realize that you really had zero in common except proximity. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Not everyone is meant to be your bestie for life.
My neighbor was alright and then we had a fight and it’s awkward:
The simple best part of being an adult is the fact that you aren’t obligated to get along with everyone. If you were friends with a neighbor but something happened and now you’re mad at each other, let it lie. If you can’t resolve it and grow past it then in the end that’s totally fine. Yes you will see them in passing and yes you might be at BBQs with them, but you don’t have to be anything more than polite. It’s better for yourself to not harbor a grudge.
There was a party and my neighbor and I completely hit it off and now I haven’t heard from them in a few weeks
Have you reached out? If not, go for it. You never know who could be your next BFF!
Meghan Rose lives in St. Petersburg, Florida enjoying the sunshine along with her husband and their pet skunk. She loves Halloween, flower crowns and drinking on porches. Follow along with her adventures on Twitter or Instagram, both @meghan_renate, and her personal blog, http://meghanrenate.blogspot.com/ Ramblings Of A Rose.
[Image via YouTube]