I’d like to think we can all relate to this topic, can’t we? It’s a sad time in our lives, when we lose a friendship that has become so important to us over time.
Friendships are such a funny thing. You meet someone, and when you’re young you just go with the flow, if they stick around – great, if not – that’s fine too. Drifting away is normal, losing touch is commonplace. As you get older, though, those nagging thoughts (voices) in your head become louder and more prominent. The drifting doesn’t seem so normal, so immediately I think it has to be something I did. These scenarios play out in any number of ways.
1. I think it’s something I did, or said. I haven’t heard from her in months, and calls go unreturned.
2. There’s a strange pause in the conversation, and then a quick subject change, and then the gaps between conversations grow longer and longer, until they stop.
3. A number of days pass where there’s no connection at all, then you talk but it’s rapid fire, and the fakeness is so thick you can hardly wait to get off the phone and replay the last several months in your head.
4. She stopped reading my blog.
Gasp! WHAT? She stopped reading my blog?! Of all of the sins of friendship, isn’t that one like, the most important? Even my mom reads my blog. C’mon. If you love me, you read my blog. That’s the only possible excuse you’d have for not calling. Right?
Right.
So all of these things are a good indication that something has gone awry. There are ways to handle it, however, it just baffles me that people choose to let it just disappear without a word. Don’t they have any idea the amount of wondering a person can do? Wondering is dangerous. Side effects include dizziness, stomach upset and in rare cases, vomiting. See? Nothing good comes from wondering.
Nothingness. And then if you happen to make contact? There are excuses. Are they believable? Legitimate? Do you hold your friendship at the same level as before the long absence? Don’t you feel like you’ve got a big “reject” stamp in the middle of your forehead when this happens? (Oh, please tell me it’s happened to you.)
There are a few lines in “You’ve Got Mail” that I love, and they are SO true.
Joe: It wasn’t… personal.
Kathleen: What is that supposed to mean? I am so sick of that. All that means is that it wasn’t personal to you. But it was personal to me. It’s *personal* to a lot of people. And what’s so wrong with being personal, anyway?
Joe: Uh, nothing.
Kathleen: Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal.
Over the years, I’ve noticed a trend with me and my friendships. I’ve actually set some guidelines now before an acquaintance becomes a friend, and a friend becomes a cherished part of my life. This prevents a lot of pain, and it also gives my friends something to aspire to, if they can tolerate me long enough. It’s pretty simple, there are short-term, mid-term, long-term, and lifelong friendships. Yes, I split them up into categories. It helps me keep track.
Short-term friendships are those that last two years or less. (I can expand or reduce that amount of time as I see fit, of course.) In this amount of time, you can really determine if you have enough in common to go to the next level, or if you just cut your ties and call it a learning experience. Honestly? Too many people don’t make it past this stage. I must be really annoying. Or something. Most often? No explanation is required. I’m okay with that. That’s not to say it doesn’t hurt, because it certainly stings and makes me analyze myself. Okay, I over-analyze myself.
Mid-term friendships are 2-4 years long. If you make it past the short term, there’s a good chance you’ll make it – because anyone who knows me knows that one year should be about all anyone can take. If you make it past 2, you’re like, gifted. And special. You will get a Christmas card. If you vanish just before or after the 4 year mark, it would be really freakin’ nice to know what I did, because how am I supposed to NOT do that in the future? Really. Specifics are good. I call those losses a lesson in self-improvement. And I cry about them. Yes, I do. You might not THINK I care, but I’m over here caring like a banshee, I’m just not good at communicating that.
Long-term friendships, 5-10 years long, usually these people know that I’m not good at communicating that I care. I appreciate them even more for knowing my slanted sense of humor equals love and affection, and my aloofness is a result of having children and looking at my monitor for too long. I cry for them, with them, and sometimes, because of them. When a long term friendship ends, it’s like losing an arm. Or at least some fingers. These people are IMPORTANT. They KNOW stuff about me, because I don’t share that stuff with just anybody, and you HAVE to know that if you disappear after that amount of time, I expect all my dirty laundry to have it’s own place on the web that I don’t know about with thousands of commentors saying what an ass I am. I had to have done something horribly, terribly wrong for a long term friendship to vanish. Seriously. What did I say? What did I do? You can’t just get to this stage and exit stage left without leaving a note. These losses are heartbreaking, and sad, and mournful.
Lifelong friendships – well, obviously they never left. Beyond the stage of needing any explanation that life happens, comfortable enough for just 2 calls a year (as long as she never forgets my birthday, and I never forget hers, we will always be sisters at heart). Those are wonderful, cozy, giggly and loving friendships that you know will never end. I’m so glad I have these, because I truly cherish them. And I’m also very glad I haven’t mourned the loss of one of these friends, because that would only happen by death, and that would be so sad that I would be blogging through Kleenex. There would be no other way.
I do spend a lot of time wondering, though, about those mid and long-term disappearances. Why is it so hard to say goodbye, if you share so much? I have friends who have gone through this as well. One day you wake up and one of your best friends is just gone. Someone you let in a little more than others, someone whose friendship you thought you were building to go to the next level. No explanation, no forwarding address – and when you leave more than just a few messages you start feeling like a stalker. How can one person care so much more than the other? How can someone just let it go *poof* without a word?
What has to happen in order for it to be SO bad that a person doesn’t even rate enough for a call, an apology, a friendship breakup song on tape in a small brown box without a return address in the mailbox on a rainy gray afternoon?
{30 Comments}
I had to laugh at the blog reading part… My BFF does not read my blog. Most of my friends don’t. And that’s ok.
It may not be about you. I know that sounds weird, but sometimes -like in church- people just ‘fall away’. It would be nice to know what went wrong, but often it simply comes down to time and distance and kids… life intrudes and people gain other friends and you are squeezed out, becoming a stranger.
I’m sorry someone was rough with your feelings. But it sounds as if they don’t deserve your gift of friendship, anyway.
Hope you feel better soon.
pam’s last blog post..Good for what ails you
Maybe something is going on with your friend and she is embarrassed or not ready to talk about it yet. Sometimes that happens to me, I just am all tangled up inside but not able to share it right now. I hope you are able to get back together.
Marsha’s last blog post..A Battle of Wills
i’m sorry. it stinks.
I am the worlds worst for keeping friends. I sometimes let them drift away and I have no idea why. Then when they are gone… I miss them terribly. My problem is that I am not a good communicator. I forget birthdays. I forget special moments that need acknowledging. I let things slip by that are important all the time.
Sometimes I think it is because I was an only child and never learned proper socializing. (If that makes sense). I am terrible on the phone most times and have trouble carring on a conversation. I am bad at calling someone (even my mother) and when I run out of things to say I will end the conversation. I know it isn’t the proper way to do this… but it is my way of covering my lack of skills.
I hope your friend finds his or her way back. Offering a virtual hug to get you by… :)
It’s rough when a friendship ends…it’s kinda like a divorce…sometimes you just fall apart and others there’s a big blow up. At least with the blow ups you know what happened. To often with friendships they end with the falling apart. Hugs
I’ve been a bit of a stalker when I’ve had the falling apart friendships. Like you, I would just like to know why. But there’s yet another bit of closure that I’ll never have. sigh
Renee’s last blog post..Pizzagna curiosity
Can I be your friend now, please?
You can never have too many in my opinion.
DeeJay’s last blog post..Love
I can totally relate. I had – what I thought was a very good friend – I have not spoken one word to her in many years. She called me and reamed me out for something I supposedly did. She did the same thing to another friend of mine. Alas, I think she just wanted to end the friendships. I think she felt that we weren’t good enough to be her friends since she’d moved to a new and more exclusive neighborhood (heaven forbid the normal people should visit and give her a lousy reputation). The writing was on the wall when she moved and didn’t bother to mention it to any of us… Yup.. that was a pretty big clue.
Oh, the breakup. Really hard. Especially when you don’t know why. I think most often it has to do with the person who does the drifting and probably not you at all.
Women can be really complex. We make the best friends, or the worst ones. Sometimes people pull away, because they can’t handle staying close — and it has NOTHING to do with you. It’s all about them, and that’s the way it is.
Now, if you’re like me, you have problems with flakiness. If I’ve done something, tell me. If I call you, don’t blow me off. If anything we had can remotely be called a “friendship” (long term), then I expect the courtesy of closure — if it’s nothing more than, “Our relationship has served its purpose in my life, and I need to move on”. Okay. I wish you the best. It takes guts to be a grownup, but for goodness sakes, be a grownup. Don’t treat me like I’m…nothing. Gotta big problem with that. Cuz if I call someone “friend”, that means something to ME, whether it means something to the other person or not. Obviously there are different “levels” of friendship. But the lightest level still deserves a level of consideration and respect.
I have ONE, true-blue, take-a-bullet-for-me, pray with/cry with, all-weather friend. We’ve been friends, since we were 14 years old. We’re in our forties now. I know her. She knows me. You’re blessed to get one of those, in life. I am blessed. Everybody else may drift in and out, and that’s cool because I don’t invest too much, in the first place. I keep it light, cuz that’s what most folks can handle. Seriously.
I’m sorry about your loss. Pray for your lost friend, and release her — God will always supply what (who) we need to grow and stretch us, so we become better people.
Blessings Leanne!
ANappyGirl’s last blog post..We?re Snowed In!
Itsso sad when friendships fade away, though sometimes two people just grow away from each other. I’ve certainly had that situation,
But the death of what had seemed like a good friendship is really difficult. Sorry to read about it.
Crafty Green Poet’s last blog post..Mother of Pearl Clouds
I wouldn’t be so quick to bury her. She has been there through thick and thin – maybe she’s going through her own “muddle” right now and can’t be there for you. Maybe she just needs your support and patience – and maybe persistance – you know, to show that she really matters to you…? Or I could be all wet and that would just put the final nail in the coffin… It’s not easy!
It’d be easy to leave a comment that’s at least as long as your post, but in the interest of brevity, I’ll try to narrow down to a few points:
1. I was surprised…and frankly, relieved…to see that many of your friends don’t read your blog. Most of mine don’t either. I’ve always wondered why. Heck, I’d never know if they read it or deleted it…why not let me THINK they’re interested! Perhaps worse are the ones who subscribed and then unsubscribed.
2. Who’s to say why people come and go in our lives… sometimes it’s just that people grow in different directions and at different paces. I know that since I’ve stopped golfing, that entire group of “friends” and I have lost contact. I see now that golf was the only thing holding us together. With others, changes in either my life or theirs have morphed our friendship into something less than it was.
3. This life is a transient thing…the only thing that’s constant is change. Yes, I can philosophize, but in the end, it’s tough. It’s tough because it’s not just a question of “why don’t they like me anymore?”…at least for me. For me, it also stirs up thoughts about my life and its cycles. Depending on my state of mind I crawl inside myself and mourn, or I gather myself and move on.
June’s last blog post..Small Things
I loved this post. I have agonized over so many dead relationships. Sometimes I feel like there is something wrong with me that not every friendship survives forever. Then I turn around and kill a friendship without so much as a word to the person as to why. So as often as I feel sorry for myself on this subject, it turns out that I suck.
Beautifully written, Leanne. I wish that I could offer you some advice, but I’m a bit out of the norm as far as friends go. I mainly hang out with my family members—sister, cousins, aunts & uncles—that I barely have time for friends. Actually, I guess they are my friends. And I’m related. So, they can’t get rid of me.
BTW – your blog design just gets more beautiful by the day. I am so envious.
lulu’s last blog post..TOFUnkified
I’ve had enough friends disappear from my life for various reasons that I tend to just expect it now. (Yeesh. Makes me sound real loveable, doesn’t it?
) I have only a few very close friends who I am sure will be a part of my life until the day I die, but the rest I enjoy for the time I have them, knowing that things can change at any time. Sometimes a change in one’s life can completely upset the balance of a friendship.
That said, it is really hard when a friend you thought would be a lifetime friend suddenly and unexpectedly turns out not to be. I never write them off entirely though; you never know when an old friend might become a new friend all over again.
Geekwif’s last blog post..Somebody Help Me – I Can’t Breathe
I don’t make friends easily. I never have. Not real ones in real life. In college I experienced the first real loss of friendship I ever had–I hadn’t put myself out there enough to have lost anyone I considered a good friend. It happened several times in college. I never understood it.
I only have a couple of real friends (people I consider friends–through thick and thin friends, not aquaintances) left. Sometimes I am okay with that. Other times? Not so much.
I read this post the other day and didn’t comment at the time because I had so much to say, I’d take up your comment section. :)
And now I see that your other readers were echoing my thoughts as well.
I wonder if part of the way you feel is because there’s no closure, really. and that’s hard on anyone. It could be that she has issues of her own that she’s going through, hopefully that’s the reason. Sometimes we inadvertently hurt the ones we care about the most, because we take them for granted. Maybe that’s what she has done, I don’t know.
But remember there are those who do care about you, and they see the good in all you do and value you just for who you are. And that’s the truth.
Friendships, can often take a lot of work.
Btw, I’ve got to echo what lulu said, your blog design really just gets so beautiful with every redesign. I love the pale flowers in the background that show up as I type this comment, and the light chocolate and tan colors as well. the leaves here and there, the bunnies and the notebook…..Gorgeous!!!!
Laura VitaminSea’s last blog post..A few things to tell you…
Kinda sounds like marriage. :) I used to spend a lot of time wondering what happened but I really think it’s not anything you (or I) did but people just tend to drift together and apart. Maybe I’m sad, I don’t have any lifelong friends, we have all moved apart and on with our lives. I would say most of my friendships are in the 2-6 year marks. Just seems to be the way of life. I still think about many of hte people I’ve lost touch with and wonder where they are and what they’ve been up to. I wish I knew how to contact them but. . .
Lisa’s Chaos’s last blog post..he only has eyes for me
This post really resonates with me, I have a friend who actually used to also be my boss, and he suddenly cut off ALL contact not all that long ago. I am pretty sure I am blocked on his aim messenger and I have left him several messages on facebook etc ( he never accepted my add to friends thing there lol)
It is all really odd and I have no answers. It has been several months and I still think about it from time to time. I don’t really know who does or doesn’t read my blog apart from the time I had half of TV New Zealand tracking me ahahah
Wendy’s last blog post..How to shame and humiliate your cat
I stumbled into your blog because I was looking for stuff on losing friends.
I had one of those blow-up-ending friendship losses. It was a lot of vague accusations with no real ability to defend myself or be heard. It has been a year now…still no real closure.
Thanks for writing this entry.
Kelly’s last blog post..I can’t get that song out of my head!
Hi!
Thank you for writing this post! I found it when I looked up “Where does a friendship go when it dies?” I have lost, maybe permanently, a friend that I shared a lot of love with. We used to have lots of laughs and serious heart to heart talks. We spent hundreds of hours communicating…I poured out my heart to her and her to me. But it ended and there was nothing I could do about it. She outright ignored calls and cards, was avoided me and was even curt and rude to me when we had brief encounters.
This really broke my heart.
When given the opportunity, I asked her what was going on? Had I hurt her her in some way? No. She hopes I forgive her. She says she feels the potential for a close friendship, wants to keep the connection, wants to be my friend and spend time with me.
Alas, nothing changes if nothing changes. She seems to be glad to see me at family gatherings, yet is superficial in her conversation. There’s no outreach from her. She continues to disregard any contact I make. Whatever she’s going through, if anything, she hasn’t invited me in to find out.
For now, this is the way things are. A friendship takes two. I still have my warm and caring heart. I still have gratitude for all that we shared. When I get pulled too much into my emotions, I give myself a dose of the serenity prayer and send her love and a blessing from my heart
[...] Thanks for all the kind comments and nice emails — one reader forwarded this to me, which made me laugh out loud. Friendships are such a funny thing. You meet someone, and when you’re young you just go with the [...]
Wow. So many people in the same boat as I am. I am ready to let go of a friendship that has turned into a one way street. She was very special to me, older, and I considered her like a second mother. All of a sudden, she just stopped calling me, and it’s only me who tries to keep in contact. She says awful things to me that I can’t believe would come from her. I don’t know what’s wrong, and if I even come close to asking her, she shuts me off. I’m really going to miss her though because she was really there for me when I went through some of the worst times of my life. There’s no doubt that I will always love her.
Thanks for writing this entry:) I, too, goggled “what happens when a friendship dies” and found your post.
It’s so hard to deal with, but I agree that all too often there’s no concrete explanation for it:(
I just came to realize today that one of my friendships has been dying for a while now. When my friend got a new job, our conversations grew fewer and fewer. I just realized today that we have not hung out for the entire summer (yes, summer is busy and we took our vacations at different times, but not once is hard for me to fathom). Our friendship became minimized to a cluster of facebook interactions: messages, thumbs up, and wall comments. When she stopped replying to my private messages, I started to notice. When I called her today to ask if I had done something to offend her, she seemed genuinely unaware there was a problem. She didn’t even realize that she’d failed to reply to my messages. I didn’t realize until after our conversation that there were so many messages from me left unanswered. I just counted and there are 7 in a little over a month!
Funny thing is…I don’t think I did anything. Her life just got busy with work and I became insignificant. During our conversation today, she mentioned that she had a lot on her plate and couldn’t deal with one more burden. That’s all I’ve become to her…a burden she has to answer to.
It saddens me…and angers me (I guess, if I am honest, the anger comes because it hurts my pride to think our friendship meant so little to her).
I’ll probably always wonder if we could’ve saved our 3 year friendship from fading away…but I do know this: Friendships are like flowers…if you fail to nuture them, they will die. I want to share my little metaphor with her, but fear it will just be another burden for her to bear, so I choose to share it here.
If there are new developments on your dying friendship, please be sure to update us.
thank you so much for this post and all the comments. i relate to so many of the postings. i found this blog because i have lost a dear friend.
we shared 7 very good years. i have wonderful and close friends from childhood but she was the most significant friend i’ve made (other than my husband) in my adult life.
it unraveled slowly at first, and then very suddenly it was over this past summer. she called it quits on a voice mail message. we’d exchanged some e-mails trying to work through a conflict and based on the e-mails, she decided (in her words) to let our friendship go. she didn’t tell me what triggered her to leave. it was sudden and especially painful because one of my childhood best friends died _the same week_ from an aneurysm.
i can’t believe she bailed when she did, but i suppose she showed me her true colors?
it’s so hard for me to square the timing of her exit. i am angry and sad. it’s also hard not to have an explanation or final conversation. the best i can do at this point is pray for her and be grateful for the friends i do have. thanks for reading and providing a space to share.
Even though this actual blog entry is almost 2 years old, it still resonates with so many of us.
A friendship that wasn’t that long in years (3 maybe), but felt like it was a sisterhood has all but ended. sigh Yes, there is definitely a grieving period associated with losing a friend. I acknowledge and have apologized for my part in the “breakup”, but it seems that the words were just blown apart in the wind and never heard.
Life. A door closes…another opens.
Angela – thanks for commenting. Yes, it is all still very, very true. In fact, I went through it again just a month ago. It completely, totally sucks. But you’re right, because as that door closed, one opened within moments.
Some relationships are meant to dissolve, sad as it is – we grieve, and we learn.
:)
I just received an email message that there were new posts, so I came back to read the updates. It’s funny, when I re-read my entry, I remember the pain I felt then, but I do not feel it as much now. We never revived our friendship, but I think I’ve chosen to accept it and move on. We still see each other at social gatherings, but we don’t have an intimate conversations like we did in the past. I saw her this weekend and all she could talk about were her co-workers. I don’t know them, so had nothing to add to the conversation, and it made me realize we don’t have much in common anymore. I wouldn’t say a new door has opened ( I haven’t found a friend who lives in our relatively new town that I spend as much time or share as much with), but I’m not dealing with the grief any more, either. Time helps us to heal. But, true, close friendships are hard to find, so if you have one that is on the brink, do what you can to save it. I feel that I did my part, and that’s really all that you can do.
Andrea,
I’m so glad that time is healing your pain. It’s odd to look back on things – I look back on my original post and remember that time very vividly – and am so grateful for the healing that came from that time and the healing of the relationship with that friend.
Now, I have newer – more recent pain to look back on but you know? After months of pulling away, it doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. I think, like you, there was a gradual growing apart that made the actual break up easier to bear.
We pick and choose our friends, but not our family. I have to accept the women my brothers married, so after reading this blog I’ve come to believe it’s a waste of time to try and accept the women my male platonic friends marry. Long story, but 25 years of friendship’s on a literal life support right now behind an email misunderstanding. Why? My male friend’s wife and sister refuse to talk to me.
I too have a childhood friend. We’ve been friends for 46 years. We have totally different values when it comes to quite a few things, but we bonded as girls and have been there for one another through death, divorce, financial problems.
Friendships aren’t measured in calendar days, in my opinion.
Thanks for addressing your concerns.