The Friendship Break up
The oft-forgotten friend break-up. Second to relationship break-ups, or “real” break-ups, the break-up of a friendship in popular culture is typically viewed as less dramatic, less emotional, and less painful than its romantic counterpart. Where romantic break-ups are the common subjects of songs, films, literature and art, the breakdown of a friendship hardly gets recognition. Taylor Swift’s countless heartbreak anthems still include very few references to losing friends, despite the dissolving of her very public star-studded “girl squad” of the mid-2010s, highlighted most recently by the betrayal of ex-best friend Karlie Kloss in Swift’s dispute with Scooter Braun. I have yet to see a crying-in-the-shower, eating-ice-cream-out-the-tub montage in a movie about the loss of a close friend, unless there are romantic elements involved.
And yet, I don’t think it would be a stretch to assert that most people would agree losing a good friend is often one of the hardest things in life. Twitter user @bestinsio put it best when they wrote: “a friend breakup is just a regular breakup but nobody around you cares and you cant blame it on your face being weird”. And it’s true. Despite it often being just as difficult and painful an experience — or sometimes even more so — a friend breakup is hardly an excuse for emotional expression the way a romantic breakup is. People are forgiving when a relationship ends. They allow you to be sad, to play your designated heartbreak playlist all day, to drink and cry all night. But when you find one of your friendships is over, the same courtesy isn’t extended. “I’m sorry, I’m going through a rough time, I’ve just ended things with my friend” doesn’t hold up quite like “I’m going through a break up” does.
Part of this may be because friendships are harder to define. Unlike relationships, they don’t always have definitive start dates; likewise, there isn’t always a specific end, a significant “this friendship is no longer working” conversation, making the emotional impact less immediate and more subtle. We also tend to have more friendships than relationships. Losing one friend doesn’t necessarily alter your life in an obvious way, whereas losing a partner does tend to call for a more significant lifestyle change. On paper, the loss of a relationship impacts your life more than the loss of a friend does. But in reality, that’s just not always the case. Our friends can play a major role in shaping who we are, and they are never replaceable.
Looking back on a friendship and realising that this person who once knew all the ins and outs of your brain is now a stranger — walking past someone and knowing their deepest fears but not the name of their current partner — well, that’s a special kind of pain that I don’t think will ever really go away. And sure, for the most part friend break-ups don’t have the same drama or immediate emotional turmoil that the end of relationships quite often bring. But there is no feeling quite like seeing my ex-best friend post a picture in a new city and realising I don’t know the first thing about her life any more.
by Zara Denham (Staff Love & Relationships Writer)
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