403 - When Friends Kick You to the Curb
Breaking up with a friend
There’s a lot of advice out there (and on this podcast, of course) about how to handle a romantic breakup, but there’s less information about how to handle a situation when a friendship ends, whether you initiated ending it or not. Nevertheless, most of us have likely experienced a friendship ending in some way, either by drifting apart, ghosting, a big blowup of a fight…the list is endless.
This episode, we discuss some research on why friendships end, some coping mechanisms when you find yourself in the sad situation of parting ways with a friend, and how to reconcile (if that’s something you both want).
Why do friendships end?
Based on our research, some reasons that could contribute to a friendship breakup include:
Social context (school, university, jobs, neighborhoods, etc.) are contributing factors.
Current events (such as the Covid-19 pandemic). One in seven people ended friendships over different stances on the Covid-19 vaccine, for example.
Geographic mobility and marrying later in life are two American trends that have contributed to self-reported isolation/loneliness.
In the United States, parents are spending twice as much time with their children than previous generations, decreasing time and effort for other relationships.
Again in the United States, people are overall working longer hours and traveling more for work, which may be contributing to having trouble developing and maintaining friendships.
One study came up with four different categories and 55 reasons people end friendships:
Selfishness, where the friendship may feel one-sided.
Romantic involvement, such as one person being interested in the other romantically without reciprocation.
Lack of frequent interaction.
Perception of friends and family.
Getting through a friend breakup
Sometimes it can be difficult to grieve for a friendship breakup. Often, this is due to disenfranchised grief, or grief that is not acknowledged as legitimate by society. There are very few institutions, support systems, rituals, etc. that help people experiencing disenfranchised grief.
Some ways to handle the difficulty of a friendship breakup include:
View your pain as legitimate. Seeing friendships as less valuable can impact both the support we receive and the way we process our grief.
Practice self care.
Avoid rumination.
Exercise.
Talk to someone, whether another friend or loved one or a trusted professional.
Read about others in your situation.
Try a new friend group.
Examine what went wrong in the friendship.
Check your emotional health.
Try some closure exercises.
Reconciling a broken friendship
While there may be some good, lasting reasons to not reconcile with a former friend, other times both parties want to mend things. Our research found a step-by-step process for reconciliation for those times when you want to try to rebuild a former friendship:
Analyze the extent of the damage.
Understand why you became friends in the first place.
Why do you want to be friends again?
Preparing to build a stronger bridge aka that first call.
Approaching a friend-turned-stranger.
Visit the article for more in-depth instruction for each step.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we are talking about friendship breakups. We've done a ton of episodes over the years about romantic relationship breakups or how relationships transition into something different than they previously were. What happens when you and a friend part ways? Today, we're going to be discussing some of the reasons why friendships end, some statistics on friendship breakups, and then we're going to talk about how to get over those, some things you can apply, and is it possible to reconcile after a friendship breakup? Is that even something that you should want?
A lot of things to get into with this. As always on this show, we realize that relationships are just relationships, whether we call them friendships or romantic relationships or whatever. Actually, in prepping this and talking about this together, we just saw so many parallels with other types of relationships, whether it's family, whether it's friends, whether it's professional acquaintances, or romantic relationships. I think there's a lot of value here, though, in looking at some of the research and some of the things people have written on this subject.
Emily: I wanted to talk about this topic because this happened to me recently. I had friends that I was quite close to that dropped me pretty suddenly without much explanation or any interest in making amends. It was really painful for a while. I went through the multiple stages of grief, it felt like. Denial and hoping that, eventually, I would be able to come back and reconcile with them. Finally, after a while, I just got to the acceptance stage and realized that it was pretty much done. I think the only chance for reconciliation is going to happen if it's on their end because my multiple times of reaching out has yielded no good results. That is what it is.
I am surprised by this breakup. I didn't really think that anything that happened merited the response that ended up occurring. That's interesting as well. I just wanted to talk about it further, especially with the two of you because you have a lot of life experience, and I'm fascinated to know if anything like this has happened in either of your lives.
Dedeker: I was sitting and thinking about it, and I think in my adult life, I haven't necessarily had a friendship breakup. I've had the drifting away. We don't talk so much anymore or maybe you were weird one time, so I don't talk to you as much, but it wasn't necessarily a close relationship. I think the last time I had a close relationship breakup was when I was a teenager. That was the last time. That was a lot of different life factors involved, where my best friend, who had been my best friend since elementary school--
In middle school, her dad died, and I think that really spun her out. She started hanging out with a bad crowd, and at one point she had to be institutionalized. It was bad. That feels a little different than what you're talking about. She and I definitely had a lot of conflict, but no, I don't think I've had that experience in my adult life. I've talked to a lot of people who have, though, so I know it seems it's a pretty common occurrence.
Jase: Again, for me, most of mine have been that maybe we just find that we're not getting along as well anymore and we drift apart. Maybe there's some attempts at connection that just aren't received and then it drifts away. The one that comes to mind in terms of a friend breakup was a friend who we'd been friends for several years since middle school through college. One day, he just stopped ever speaking to me. We didn't live in the same state or anything, so it wasn't like he would ignore me in the hall or anything like that, but just stopped responding to any messages, any calls, any emails, anything.
I actually think that in this case, it was my fault, at least a little bit, at least mostly, that basically what I'm pretty sure precipitated it was a conversation we had about religion. This was during a time for me in college really moving away from some of the Christian ideas that I was raised with in terms of things like substitutional atonement of there's a price to be paid for our sins and that Jesus dying had to be that. I was starting to question those and think about how that didn't make sense to me and was really into that stuff. Meanwhile, for him in college is where he became born again Catholic, and so he was living in the very opposite direction. We had this--
Dedeker: Not really melting stuff together so well.
Jase: No. We had this conversation at his house once when I was visiting him during college, like senior year of college, and had what to me was a lively intellectual debate. I think to him was a deeply upsetting, really offensive conversation.
Dedeker: Sure. I can see that.
Jase: I didn't realize that till afterward. I've since then, like many years later, tried to see if maybe I could reach out but haven't been able to find his contact information. I guess part of me holds out hope that I know I've chilled a little bit on those opinions since then, and I would hope that maybe he has too, and maybe there could be some hope for that. This has also now been, what? 17 years or something like that, so who knows?
Dedeker: Ah, that's rough.
Jase: Yes,
Emily: It was rough. I think that does tend to happen and be a reason why people drift apart or cataclysmically have big changes of heart about one another, is because, if they're going through something really emotional in terms of getting more deeply ingrained into their values or into a newer value system, it sounds like your friend did perhaps, and that's just fundamentally opposed to what you believe or different enough that it may change the way that they feel about you.
I know my friend, Tina, when I was delving into polyamory, as you know, she was very, very against it and she was getting married at the time and felt that it was fundamentally opposed to what her value system lined up with in terms of wanting to be monogamous and married and all of those things. That kept us apart and not nearly as close as we had been for a number of years. We did reconcile that relationship, and that's great, but it doesn't always happen.
Jase: Let's talk a little bit about just some statistics. What is normal? What have we seen in terms of friendships from a research point of view? This comes from a couple of different studies that both had Gerald Mollenhorst, who's a Dutch sociologist, as well as a couple other researchers, Beate Volker and Hank Flop. Fun names to say. Basically, in a couple different studies, what they found looking at people over time, is that over a seven-year period, people's social circle, so both their close friends as well as their larger social network--
To keep in mind, we're talking more like early 2000s. This is less of a social network in the way we think of it now in an online way, but more of an actual social network of people that you're connected to. They found that over that period, the size of one's friend group and your larger social network tends to stay about the same, tends to stay consistent, but the people who are in that does change, and that, in their research, at least, over the course of seven years, they found that only about 30% of the close friendships were still the same people as they were seven years prior.
Dedeker: Haven't we found in other research? I forget which, that with a circle of friendship, there tends to be a little bit of a one in, one out.
Jase: Yes. We did talk about that before. I forget what episode that was on, but yes, that does seem to line up with these findings here, that your friendship group's going to stay the same, but it might cycle out and not all those people are going to stay in that close circle of friends.
Emily: It just reminds me of that cultural narrative of the 7 year age, which I realize is not exactly the same thing, but this idea that is put into us that, oh, things are going to change, or you're going to want newness and novelty after a period of seven years potentially. I don't know if that has something to do with it, or just we become different people as we age, and we want different people in our social circle.
Dedeker: Maybe this was based on these findings. I may have found something for that related the last time that we did an episode on friendship, but what I always heard was, if you have a friendship that's lasted longer than six or seven years, they're probably going to stick around for much longer. I guess maybe the thinking is if they get past that cycling out on that first seven years, then maybe they'll be around for another seven years possibly.
Jase: Yes. That's cool. It does seem like with friendships at least, and this is just anecdotal, this is not based on any research that I've found, but that we do tend to, with friends, if that relationship just feels less valuable or less comfortable, or we're less into it, we do let that drift away in a way that we don't always do with relationships, especially if we're married, or something like that. I could see that applying with a friendship, where it's like, yes, without any social pressure keeping us together, if we've still stayed friends, yes, there's probably something here that's going to last longer. That's an interesting theory.
Let's get into a little bit about why these might end. First, just based off these couple studies I was mentioning, for them, it was basically the one in one out rule, and that they tended to change with social context. If you change jobs, you move locations, you graduate from school, or you go into school, that those are big factors in who's around you. That's a big part of determining friendships. I know we found some other things also.
Dedeker: Yes. I think the first one that maybe has been the most relevant to everybody's lives the past few years is COVID. First of all, do the two of you have an experience of either losing a friend over the course of the pandemic or drifting apart from a friend or specifically losing a friend because of differences in how you viewed the pandemic, or the reality or lack of reality to the pandemic?
Emily: Generally, the people that I've been around have all been similar in terms of my level of I think wanting to be masked or being vaccinated, things around those. Honestly, when I wrote this question, Dedeker, I thought more about you and some of your family members and thought a little bit along those lines of-- especially in families that have deep divides on this issue.
I know that some of my family members that I talk to less regularly, I've heard of them having deep divides in terms of this issue, and one person really wanting to be vaccinated and wanting to stay away from others and social distance, and things like that versus people who are just, "Yes. Whatever. We're going to do anything that we want."
Dedeker: Yes. I will say, as far as my family is concerned, that I actually take it as a point of pride that despite the deep divides, have not just cut anybody off, which I think is a good thing. As far as friendships are concerned, yes. I think in my circle of friends-- I think right away when the pandemic hit, there was definitely that closing up the hatches, and, oh my God, my energy really needs to be devoted to surviving physically, mentally, emotionally right now, helping the people closest to me survive as well.
I definitely lost some friendships not necessarily because there was a falling out, but I think just because there was that shrinking. There's been research to support that, that people just shrunk their support networks or that happened to them unwillingly. I think that definitely happened. I think that even outside of very clear divides of things like you think the pandemic is fake, and I think it's real, or you think the vaccine is fake, or whatever, and I think it's real, there's still a lot of in-between I've noticed with a lot of folks of just, oh, well, we're both on the same side as far as thinking the pandemic is real, but you're okay to go to a picnic, and I'm not. I think that's too risky.
For some people, I think it's easier to hold the, "Okay, that's fine. I can manage my own risk level versus somebody else's risk level." For other people, I think it gets a lot more connected to morality. I cannot respect a friend who has made the choice to go to a picnic during these times when I wouldn't. I do think that it's not even just about the most extreme black-and-white divide, but I think there's a lot of gradations in between where people have run into these issues with their friends.
Jase: I've seen some of those also smooth out a little bit over time too, where there have been some divides like that where it's like we mostly agree, but we've handled this a little differently, and that pushed us apart. I have seen a lot of people who now, it's like, okay, yes. Now, we're all friends again. It's like, yes, that was a thing and we got through it, and maybe we still disagree about how we handled it, but it's in the past, and we've moved on. At least that's been my sense of it versus those ones that have been friends parting ways over vastly different because it feels like those vastly different divides have just gotten wider rather than narrowing.
Dedeker: Yes. Actually, there's this survey that was conducted by OnePoll research that found that one in seven people ended friendships specifically over the COVID-19 vaccine stance. A difference in that stance, which one in seven is-- that's significant.
Emily: It's a lot, yes.
Dedeker: That's a lot of people. It's not just COVID necessarily. There's also some findings from this American perspective survey that was published in May of 2021, looking at what are the primary factors causing friendship decline in the US. The pandemic was one of them. They also suggested that between the factors of people marrying later and also being more geographically mobile. Fewer nd fewer people are just living in the town they grew up in their entire lives or just moving once and then staying there the rest of their lives.
A lot of people are becoming more mobile, and this is not just talking about the whole digital nomad trend, but I think also the expectation of, oh, if a good job pops up halfway across the country, chances are--
Emily: I'm going to leave.
Dedeker: Yes. If you're able to leave, you want to leave.
Jase: Even across the state. Even several hours away is going to change your social circle dramatically.
Dedeker: Yes. They think that those two factors, marrying later, and then being more mobile is associated with increasing rates of self-reported social isolation and feelings of loneliness, which totally makes sense. They mentioned that parents are spending twice as much time with their children compared to previous generations, which means that there's less time for other relationships, including their friendships. I thought that was fascinating.
Emily: That is. It's like it is that because we associate this era of helicopter parents now?
Dedeker: Oh, think about parents in the '80s. I was a cusp child. I think I was right on the cusp between when parenting style was much more hands-off into the helicopter style. I think I was a last holdover of the more hands-off parenting type combined with being raised by a single mom who didn't have time anyway.
Emily: Yes. You would go off totally. You would go off into the street for a while and play and do stuff, or go over in your friend's house.
Dedeker: For me, it was in the woods.
Emily: Yes. We didn't have such things in Arizona, but yes .
Dedeker: No, that makes sense. I think that that parenting style is out of fashion, to say the least.
Emily: Yes. Parents are really involved in their kids' lives now.
Dedeker: Yes. They're expected to be very involved. They also mentioned that Americans are working longer hours and also traveling more for work, which can also come at the cost of, again, having that time and energy to be able to maintain and develop friendships outside of your workplace. Yes, I think a lot of reasons for why it's both hard to make friends, keep friends, but easy to lose friends even if you're doing all the right things in your relationships, I think.
Emily: Now, we're going to talk about a couple of other reasons why friendships end in general, not just some of the things that Dedeker discussed. We looked at a study called Why friendships end: An evolutionary examination. This was a 2021 study, and they used various methods such as in-depth interviews, open-ended questionnaires, and also online Google forms. Through all of those different ways of interviewing people and looking at why friendships end and talking to people about it, they came up with four different categories, which included selfishness, romantic involvement, lack of frequent interaction, and perceptions of friends and family.
In terms of selfishness, that means more like they felt as though a friendship perhaps is one-sided. Maybe somebody came to their friend and felt as though they were only ever talking about their problems, their issues. This friend really had to pick up the slack in a lot of different ways, things like that. There's not a lot of trust there, they're taking advantage of them, they're not honest or supportive, things like that. I've definitely had friends that feel a little bit more-- I don't want to say a burden, but sometimes like you really have to have to steal yourself and get ready for the interaction with them. You feel like you've been in situations like that.
Dedeker: I've been there. Sometimes I've been worried that I've been that friend to some people.
Emily: Oh, I definitely have. I know I've been that friend for the two of you before.
Dedeker: I think we've all been that friend to each other, but I like to think there's more of a give-and-take in this relationship
Emily: Definitely, definitely. I agree. In terms of the romantic involvement section, that amounted to one person being interested in the other eventually over time. The first person saying, "No, I'm not interested in having a romantic relationship with you." That's interesting. We've talked about this a lot, and yes, friendships can end in that way. I think friendships can still stay friends if you decide, hey, no, I'm not interested in you in a romantic way. It makes sense perhaps that somebody would be so crushed by that person saying no to them they decide to end the friendship.
Jase: I was just going to say that the thing of, oh, my friend is into me and now I feel bad about rejecting them or now I feel weird and so I'm going to pull away, and I can see that that happen from both sides, really.
Dedeker: I think it can come back. I think you can recover. Maybe not everyone recovers from that interaction because that's awkward and can be painful for sure, but I've definitely seen, I think definitely in my lifetime, I've done such a thing with people on both sides. I do think that's a possibility.
Emily: Yes, you can, I don't know, get over that person or just decide, yes, I still want this person in my life in some capacity, even if it's not what I initially imagined it to be. In terms of the lack of frequent interaction, we talked about that already, that just things tend to fade over time if you move to a different state or you just simply lose interest in the same thing that was holding your friendship together, stuff along those lines.
Jase: Or you start playing wow or a number of things.
Dedeker: So many friends that I lost.
Emily: Yes.
Jase: All right.
Emily: Yes, stuff like that. Finally, the perception of friends and family. This is an interesting one. Again, I think if you are-- When Jason and I started becoming polyamorous and having this huge perception of, "Wow, okay, you're doing something that I don't approve of. I don't know if I want to be involved with you perhaps," things like that, that's really challenging, or on the other side, if a family member doesn't approve of your friend, perhaps you decide, well, it's not worth it to stay friends with this person.
If that person is inconsistent or even if they become addicted to substances, things along those lines, they decide, this person isn't good for me anymore, then that can be a reason why friendships end as well.
I was curious because we talk so much about polyamory and monogamy on this show, and we've talked a lot about polycules and how if two people break up, but they're still members of the same polycule. I think similarly, if two friends break up and they're members of the same friend group, how do you deal with that? How do you deal with having to potentially see that person at, I don't know, any big holiday gathering or party or something along those lines, what do you do in those scenarios?
Dedeker: I think that's really hard because I think in a friend group, same in a molecule or a community or whatever, it can be really easy for there to be triangulation. It's like, "Oh, this person suddenly stopped talking to me and responding to my texts, but they're going to be at this party on Saturday where all my other friends are going to be. Let me talk to this other friend who's friends with them and be like, 'Hey, do what's going on?' And then this other friend talks to them like, 'Oh, did you know that they asked me about what was going?'"
I think that it's a situation where it could be very easy to fall into like really weird messed-up communication dynamics. I feel everyone involved would have to be really dedicated to not doing that, like really dedicated to direct communication, which some people can totally handle and some people can totally not.
Jase: Another big difference between the way that a friend breakup typically goes down. I'm saying not including the ones where it's we've had a horrible blowup fight where it's like, "I never want to see you again," kind of thing, but more of the type of friendship breakup we've talked about where it's maybe we've drifted apart or maybe I'm just sick of spending my time with this person, or whatever it is that compared to a romantic relationship, I feel like we culturally are even less likely to actually talk about that transition with a friend than we are with someone that we're dating.
Even though ghosting maybe become more popular in dating too, but still there's I think culturally more normal to have a conversation of I think we shouldn't do this anymore. I don't want to have this type of relationship anymore. How in-depth do you go into talking about, okay, how do we exist socially together? Maybe still doesn't happen, but at least there's some clarity. Whereas like you were saying, Dedeker, with that friend group thing of if it's drifting apart, it's that weird, like, are we friends still, are we not? I don't know.
Emily: That's true.
Jase: I could see in some ways maybe that makes it easier to be in the social group if you're able to also be like, well, whatever, I'm not going to worry about it. It's fine. There didn't have to be a breakup that everyone needs to know about. On the other hand, it can lead you in that or leave you in that situation of, what's going on? I don't know. Did I do something wrong? Did they do something? What's happening? I think that's one of the challenges.
Emily: Those big blowups that happened, those are the ones that are really scary in terms of getting into a scenario where you're seeing multiple friends at once, and then that one that you had a big falling out with happens to be there as well. It's challenging--
Jase: Friends feeling like they need to choose sides and stuff like that, same as-
Emily: It's like a divorce.
Jase: -often happens in breakup. As far as how to deal with it, the truth and the multiamory stance is actually having conversations and communicating more explicitly, not only with that person themself but also with the other people about what you hope for, what your expectations are, things like that is a great thing, but that is really hard to do, especially if you're in a friend group that's not accustomed to that, that isn't-- They're not on board with also like, "Yes, let's talk explicitly about this."
I'm just thinking of, I've done this sometimes as the other person, like as the friend in the friend group, of making it clear to whichever side of the friendship breakup or the romantic breakup of, "Hey, look, I'm friends with both of you. I'm going to keep being friends with both of you, so please don't expect me to take your side or theirs." It depends on the situation, of course.
Sometimes it's been like, "Nope, you're my friend, not that other person. Glad they're gone." It can go both ways, but I do at least try to sometimes express that of, "Look, I'm not going to choose between you, so don't feel like you're pressured to have that happen or be worried about that happening to you." That's at least a little bit that I could do from the outside, but it is a hard thing to get more people on board with that conversation.
Dedeker: Definitely.
Jase: Now we're going to go on to talking about some things that you can be aware of and things to think about to help get over a friendship breakup and process that as well as some ways that you could reconcile with a friend. First, we're going to take a quick break to talk about some ways that you can support this show. If this is content that you value, that you think that this is worthwhile, and you want more people to have access to this, taking a moment to listen to our advertisers and check out our Patreon is a great way to support this show and help enable us to keep this content coming to everyone out there every week for free.
Dedeker: We're back. We're going to be diving into, if you're going through a friendship breakup, how do you get over that shit? What are you supposed to do? Now, Em, you introduced us to a really cool word, which is, "disenfranchised grief," or a really cool term is what I mean. Basically, disenfranchised grief refers to this phenomenon where there's grief that's not necessarily acknowledged as legitimate by other people. I think a lot of people can relate to this.
Losing a pet is one that I've run into with some people where, yes, we can all acknowledge that it's sad and it's hard, but sometimes, like if you're sad for a longer than a few days or you're in mourning for a long time over losing an animal, I think there is this social perception of, well, come on, it was just an animal, or you'll get another cat , and that's just not the way that our hearts work.
In the same vein, I think non-monogamous people sometimes run into this, of, "Oh, you're going through a breakup? Well, you'll have another partner, so you'll probably be fine," or you're even actively dating, so it's okay. You'll get over it. It is this idea of, it's judged by society as too small or insignificant, or maybe from the outside, someone says, "Oh, that relationship just doesn't seem like it was that close or is too distant." We don't make the same space for it or give it the same weight as we would if someone's romantic partner broke up with them.
Jase: I think another great example of this goes back to what we talked about earlier, is friend breakups or breakup-breakups or separation from family over religious or political disagreement because I do think there's that thing of, I cut out this family member because of their political beliefs right now, or their judgment of my gender identity, or sexual identity or something like that.
Within your social group, there can be that sense of like, "Yes, fuck that person. You're better off without them." For you, it's like, this was still a family member, or maybe a close friend for a long time or something. There is grief that often is not respected, the fact that there's also grief to process. Then it's not just like, "Yes, you're better off, whatever."
Emily: It's confusion as well, especially in situations like that. I know that I'm not particularly close with my brother anymore for a variety of reasons. As much as I know it's the right thing to do for me, I also feel worried that, well, this is a way for me to connect to that side of my family that I don't know very well. I'm confused about, should I really try to be more interactive with him in ways, or is it really okay for me to just say, "No, this isn't okay. This isn't a thing that I should be doing that's healthy for me"?
It's challenging. There's just so many different factors in terms of friends and family. Should we stay with them, should we not just because they connected us to a part of ourselves that we don't get to connect to otherwise, or is it really okay to say, "No, this isn't healthy for me"?
Dedeker: I think the confusion, you really hit the nail on the head there because I think you can be having that experience of, I know this is the right thing, and also, it's still very sad with all kinds of relationships. Also, it's grief. I think that if you're in this position, the first thing is to create space around that for you to view your pain as legitimate. You may not get the same sympathy or people offering support in the same way that they would if they learned that you just went through a breakup with a romantic partner, and expecting that.
That means that you need to do double duty of reminding yourself that this is legitimate pain, that this isn't grief to be minimized or to just be cast by the wayside like that. This is serious. Regardless of the way that the friendship ended that it's still legitimate to have this grief.
Emily: Additionally, one should practice self-care, which we talk about a lot on this show. In terms of having a big friend to break up, you should practice self-care in a similar way that you might to having a romantic breakup, and that includes things like trying to avoid rumination, which, boy oh boy, I did all over the place. What could I have done differently? If I hadn't done this thing, would the outcome have been different? If I can say I'm sorry or try to reconcile in a certain way, would they maybe want to come back? Things like that.
It doesn't necessarily lead anywhere, depending on whether or not that person is someone who would be interested in reconciliation. I found, in terms of what I went through, that wasn't going to happen. Just ruminating about it wasn't a productive thing for me to be doing. Also, self-soothing tactic is exercise. I'm a big proponent of that for sure. Go out, do something to get yourself outside of yourself. Think about something else, whether that's taking a walk, going and hitting the gym, something along those lines. Go exercise in a way that makes you feel good about yourself.
Also, talk to someone. I talk to my therapist so much about this particular situation. I'm sure she was sick of it, but that's what they're there for, so I really appreciated her insight. Ultimately it did allow me to get to that step of, I feel like I'm moving past this and past this pain in a way just because I was able to go through those stages of grief with her.
You can also maybe try a new friend group. That's an interesting thing to do. To me, that means maybe putting yourself in a situation like taking a class or something that would make you visit and talk to and discover new exciting things that you may not have done otherwise and find people that are interested in things that you might be interested in as well.
Jase: I like that idea of rather than saying, I'm going to go replace this friend, I need to find some new close friend, for example, assuming they were a close friend, but more just expand your social network a little bit in some way. Whether that's remotely by joining some new, I don't know, some new Discord server that has some shared interest for you or it's, like you said, I'm only going to a class, or seeing if your city has adult casual sports leagues or something.
I did a kickball league several years ago. That was a fun way to meet some new people. It's just, you play kickball once a week, and then you go out for drinks afterwards. It's pretty chill. Not super competitive. At least my team wasn't. We were really bad but-- We mostly lost.
Emily: Sorry to hear that.
Jase: It was still fun to go and hang out afterward and get some physical activity too.
Emily: There was a blog that we looked up called Zencare.co that discusses some examples and the exercises for closure. The first one is to write a letter to your ex friend without the intention of actually sending it. Writing a letter, I think, in a lot of situations is really good and cathartic. I did that with my father, for example. Also, my therapist had me write a pros and cons list talking about whether or not I should stay in contact with my brother.
All of those things are really good and it helps you to get your thoughts in front of you on the page, and not just sitting around going around and around in your mind. Honestly, when I wrote a letter to my ex-friend and I did send it, and I got nothing back, that was like, "Okay, this is the closure. This is the last thing that I need to be doing in terms of trying to reach out to this person."
Dedeker: I think that there's that risk if you do actually send that letter or try to send the text to open things up. I think that as long as you are okay with that, acknowledge the fact that there's a risk, and also maybe focus on when you are writing that letter, whether you send it or not, but I often encourage people to focus on like, what are the things that you need to say for your closure and your healing but don't rely on getting anything back from the other person necessarily? So that it's not like, "Oh, I can't heal unless they answer these five questions that I have for them or whatever," because you do take that risk that they may just not be able to meet you level.
Emily: Ideally, I feel like it should be for you and not with the intention of necessarily getting anything back from them. If you can do it with that in mind, I think that's not a bad idea to write a letter.
Jase: This is also an area where getting support from a friend that you trust, or from a therapist or a counselor or coach can be really helpful. I know I've definitely talked through this with several people about write the thing. Let's look at it, or maybe talk about it. I don't necessarily have to read it, but tell me a little bit about it. Then just have someone to help ask you those questions of, if they respond angrily to this, will you still feel like you got the closure from sending this? If they don't respond at all, will you still feel like you've got that closure?
Is there a certain answer that you're hoping to get from them? Is there a way you could do this that doesn't require that answer? Certain things like that to just get you thinking through it rather than just impulsively writing a letter and sending it, which is not what this is about. This is more for yourself ideally, or not ideally, but most likely to not ever send it and then really think about whether it's something to send and maybe check with some people about that.
With that, let's move into, can we reconcile? Is this a thing that we should try to do? That is not something that we can give a blanket answer to.
Emily: Definitive answer.
Jase: There's a lot of factors. It depends on a lot of things. Seeking that closure for yourself or some closure to feel like, "Okay. I've gotten right with myself. I've done some of that work myself," is really key first. What we're going to do here is go through this-- It's a step-by-step guide to reconciliation called, "How to Mend a Broken Friendship," from a site called friendlamps.com, which is .
Dedeker: Friend lamps? Your friend and--
Jase: Lamps.
Dedeker: Friend Lamps.
Emily: Your friend, the lamp.
Jase: Your friend is a lamp. I love lamp.
Dedeker: Okay. I like that.
Emily: I love lamp.
Jase: Exactly. This is written credited to the whole editorial team there. It's a cool guide. We've taken the steps from that, but then we'll discuss them and look at how we think those might apply. Step 1 is like we're talking about a little bit, which is to analyze the extent of the damage. This is hard to do, but basically, it's trying to get to the heart of what is the level of intensity of this. Is this irreparable damage that we're just so fundamentally different, or there's a fundamental disregard for a core belief of the other person that there's just no coming back from this?
If so, then probably stop at step 1. Go back to the stuff we talked about of processing this friend breakup, and that's it. Part of this can also be that digging deep and looking at, is there some part of this where I was at fault? Make some notes, write some things for yourself trying to work through that, trying to see, can I try to see this from their perspective?
Anytime you're trying to see something from someone else's perspective, realize that's impossible to ever truly do. You're making your best guess. It's more of a mental exercise than actually being able to understand what they thought or really see it from their point of view. At least try to look at that and think about that and see if that might soften some things for you that make it feel like this reconciliation could be possible.
Dedeker: Step 2 is to do some work to understand why you became friends in the first place. This can be a really interesting exercise. It involves going back to the beginning. How did we meet? Why was this relationship working at all? Was it just a friendship of circumstance, or was it a really weird codependent relationship? Was this person here at a time when I was really sad and just really needed to be distracted, going out and having fun, and now it's not working so much anymore? I think there can be a lot of different reasons for why a friendship does or doesn't work.
I think going back to those initial reasons, seeing like, oh, is this reason still true? Is this something that I want to reignite in this friendship, or have I discovered different things about this relationship that I would rather focus on? You can analyze your own state of mind and your own perspective as you're thinking about all of these events and experiences that happened around the time that you first became friends. I think having some perspective, having some distance, maybe it's been several years, that can help put, I think, a different filter on the way that you feel about that time in the friendship, and that can also help, I think, give you more clues about, is this a friendship that I want to preserve or not?
Jase: I like that.
Emily: The next step is to examine why you want to be friends with this person again. This is a really interesting one, and I think it forces you to get to the core reasons why this is still important to you after all this time. You can look to the future, question why is it that you want to reconnect with this person? What are the foundational aspects that are really the core reasons why you're interested in being friends with them?
Really examine that because, again, I think so many of us over time change, and those core foundational reasons as to why you were friends with them in the first place may not be there anymore. It may not be a thing that's really super important to you anymore. Like Dedeker said, so often, we become friends because, hey, they're there, and it's fun and it's easy, and it works, and it may just not be the case as you grow and as you change anymore., so really examine that. If that is the case, then maybe move forward and try to reconcile.
Jase: I like this step 2 because it combines the previous two steps, but it also leaves some room for maybe I was friends with this person for one reason before. There was something that brought us together. When I thought about why we became friends in the first place, it was one thing. I realize that thing doesn't exist for us anymore. Maybe that's why the friendship ended. Maybe it's not, maybe that's just part of it, but maybe there's a different reason why I want to be friends now.
Maybe I've realized there was this thing that I never really based this friendship around, but it's something I really appreciate about this person, or that I find really interesting, or that I feel really helps me be a better person or whatever it is that you might realize, "What if there's a different foundation for this friendship that I could attempt to build moving forward?" Which then brings us to step 4, which is preparing to rebuild a stronger bridge, AKA, that first call.
Emily: Wow.
Jase: I know. Thinking about all those other things, it's then gathering that courage to make that first contact, whether that's a call or it's an email, or a real handwritten letter, or a approaching them at a friend gathering or something, whatever that is, is working up the courage. I think part of that too is then letting go of a particular outcome. This article talks about hoping for the best but expecting the worst. I think maybe more of letting go of some attachment to a particular outcome to realize even if I've determined that this friendship could have value for me, it might not for them, and that that's okay. That's not a reflection of me as a person.
It's not even a reflection of them as a person in terms of our intrinsic value or whether other people might want to be friends with us, but that just might not be a fit for them, or they might have some other pain going on that you're not aware of, or any number of other things that you can't know, you probably will never know, so preparing yourself for that. Realizing I have no control over their side of it, and I shouldn't try to control it. If I do that, that's potentially not respecting their consent or just being coercive or whatever. I know. It's like we want what we want, but understanding, but also they have an equal part in this choice and they might not choose the same thing that I would.
Emily: Totally.
Jase: If this is a phone call, having some notes handy to help you remember, these are the key things I wanted to say to help keep you on track, maybe so you don't go off on too much of a tangent. Or if it is an email or a letter, maybe that is something that you could review with someone to really get to what's the heart of this, but also not make it too overblown to make sure that you're approaching it from a place of not requiring a certain response or trying to manipulate them into a certain response, all of that. Having someone to help reflect on that with you can be really helpful.
Emily: Finally, the last step is to, if you actually get a response from the person saying, yes, they want to talk to you or meet you, or something along those lines, this last step is the approaching of a friend turned stranger. When you do this, keep the initial conversation short. Be ready to have a second conversation immediately whenever it is that you or they may want to have that second conversation. Keep those notes that Jase talked about in the previous step handy, again, so that you're not going off on a tangent, but that you can be direct and succinct.
Then follow this three-part sequence, which is recollect, reminisce, and gain agreement along with a next meeting time. That first part is telling them, discussing with them, "I'm sorry that we had a falling out." Briefly touch on the reason, but try to point out, "This is in the past. We can move past this potentially." Don't skim over it, but maybe don't dwell on it too terribly long. Also, allow them to air their frustration if they really want to discuss with you, "Hey, these are the things that I'm not okay with that occurred. Let that happen." I think especially with us, we love communication, and this is a really good time to communicate about that.
One of the hardest things for me was feeling as though the response that I got in terms of this friendship breakup. The response that I got to what occurred felt really out of place and just wacky to me, why did this friendship end over that and this misunderstanding? All of a sudden, it became a, well, now we're just not talking anymore, and I'm not going to respond to anything, any type of making amends or reaching out or any of those things. Being left in the dark for me was really hard.
I think if you have the opportunity to reach out to someone and they're going to talk to you about it, to me, that would've felt much better than just completely being left in the dark about what is it that actually went on here.
Dedeker: I have in the works an episode about regret. This will be maybe a very tiny little preview about that, but basically, this is based on the work of Daniel Pink who researched regrets across the world, like huge survey, and have found that there's four main categories of what people have regrets about. I'm only going to tell you about one. You'll have to listen to this future episode to learn about the other three.
Emily: All I'm saying, be involved in the future episode to learn about the other three.
Dedeker: Yes. One of the top four regrets globally is what he calls regrets of connection, which usually is, I wish that I had connected, I wish I'd reached out. I wish that I'd just taken the time, whether it was, oh, a friend I haven't heard from a while, just to say, "Hey, how are you?" or a situation like this, someone that I didn't reconcile with or a family member that I fell out with that often people do later on regret.
Now, of course, put that in the context of your own boundaries and what will keep you relatively safe or safe enough. If you've been reaching out and someone keeps rejecting you, keeps rejecting you, keeps rejecting you, at a certain point, you've reached out and maybe you won't feel as much regret later on, but that's just something to think about, is that often people do regret just not reaching out at all if that's the case. If you're on the fence about this, you might consider it.
Emily: The last two steps are to reminisce about the old days - I like that idea - and then finally, gain agreement. Ask this person, "Hey, do you want to be friends again? Is that something that you're interested in?" and respect whatever it is that they tell you because if you get a yes, then you can discuss, okay, let's figure out next steps here. Are we going to have another meeting time? Do we want to talk about this further? Don't necessarily push for a yes right away.
I think the other part of this is if they say no, then you really need to respect that because, again, this is about consent, this is about understanding this person may not be interested in reconciling with you. As shity as that is, that's their right.
Jase: I think that it's worth realizing that, "No," might also look like, let me think about it or, "I'm not sure." It's not a clear, "No," because you might get a clear, "No, go to hell," but if it is that, to realize that that's not a, "Let me think about it. Okay, let's hang out next week," but, "Maybe they do need to think about it," and maybe for them, that's the only way they're comfortable with saying no, or maybe it really is. They just need to think about it because maybe they hadn't done the work that you've done now to work on, "Okay, yes, let me reconcile and come to grips with how this has changed, what I might have done and all that. Maybe they do actually need some time for that.
In either case, like Emily said, to not push for a yes or for some shape of this if they're not also enthusiastic about that.
Emily: Did we learn something today?
Dedeker: Oh gosh. Well, I feel like what I learned time and time again is our friendships are so precious to us, and I feel like I've also learned in recent history that our-- I know my own attachment style comes out in my friendships sometimes. I think it just really drives home to me how much we undervalue friendships in our culture both from just how important they are to how painful a friendship ending can be.
Emily: Yes, I think it's another testament to how much I value the two of you because this is such a solid friendship that with the two of you in my life, and it's not unpredictable. Those friends that I've had over the years, including this one that just ended, that was super unpredictable. It made me feel pretty unsafe, and I think if I've learned anything from this situation that I went through, it's that I really appreciate people in my life who are safe and who I know they're going to be steady and steadfast in what it is that they're doing with me and with themselves, and I don't ever have to worry about that. Thanks again for being so great in that way among many others.
Dedeker: Thank you for also being pretty darn steady and safe.
Emily: Cool.
Jase: Yes, definitely. It is making me think a lot about the relationships of my friendships that have lasted longer than that seven years we talked about before.
Emily: Totally, yes.
Jase: Interesting. When I look at some of those, or like this ones, but also others in thinking about how, yes, they've definitely changed over time and we've had times of being really close, like living together as roommates with friends to not being as in touch to getting back in touch and our lives have changed. We've had very different jobs. They've had kids. We've been in different romantic relationships during that time and how it's changed, but there's a certain amount of steadiness there versus other relationships which have also been really valuable to me but have common--
It's like we didn't have a breakup necessarily, but we're not really close friends anymore either and that there's also value there, and that that's also okay. It's a failure because it ended.
Emily: Because it happened.
Jase: Again, that goes back to how we think about-- Right. It goes back to thinking about how we talk about relationships of like, oh, it's a failure if it ended. It's like, well, is it, though? There's also a lot of great stuff that could have come out of that. It's just getting me thinking about all those things and all my different relationships in my life.