Why Friendship Breakups Just Hit Different

Do you remember that one girl who you were absolutely convinced was your platonic soulmate? Did you have plans to be roommates at the retirement home or swear you were gonna be old ladies together still gossiping like teenagers? Do you sometimes mourn her harder than your ex who you were with for many years? 

Platonic breakups get less talked about than romantic breakups, but sometimes they hurt so much more. Losing a friend may be a unique experience, but not an uncommon one. So many of us have stopped talking to that one girl we’ve gone through thick and thin with, who knew us better than any boyfriend ever could; yet it’s not an experience that’s been talked about a lot until recently.

Friendships can end in multiple ways: outgrowing each other, moving away, losing touch, or even genuine betrayal. Though the end of a relationship is clearly defined with a “let’s break up”, friendships rarely end that way. 

For instance, you and your bestie get so caught up with work and your own personal lives that you barely have time to hang out. Then, when you finally do manage to meet again, you’re both completely different people with completely separate lives. You have your own separate friend groups, interests, hobbies, and jobs; can you still call her your bestie? Are you still even friends, or are you just acquaintances with a shared past? There’s never any real closure, and sometimes neither of you agrees on what you are now. Like a romantic relationship, there is genuine grief there: grief over the loss of a part of yourself, a part of your life, and the life you had planned together. However, unlike a romantic relationship, not a lot of support is available for friendship grief. 

Why Does Losing a Friend Feel So Different?

Here’s the thing about friendship grief: society doesn’t acknowledge it as important as a romantic relationship. When it comes to romantic relationships, there are all these protocols, conventions, milestones; but friendships are so different. 

As Bethany Cook, PsyD, a licensed clinical psychologist, explains, “Our culture doesn’t have the same rituals or milestones around the end of a friendship as we do with significant others, like moving out or getting divorced.”

Though romantic relationships can get messy, there are labels or stages that define them, such as talking stage, situationship, significant other, spouse, then breakup or divorce. For friendships, you’re usually an acquaintance, friend, or best friend. While an ex-partner is easy to define, saying someone is an “ex-friend” can feel weird. Pop culture gives us a script to follow when it comes to romantic relationships: how to maintain them, how to compromise, show up for them, constantly communicate, and keep in touch with them—hardly anyone realises many of the same principles also apply to friendship.

When Friendship Comes Second to Romance

People in real life often think that way too. Maybe you had a friend who dropped you because she wouldn't spend any time with you if her boyfriend couldn’t be there too, only to suddenly want to spend time again after they’ve broken up. Not only did you lose a friend, but you now also have to live with the fact that she doesn't prioritize you. Treating friendships like this is sadly common, especially in a patriarchal society that values marriage and relationships to men more than female friendships. 

“In our culture, we are inundated with messages that idealize romantic love. Love is often hailed as the purpose of an individual’s life — and the sooner we can find it, the better,” says Renee Yaseen. 

Though Gen Z is amongst the first generations to prioritize friendships over romantic relationships, most people aren’t taught that. Which is why even though your friendship means the world to you, the world often doesn’t see it as much.

It can feel like such an isolating experience, and the fact that you’re so alone in this grief makes the pain even worse. 

Why Friendships Get Harder as We Grow Up

We are all different people during different parts of our lives. When you think about your kid self, you might think that era of you is completely different from who you are now. Similarly, the people who we are in our young adult life will be different to the people we are in our older adult life. When we’re younger, friendship is much more organic. You meet in class or club activities and if you mesh well, you become friends. Schools and universities facilitate that friendship by providing a space where you are able to meet with minimal effort. However, once we start entering the workforce and focusing on different things, it’s harder to have that same connection. There’s no longer that space where you are obligated to meet, you have to make it happen yourself. For a lot of people, that becomes too difficult once life catches up. 

“It’s hard to form new friendships after 30s. Friendship is something which is organic spontaneous, and effortless. But after 30s friendships require efforts otherwise it will fade with each passing moment”, says Adira Blossom on Medium. 

The connection you have while you’re both in the same chapter of life changes significantly as you get older. That’s not always our fault; oftentimes, it’s a combination of not being taught how to maintain a friendship and also being too busy with our own lives that causes the loss of that connection.

Sometimes, There Is No One to Blame

Nobody wants a separation. Friendship breakups are something a lot of people never expected. We often assume our friendship will stay forever, so when it ends, you see it as a failure on our part, which often leaves us wondering, “What went wrong?” “How could this have happened?” That kind of heartbreak isn’t something that we’re prepared for. 

“Friendship breakups are incredibly common and normal and inevitable, but we often personalise that and see it as a failure because it is so unexpected and it is so uncommonly spoken about”, says Dr Kirmayer. 

However, the truth is: some things are just out of our control. Sometimes we want to put the blame on someone—whether it be yourself or the other person—so it’s easier for us to cope with the loss and understand why it happened. While in some situations, someone is at fault, a lot of friendships just fizzle out on their own. It hurts to think about it like that, the fact that someone so close to you can just slowly turn into a stranger and there’s nothing you can do about it. You don’t know who or what to be upset about, and now you’re just a maelstrom of confusion, sadness, anger, and depression. This is so normal and all a part of the grieving process for someone once so near and dear to your heart. 

Some People Aren’t Meant to Stay Forever

When you spend months or years in a close platonic relationship, your identity tends to start being built around your relationship with them; the shared memories, the shared interests, the inside jokes, the quirks you picked up from her, the lessons she taught you; it almost feels like everything about you came from her. 

Similar to what Elphaba says to Glinda in Wicked before their final farewell: “So much of me is made of what I learned from you”

That’s why when that friend is no longer a part of your life, it can feel like you lost a part of yourself. You can’t look back at that part of your life without seeing her there, and feeling her absence in the present. The truth about all relationships is that some people aren’t meant to stay in your life forever; you learn what you need to learn from them and you live on. It definitely hurts to think that your ex-bestie wasn’t meant to be your forever bestie, and it may feel like your time together was a waste, but no relationship is ever a waste of time. Those memories, though bittersweet, are now a beautiful part of you, and the lessons you learned from her will carry you through the rest of your life. 

At the end, the reason you grieved your ex-bestie so hard was for many different reasons. It could have been the lack of understanding of the “why” and the “how” it happened, it could have also been the lack of support you got because no one told you that you’d feel this way after losing her. You never expected to lose her, and when you did, that unfamiliar feeling of grief became overwhelming. Friendships need to be talked about as much as romantic relationships, because they’re equally as important in our lives. But even though she’s no longer in your life, the memories you had together are still worth cherishing; for they made you into the woman you are today.