I\u2019ll never forget one of my favorite quotes that I collected on MySpace back when I was in highschool. It read, \u201cfriends are forever, boys are whatever,\u201d and I took it to heart. (Or at least, I tried to).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite my way-too-serious for high school relationship and ridiculous long-distance dalliances through college, I tried to always keep in mind that while many of my boyfriends would come and go, some of my girl friends could potentially be around for life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But then again, just like romantic partners, sometimes friends fall to the wayside\u2014whether it\u2019s a byproduct of a fight, a cross-country move, or one of those sad and slow drifts that creep up on you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While we expect breakups to happen, and we\u2019ve known how to deal with them ever since we turned on a TV, the loss of a friend can sometimes surprise us by being more painful and more difficult to deal with. After all, while sometimes a nice pint of Ben & Jerry\u2019s, plus a big-biceped bartender can seemingly fill the void of your last boo, it can be a lot harder to feel like you\u2019ve successfully \u201creplaced\u201d a friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. It was probably unplanned.<\/strong> I may be a bit more pessimistic than the average, but the premise is the same. Most of us go into every relationship knowing that we have two main options in the end: get married or break-up. And in a certain part of the relationship, we start to know that the latter option is probably what\u2019s in the cards for us. We start asking ourselves if we\u2019d be happier alone, or at least with someone else. We start slowly making moves to test the waters of a breakup\u2014texting someone else first when we get good news at work, going out with friends without the other person, sleeping at our own place a few nights a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With friendships, this is generally not the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One minute, we\u2019re texting our best friend a play-by-play of work drama, the next we\u2019re realizing we have nobody to text for advice on what to wear on a first date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This hurts so much more because we suddenly feel like we have a huge void to fill that we weren\u2019t at all able to prepare for\u2014something we thought we had covered. We arguably spend most of our lives \u201csearching\u201d for a romantic (or simply a sexual) partner, but we generally feel like we have the friend part handled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. There\u2019s no \u201cclosure,\u201d but also no real chance of rekindling.<\/strong> While nobody really wants to hear, \u201cI don\u2019t think we should see each other anymore,\u201d at least you know where the other person stands. And while the reasons people give during breakups are always super vague and clich\u00e9, at least it\u2019s better than nothing. With friendship breakups, there\u2019s generally not this clear-cut dialogue and there\u2019s probably not a vocalized reason (unless your now ex-friend is trying to hit you where it hurts, which is arguably worse).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, many of us leave relationships with the comfort that, if all came down to it, we could maybe text our ex late one night and end up back in their bed. Or maybe if we ended up in the same city five years down the line, we\u2019d pick up right where we left off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With friendships, this idea of romantic (or sexual) rekindling is unlikely to be on the table, which just makes the loss feel more final, and more sad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 3. People don\u2019t know how to comfort you. First off, if you\u2019re the one who lost a friend, you may feel weird expressing your feelings about it to others. While it\u2019s normal to say you just went through a bad breakup and are feeling down, it\u2019s not as socially acceptable to speak this way about friendship in Western culture (although it totally should be).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Similarly, people don\u2019t know how to comfort those who have lost friends quite as well. After all, the term, \u201cthere are tons of better fish in the sea,\u201d is meant to apply to lovers, not friends… right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n 4. Finding a replacement is much more difficult\u2014and it\u2019s hard to know where to start.<\/strong> While many dating apps have launched friend-finding services with similar mechanisms to dating apps, they don\u2019t work quite the same. While I can easily schedule myself a week\u2019s worth of dates on Bumble in just a few days, I doubt I\u2019d be able to do the same on Bumble BFF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s also the fact that making new friends gets increasingly more difficult as you get older. In fact, most people\u2019s social circles start decreasing in size after the age of 25, according to a study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While you can\u2019t replace the friendship you lost, you can treat your grieving process similar to how you would a romantic breakup\u2014even if that\u2019s not what\u2019s traditionally done in our culture. Remind yourself that if it was meant to be, it would\u2019ve worked out better, and that there are plenty of other [insert friendly ocean animal here\u2014perhaps dolphins?] in the sea for you to send screenshots to, get brunch with, and take Instagram-worthy pics of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While \u201cgetting back out there\u201d doesn\u2019t always make us feel better after the end of a relationship, I\u2019m going to go out on a limb and say there\u2019s no harm in doing so after the loss of a friendship. Ask your co-worker to grab drinks after work for once, DM that cool girl you follow on Instagram and ask if she\u2019d ever want to hang IRL, download a friend-finding app and shoot your shot! Even if you don\u2019t find a new BFF right away, there\u2019s no such thing as having too many friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just like romantic partners, sometimes friends fall to the wayside. And it can be more painful than you expect. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":183,"featured_media":19040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[994],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-friends"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nMaybe it\u2019s just the realist in me, but every time I start dating someone new, I assume the worst. My friends will ask, \u201cHey, so are you going to bring Dean as your +1 to my wedding next month?\u201d And I\u2019ll say, \u201cI\u2019m not sure if we\u2019ll still be seeing each other in a month.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nWhile closure is usually just an excuse to see our exes one more time, most romantic relationships end in a way that\u2019s somewhat clear. And, painful as it may be, at least one partner will generally list the reasons why they don\u2019t see the relationship working out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n<\/strong>Pretty much everyone has gone through a breakup, and everyone wants to give advice when they notice a broken heart. Whether it\u2019s your guy friend coming over with a bottle of tequila and dragging you to the bar, or your mom giving you wise and comforting words over the phone\u2014people know how to deal with those grieving over love lost. When it comes to friendship lost, things get a little more tricky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe immediate downloading of a dating app 1-24 hours after a breakup is a rite of passage in modern love. We know we\u2019re not going to find a replacement, but we can at least distract ourselves with a parade of attractive partners who shower us with compliments and affection\u2014even if it\u2019s short-lived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n