Romantic breakups are devastating. I have been through a couple,and they hurt like hell. But we know romantic relationships can end;we have a paradigm for heartbreak. We cry,and we talk to our friends,and we eat ice cream,and we pine,and we stalk our exes on social media,and we hate on their new partners,and,eventually,with time,we recover.
We do not have a paradigm for the end of a friendship. Being cut off by a friend creates a very particular kind of grief,and one for which we don’t have a language,or rituals. Friendships are built on an intimacy that isn’t dependent on the whims of physical attraction,or the pressures of an exclusive connection.
We trust in our friendships. We make them our pillars. And when they end suddenly,it is shocking. I have been in shock for a year now. I simply haven’t been able to process that the person I loved,shared confidences with,spoke to on the phone a couple of times a week,met with regularly,laughed with,complained to,confided in,cut me off from one day to the next.
When a romantic relationship ends,people give us sympathy and offer support. But when a friendship ends there is no sympathy,because there is no breakup announcement. I felt awkward even telling any of my friends what had happened,because I didn’t know how to explain it. We all understand being dumped by a partner,but who on earth is dumped by a friend? Surely,they would assume I had done something wrong?
Did I do something wrong? What on earth happened?
I know that even the closest of friendships can end. I know that people can change over time,and that friends can and do drift apart. We have all had people close to us who do the slow fade from our lives,taking longer and longer to answer texts,and catching up with us less frequently,until eventually,we don’t catch up at all.
But when there is a sudden,unexplained rift,the natural process is interrupted. To go from intimacy to estrangement overnight is almost impossible to understand,or to accept.