Friend Break Ups

Paris & Nicole – the most famous friend break up ever. Even though they are “friends” again, it’s obvious that their friendship isn’t the same.

Break ups with significant others suck, but break ups with friends suck just as much. They happen much more infrequently, but losing a friend hurts just as much as losing a boyfriend/girlfriend. I just broke up with a good friend of four years, lets call her Caroline. Our friendship has been on a downward cycle for at least the past six months, and I can’t stand it anymore.

Caroline and I are a lot alike in several aspects. While we are both girly with our love for thrift store shopping and OPI nail polishes, we don’t fall into traditional girl stereotypes. When it comes to boys, we both don’t take any shit from them. There is a strict two strikes and you’re out rule. Caroline and I also scoff the importance placed on various “rites of passage” like proms, graduations, etc.  Both of us have difficulty talking about our problems to each other and expressing weaknesses. We keep secrets from each other, everything from the mundane to the major. 

In May, Caroline began ignoring me randomly for no reason. She rarely responded to my texts, and if we made plans she would blow me off. During grad week, things got weird. I got angry with her and decided to put in the same level of effort she had put into our friendship over the past few months. I stopped talking to her. She never even tried to initiate conversation the entire time I was in Montana.  I drunkenly texted her one night in Montana, and I thought everything was going to be alright, because we were kind of talking again. 

We started making plans for my 22nd birthday. For me, birthdays always end up horribly, so I had high hopes that this one would be great. Caroline knows all about my string of bad birthdays from age 13 on, so I was counting on her to help me make this into a crazy evening. There was a semi flexible plan in the works, and I was extremely excited to hang out with my friends from college and others I hadn’t seen in a while. And then on August 26, everything was ruined because of her. 

A major question I keep asking myself is:  Would I tolerate the same bad behavior if a guy did the same thing? If my boyfriend constantly didn’t answer calls and texts (without justification), I would reevaluate the relationship. If my boyfriend degraded me in front of other friends/acquaintances, I would fight fire with fire, and then dump him. If my boyfriend ruined my birthday (by failing to acknowledge it at all), I would slash his tires and dump him. So why do I put up with this same behavior from Caroline?

Then I realized that our friendship was broken beyond repair. I had given her way to many chances over senior year of college. I was sick of being her sidekick. The most logical thing to do was to friend break up with her. Sadly, I doubt she will care or even notice that I’m no longer in her life. Maybe she already ended our friendship a long time ago, and its taken me this long to get the hint.
 I deleted her from my phone, and sent a curt Facebook message demanding my skirt back via the mailman. There was no big argument or big blow out. I just decided to stop talking to her. 

I’m a fiercely loyal friend, so it hurts to have to end a friendship. I don’t have very many close friends, because I’m difficult to get to know. However, once I let someone in, then it is hard for me to let go of them. I’m not claiming to be the perfect friend, and I’m sure I probably did  things that upset her just as much as she upset me. 

Regardless, all good things must come to an end. Maybe we were only meant to be friends through college, and now that college is over, so is our friendship. At least I got my BCBG bandage skirt back!