- Last year, a friend asked if we could find time to talk over a video call.
- I had moved abroad, and our relationship had become strained from the distance.
Last year I got a message from a friend back home, several time zones away.
Do you have time for a video call soon? I'd really like to have as close to an in-person chat as we can. x
My stomach tensed. This wasn't her typical communication style — she usually preferred texts or voice notes. But our conversations had been stop-and-start for months, and I suspected that's what this call was about, even though we typically avoided any confrontation. It was petty of me, but I left it a day before replying that I'd be free the following day.
We agreed on a time, but what followed was the usual back-and-forth, with messages like "I'm free now, are you?," "2 mins," and "I've just been pulled into a meeting!" — which had come to characterize so much of our long-distance friendship since I moved abroad two years ago. By the time we finally Zoomed, it was obvious from how awkward we both were that this was a breakup call.
It hurt to see her holding back tears as she explained how she'd been feeling less and less important to me since I moved away. It didn't matter what the final straw was for her, only that her therapist suggested she speak to me so it might give her closure.
I'd never had a friend break up with me so honestly
This was the first time a friend had scheduled a breakup with me. Usually, friendships peter out or you have a dramatic bust-up and never speak to each other again. But this? This was as close to a "conscious uncoupling" as I'd ever experienced, and it stung all the more for being platonic. We go into romances knowing it might end, but we don't typically have that same awareness with friends or an event to point to when it does end.
When friendships do end, we're usually spared the "breakup chat," but maybe we shouldn't be. After all, these people know us intimately and sometimes for a longer time than our romantic partners do.
They know our best and worst selves, and they love us anyway. So when it's time to end things, why wouldn't we want to hear what insights they might have?
Because there's no societal pressure for one friendship to stall out before starting a new one, you could sail through life without ever calling it quits with a pal; there's room for plenty of them in our lives, and so they're also free to make Irish exits when they leave. But that's not how it works in practice sometimes. In real life, people move, or change, or grow apart. And sometimes, those people want closure — a time to try to talk through what went wrong, if possible, and try to make a clean break.
For some people, fizzling is better
Of course, a conversation like that doesn't work for every dynamic. I was talking about the concept of friendship breakups with a new buddy of mine, Simone, and she said she had been experiencing something similar, but from the opposite side of the situation. She'd been trying to let things fade with a pal, but it wasn't working out quite how she wanted.
"I was hoping they would let things fizzle, too," she said. "But then one day they called me out of the blue and kind of accosted me about the distance. I felt somewhat cornered and essentially admitted to what they were questioning me about — that I was trying to let the friendship go."
When that friend started yelling and crying, Simone realized talking on the phone was leading them nowhere. "I decided to write them a letter," she said. In it, she explained why she felt the need for distance and told her friend to reach out when they were in a better place.
It took a year after posting the letter for her friend to reach out. "We both apologized for how things were handled," Simone said. "But it never really led to anything and they ended up unfriending me on Instagram again."
I learned a lot from my friendship breakup
That video call forced me to face things I'd have rather ignored — the way I'd taken my friend for granted, and the things I'd done or not done. I'll admit I got defensive, even as she insisted this wasn't about making me feel bad. My friend needed to let me know how my actions had impacted her.
After hearing how my carelessness had hurt my friend, I was sorry, of course. I didn't feel better right after the call (far from it), but she told me she did. And as a former friend, one who'd seen men treat her poorly, I was proud of how far she'd come in asserting her boundaries.
But the truth was, trying to keep up with various friends across different time zones had started to feel like another life task I was failing at. The breakup freed me from guilt and taught me the importance of being realistic about changing priorities.
Nowadays, my old friend and I are LinkedIn connections. We "like" each other's professional milestones and occasionally ask polite questions. I'm still not sure how she found the courage to confront me like she did, but I hope if I ever find myself in her position, I'd dig deep to do the same.