Leaving friendships

This is a topic I've thought about at length, and written a lot about in my journal. The whole notion of parting ways with friends, people you've known for a long time, and the varying ways in which one navigates those changes. This isn't so much about drifting a part from people, but more so making the conscious decision to end a friendship. Part of what's motivated me to even write on this topic here has been a recent encounter with a long-time friend.

I think because I've always taken my personal friendships very seriously, that I often find myself thinking deeply about them, and when it's come to a point that I need to end the friendship, it's always been a drawn out process for me. Keep in mind, when I say "ending a friendship", I'm talking about ending contact with people who have become a net negative in my life.

I think like most people, the friends I've had throughout my life were people that I ended up associating with for a combination of reasons: we had similar interests, similar friendship groups, or we just happened to hang out for some period of time, realised we get along, so we made that subconscious association to befriend this other person. Having said all that, it's normal as you get older, your interests will change, the circle of people you associate with changes too, and you'll likely drift a part from people you knew say, 10 years ago, and develop new friendships. That's entirely normal, and kinda expected. It's not a reflection on you, or them, it's simply a part of life.

If you're lucky to have one or two friends who've stuck around for a long time, regardless of differences, then you'll have the very definition of a genuine friend. I probably only have one person like that in my life (we've known each other since grade 6), and despite the fact that he lives more than an hour away, has his own family now, whenever we catch-up, it's as if no length of time has passed since our previous encounter. He's probably the only person I feel comfortable talking with about anything. For the record: this article isn't about him.

The main reason for this article though is because I'm finding myself in a situation I've been in twice before. I've been friends with another person for about 13 years, and for the past 2 years there's been a few uncomfortable wedges in the friendship that were largely brought about by him. Looking back, we didn't really have many mutual interests, but he was the type of guy I could hang out with, and just talk about random things that didn't involve topics that were too deep. I enjoyed that, and I think he did too.

I like to think that some people just 'change', but I think in a lot of instances, it's just their true selves coming out in some weird way. I think it was about 5 years ago, that my friend started to use Reddit, and I remember him recommending it to me, and which sub-reddits I should follow. I tried it out at the time, but found it too mundane, biased towards one side, and difficult to interact with other users. So I left it.

Overtime though, this same friend started to become very politically opinionated, and seemed as if he was making the conscious effort to engage me in politically themed debates. I found it awkward and uncomfortable to reciprocate, simply because this had never been a feature of our friendship, so he took this as me being complicit in what he was against. Politics as it stands today ranks so low in my day to day life, that I try to give it as little thought as possible. Engaging in the latest raging trend is exhausting, and above all, there's little I can do to affect any sort of change. The ideas and philosophy behind politics though, that's something I can spend hours discussing.

There were multiple instances were he tried to 'bait' me into a debate, but I never cared enough to engage him (not to sound demeaning, but his level of understanding is what he gleans off Reddit). But the long story short of it all is that this person kinda became the stereotype of a someone who consumes too much Reddit content. That was initially enough to have us drift apart because I couldn't relate to the political nor cultural content he was communicating. But it all came to a sudden outburst from him mid last year, because I wasn't concerned about the same things as him.

The whole encounter is something I've observed in others in my personal life: a lot of people are either unhappy, have no direction, feel lonely, or just want something but they don't know what that is, so they invest themselves in side-distractions, and then project that out onto others (in the case with this friend, that was me). It's a disrespectful thing to do, especially when the other person is your longtime friend, but it's happened to me before. It's not a nice feeling, and above all, it shows how little respect the other person has for you.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, and this same friend messages me (we hadn't spoken for over 9 months), acting as if nothing had happened, and inviting me to his wedding. I was still unsure where I stood with the friendship, so I tell him I'll let him know if I'm free. Earlier this week he asks me to confirm my attendance, and I realise this isn't something I want to do anymore, but I also don't see the point to communicate any of this to him, so I respond that I won't make it.

The wider point I'm making here is: genuine friendships are so hard to come by, especially as you get older and your social circle becomes smaller (or non-existent), that to waste time with people who see your friendship as disposable, well it's like being in a romantic relationship with someone you know you're not meant to be with. You're missing out on so many other opportunities with genuine people.

Has it always been like this? Part of me thinks it's all a feature of the current culture we have in the West today. Everything has become so easily accessible and replaceable. Be it relationships via dating apps, friendships via social media, or just an entire persona via political tribes. In my mind, I've ended the friendship with this person, I see no reason to let him know about it because I'm sure he knows it himself. There's a cringe motivational quote I could include here along the lines of "know your worth", but you get the picture.

I find it difficult to 'let go' of people once they've become a formative part of my life, so my past experiences have meant I'll either tolerate or drag out relationships with people I know don't deserve my energy. It's easier said than done though, to end a friendship. I don't know how to properly describe myself without sounding 'cringe', but I'm the type of person who tries to find genuine value in other people, and often this means overlooking legitimately negative attributes, whilst thinking "there has to be something good in them" when there really isn't. If you're someone stuck in a similar predicament: believe me, there are so many more interesting people out there.

The funny thing about all of this though: when I was a teenager I'd romanticise breakups with friends. That might sound weird/bizarre, but part of it was influenced by an Australian movie that came out in the early 2000s (Blurred). It's one of those coming of age teenage movies, about different groups of friends finishing high school, and venturing to a week long party to a city by the ocean (it's called Schoolies, it's a major event here). In the movie there's three friends, where one of the guys becomes romantically involved with the girl. The 'third wheel' guy was also interested in her, but now there's a sense of betrayal, and he decides to part ways with them both, by the beach, as the sun rises over the ocean, just as the week long event wraps up.

Why would I romanticise something like this? Well, parting ways with people, whether they're friends, or romantic partners, represents new opportunities, new paths in your life that you're encouraged to pursue. My teenage self recognised this, I understood that the friends I had back then wouldn't always be with me, so I came to terms that eventually we'd all move on and forge our own lives. This isn't to say that parting ways with friends is something I actively pursue or even look forward to; having close friends is something I've always wanted in my life. I'm also not encouraging anyone to end their friendships (unless of course, it's not bringing you any joy). This is more of a perspective from my teenage self, knowing that a whole new life was ahead of me.

I don't know why, but I was reminded of that movie and that scene yesterday, and it provided some sense of closure in dealing with this all. Part of me still wishes I could call my now former friend, and do what we use to do on a weekend, but that's wishful thinking for something that's long gone. I can't help but to get sentimental when I think about it all, but part of the reason for writing this is to serve as a way to air out my thoughts, and now come to the realisation that this is all really for the best.