When a friendship ends

[Mek]

Long story short: I had this good friend mine, whom we met in 2004. We were friends for several years. Really tight friends with a sister-ly friendship and virtually inseperable.

Then, as the saying goes, stuff happens.

We eventually drifted off into other interests and paths in life, which is all well and good. But somehow, she stopped talking to me all together. I was kinda going through some rough times for a good, long while (struggling with depression, college and finding work), but I was never sure why. All of my politely asked questions went unheeded, until finally I had to browbeat the answer out of her, because I got sick of giving and giving (both money, emotion and time-wise) to her and got NOTHING back.

After an argument (which is none of your business, but I can't say I didn't try to work things out), our friendship dissolved and that was the end of that. 3-ish years just gone like dust in the wind.

What's really sad about the whole thing is... I don't feel anything about it. No happiness that she's gone out of my life -possibly for good-, no remorse, no sadness... nothing.

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is if anyone else has ever had that sort of experience with a long-time friendship that ended on rather sour terms. I'm not looking for sympathy or pity -nor do I want it- but I'm just wondering if this is a normal feeling to have after such a thing.

I've never really been good at keeping or making friends -even though I think friendship itself is a crock concept- but it's just a strange feeling. =/

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

I kind of understand how you feel. Losing friendships is one of those unfortunate things that just always seems to happen, at least to me.

I've had some online friendships end recently(I don't want to go into details because I don't want to drag the drama into the public light here), and even those were tough for me to deal with.

I've lost many friendships over the years. Sometimes it's tough, I can recall crying for days about one, other times, as you say, it's hard to feel anything.

I think each relationship has it's own unique feeling. So depending on each one it affects how you feel at the cessation of it. I can't really offer any real concrete thoughts on the matter, but I know how you feel about the lack of any solid feelings. I had a guy who I was really close with for about 2 years, and eventually we just stopped being friends. I don't really feel anything about that. It's strange, sometimes.

 

[Areku]

I used to have a 'best friend' for maybe 2 - 3 years. We met in high school and just hung out all the time. Then one day we just stoped hanging out and thats it. I saw him a few times afterwards but we just drifted apart.

My point is that thing like this happen, your best friends one day and your bored of each other the next. There isnt much you can do about it.

Right now I barly remmeber the kid (( it was a few years ago )) and I really couldnt care less. I havent seen him for at least two years and for all I know he could have moved or else.

 

[Peter Paltridge]

Trying to understand other people is one of the hardest things I've ever attempted to do, and I don't think I ever will succeed.

 

[Kury Wagner]

I have had a lot of friendships fall apart in my life, for several different reasons. Recently, the last few months or so, I've been feeling detached from a lot of older friends of mine. Talking to them seems like a chore or it's awkward. I feel as if whatever bond we once had is kind of, if not completely, gone. Yet, there are people that I've only gotten to know throughout the past few months that I adore. It's so confusing.

I had a friendship similar to yours that you had described, actually. I was really close to this one gal, since around '04, as well. We were like sisters. Then one summer, she stopped talking to me for the most part [got the feeling that she was avoiding me, too]. I tried many times to repair the relationship, but I felt like I was the only one who cared. Finally, I gave up. We were different people, it didn't work out anymore, that was my argument. I didn't care. She still sometimes contacts me, but I mostly shrug it off. Sometimes I'm nice and respond, but I really don't want anything to do with her anymore. She's a stranger to me, now. I can't mourn the loss of a friendship with a person I don't know.

In retrospect, it's disappointing. But again, I don't know her. Looking back, I feel like I'm thinking of a story from a novel, not my own life. Our relationship that she and I had seems so far gone. Yet the fact that it could've disintegrated so easily and completely... it's saddening, even from a remote point-of-view.

 

[Brandon Pierce]

If I had a nickel for every person that I was friends with and then had a falling out....

well, I'd have 20 cents.

I usually don't have fights, but there are times where I just lose contact with a friend, and it's a long time before I speak to them again. I also had one friend, who I'm not even sure if he was a true friend. He seemed to think whenever I was around was an inconvience. I'd invite him over for video games, but no invitation to visit him at his house.

There was a girl I had a crush on throughout middle school, and we sorta became friends, but by the time high school rolled around, she went to a different school, and didn't really hear from her again. It was only a chance meeting on a bus that I saw her again... and discovered she had two kids in the three years that we didn't see each other. It was a VERY awkward moment, and I think I even commented on the incident here some time ago.

 

[Ishtar]

There was this one guy I knew since 4th grade. We would always talk and hang out together, and that pretty much lasted till like my Freshmen year in Highschool. However, during the past 2 years or so we've sort of lost touch with one another. A big reason is due to the fact that we no longer have any of the same classes. We'll still say hi or talk for a minute in the hall inbetween classes, but that's basically it.

There are two other guys that I knew since I moved to where I currently live back in 1992, and we used to hang out all the time. However, for the past few years, we've been off. We don't really seem to like each other that much anymore, and one of them is in a completely different crowd (which is the wrong crowd, considering he now smokes, and was caught with Marijuana back last school year). The other guy seems to like to mess around with me whenever we talk, which is before and after getting on the bus each schoolday.

It's amazing how friendships work over the years.

 

[Juu-kuchi]

I've had my fair number of friends in elementary school, but after I went to a different middle and high school, things as usual fell apart. That and of course I never held any grand interest in the frequency of hanging out with them and doing... Friendsy stuff.

High school was a different story. Yes, I had at times a group of people I hung out with, but these are not things of frequency or anything. It is somewhat of an somewhat friend/close acquaintance relationship. It has somewhat remained to this day. No falling out of sorts or anything I believe. I have had a persisting friendship in high school with one person, and we have yet to fall out even though we are going separate paths in life.

University is somewhat the same. I'm an acquaintance but not really a friend, so there's nothing to really fall out upon, since I keep people of fair distance from me for some reason. That could implicate me in at least some participation in not having a deeper kind of friendship, but then again that's just me. I never really actively pursue friendships.

Online friendships are somewhat similar. Sometimes active friendships become inactive due to the busy nature as time goes on for some people. Some I keep a fair share of communication with. Of my online friendships, two fell apart because of something negative. That something negative was my fault at least. To one I gave a lasting impact that may have affected her view on me for the worst, and thus it became a friendship with a grievously damaged worldview of one another. The other distanced away from me, but I do not really blame that person, since I was culpable in doing that. Despite that, I only hold negative feeling on what I have done, and not so much on the friendship, which to me just came and went. I would like to salvage one or both the best I can, but if they do not wish to do so, then that is fine.

 

[WolfieKiwi]

There was this one guy I knew since 4th grade. We would always talk and hang out together, and that pretty much lasted till like my Freshmen year in Highschool. However, during the past 2 years or so we've sort of lost touch with one another. A big reason is due to the fact that we no longer have any of the same classes. We'll still say hi or talk for a minute in the hall inbetween classes, but that's basically it.

I had a friendship similar to that which was lost, except it lasted eight years. But the same thing basically happened to us. We had no classes together and therefore, our communication grew short. I tried keeping contact through calling and stuff but he didn't respond...which I thought was odd (I obviosuly didn't think it was over yet.). But I still didn't give up...until when he started avoiding me in highschool whenever we would meet by chance.

It still hard to forget.

 

[Captain Zechs]

I lost a lot of very close friends right during highschool.

Mainly because I no longer had any classes with them, like Ishtar stated. At first, I was a little sad about it, but I made new friends, and really started to become a different person within Highschool, as did they. So our interests were not similar. However, I have never had a relationship full shut down. I still know that if I ever really needed to talk to them, I could.

 

[Elven Moon]

I had a friend about 13 years ago, who was very close to me and I consider the first REAL friend I ever had. We did tons of things together, wrote stories for each other, did school projects together, all that. After I moved we sent letters and presents, and when she came to visit we had a great time! But within a year or so it was as if she dropped off the planet. No letters, no phone calls, nothing. I sent letter after letter in the hopes that maybe she was busy and would get around to contacting me. Finally, after about 1-2 years of trying, I decided to phone her and confront her on the issue. She didn't sound happy to hear from me - annoyed, even. I will never understand just what I did that she suddenly decided we were "just too different." I am still mourning this loss (though I no longer cry over it) and think of her often.

I also have another friend, of whom I've known for 14 years, that hasn't talked to me in about 10 months. We've always hung out together, shared inside jokes, considered ourselves practically related. I thought this one would last, but alas, she doesn't try to talk and hang out with me anymore, doesn't email me or call me. This one I am still crying about. It seems I can never keep friendships.

 

[Beguiled]

I am sorry

I recently had a falling out with a friend. He had actually been one of my best friends for about three or four years. We'd known each other since third grade. And all of the sudden he just didn't talk to me. When he did he was impatient, short and sometimes rude. I finally made him tell me why he just dissapeared and he told me that while I was a nice person, I wasn't a 'priority' and that being friends with me was just too 'inconvenient' as he lived thirty minutes away.

I got really angry with him, reminded him that if we grew apart it wasn't for my lack of trying to keep in touch and I haven't heard from him since. But I don't care--I thought I'd be sad, or angry, or happy, but I'm just indifferent. I think feeling nothing dissapoints me most, although I don't know why.

Point is, things happen. And it's awful to lose a friend. It really is. Sometimes though, you just have to let them go.

 

[Storm Eagle]

Long story short: I had this good friend mine, whom we met in 2004. We were friends for several years. Really tight friends with a sister-ly friendship and virtually inseperable.

Then, as the saying goes, stuff happens.

We eventually drifted off into other interests and paths in life, which is all well and good. But somehow, she stopped talking to me all together. I was kinda going through some rough times for a good, long while (struggling with depression, college and finding work), but I was never sure why. All of my politely asked questions went unheeded, until finally I had to browbeat the answer out of her, because I got sick of giving and giving (both money, emotion and time-wise) to her and got NOTHING back.

After an argument (which is none of your business, but I can't say I didn't try to work things out), our friendship dissolved and that was the end of that. 3-ish years just gone like dust in the wind.

What's really sad about the whole thing is... I don't feel anything about it. No happiness that she's gone out of my life -possibly for good-, no remorse, no sadness... nothing.

I guess the point I'm trying to make here is if anyone else has ever had that sort of experience with a long-time friendship that ended on rather sour terms. I'm not looking for sympathy or pity -nor do I want it- but I'm just wondering if this is a normal feeling to have after such a thing.

I've never really been good at keeping or making friends -even though I think friendship itself is a crock concept- but it's just a strange feeling. =/

This reminds me of this one time one of my friendships ended with a falling out. It was with an internet buddy who was nice at the beginning, but then just started getting moody and edgy within time. It got so bad that I decided to just not IM her, yet she was still welcome to IM me if she wanted. After that, she actually IMed me after a year and a third. She didn't seem as depressed as before, but she still had the attitude problem, which I handled by trying to be the bigger person. Then a few months later we had an argument because I thought she was being dishonest about something. Then she decides she doesn't want to listen to anything I have to say, and just totally ignored me. Normally I get bummed about failed friendships, but this one really had to go. My other friends would tell me that I should just stop talking to her if she's going to be edgy with me. The reason why I still stuck with her despite her edginess was because I still thought she had enough potential for me to keep her around. I guess I basically just thought of her as a nice girl with a bad temper. Anyway I just couldn't feel any sadness about her not wanting to talk to me anymore. It's better that we're no longer friends, and my life had gotten a bit easier after that.

 

[Michael24]

I've not had any friendships end because of arguments or fights since my elementary school days, and even then they were isolated incidents.

The majority of my friendships I've maintained for years at a time, but most of them ended after high school due to friends moving away to go to college elsewhere and such. We'd stay in touch by phone and see each other during the summer, but gradually we would just hear from each other less and less and ultimately drift apart. Right now, I'm only in contact with three people that I went to high school with, and two of them I haven't seen since graduation, but we found each other on MySpace.

Losing friendships really sucks, especially if (like me) many of them you've had since Kindergarten or first grade. Heck, even pre-school in one instance. I have many terrific memories with all of them, and I'm hoping to hook back up with a lot of them if our high school class has a 10-year anniversary this year.

 

[HauntedLover]

Something along those lines is happening to me right now. Actually, it's not happening to me, but to my friends. You see, two of my friends got into an argument a while back (I wasn't there) and they kind of split apart. That was about two, maybe three months ago, and they still refuse to talk to each other. Then on Friday the friend that I hang out with more said that I had a lot of talents and that she wished she could have some. I told her that she has a lot of talents, especially in sports. I want to help both of my friends. What should I do?

 

[Desensitized]

^Get them to meet and talk it out.

I had a few friends disappear over the years. Two of which cut me off when they went to an expensive private school for high school and one of which we just sort of stopped being friends. We didn't leave on sour terms, we just decided there was really no point continuing being friends if we had nothing (and we didn't at that point) in common.

The only one I actually regret is one of my friends who cut several of us off after we said we were going to his high school grad party. We just weren't cool enough for him, I guess. I only really regret this, because he was a very creative and interesting person and he threw it all away to be one of the crowd and in the process became addicted to something really awful and his life almost fell apart. All because he made a wrong choice.

One of my friends I have very little in common with, but we still like talking and hanging out together and we've known eachother for about 17 years. I seriously doubt he will ever not be my friend.

 

[RockmanDash]

I had a friend that I new since first grade(he was one of my best best best friends) then after fourth grade we just stopped talking. Its werid how friendships end huh? And then last year he moved

 

[.bg]

I can't say I've really had a real-life friendship end. I have quite a few friends who watch all the same shows as me and have some of the same interests as me, and we hang out all the time. We even get each other hooked on stuff. My friends are obsessed with Scrubs because of me, and I have recently fallen in love with Doctor Who because of them.

As for online friendships, usually the other person becomes inactive for long periods of time, so it's not on my end.

 

[purplehairedwonder]

Along these lines, I lost a friendship my junior year in high school with a friend I'd had since 8th grade... though actually I'm not sure if even now she gets that I was ever mad at her, which bugs me even more. Basically I ended up not talking to her anymore and since she hadn't been talking to me much anymore anyway, the friendship just fizzled out. She still tries to talk to me sometimes but I have a bad tendency to hold personal grudges.

 

[Phantasm]

wow. yeah...i recently am going through a rough patch with a friend too. or at least, i think i keep hoping in oblivion that its just a rough patch even though the unresponsiveness on his end has me almost losing my mind.

i have always been a good and loyal friend i suppose. i've never been the one to break off a friendship and have never actually even experienced the ending of such a relationship because of reasons that aren't fully out of our hands. but its happening now. and i'm a mess.