Why Is Friendship Harder When You're An Adult?
They were your best friend. You’ve known them for years and years. Since you were little girls really. But things are not the same lately. You can’t help but notice that. It’s actually been nagging at the base of your neck for a while now but you tell yourself it must be nothing. The way your eyes see things that are not there in the dark. You tell yourself you’re making it up even though the signs were there. Your accomplishments were minimised. Your problems were trivialised. You couldn’t get a word in without having it downplayed. Meanwhile, their needs took precedence; a friendship that was once based on mutual interests was now defined by navigating their needs, their problems, and their day to day. Your needs conveniently occurred at times they were busy. And you suppose that’s fine. It’s life. Being at different places in lives is completely understandable. That’s what your 20s is about anyway. Everyone’s busy, everyone has their own things and you’re just not in the same spot of their priority list as you were when the friendship blossomed. You think the intuitive thing to do would be to check in on a later date. You’re busy now, so that’s fine.
The point is about showing up at the end of the day, right? You show that the other person matters. You work it out somehow to give someone the time of your day because you want to show them they matter, and you care about this relationship. You see counterintuitive behaviour because you didn't expect radio silence. You didn't expect a shocking lack of support. You didn't expect comments that border on insults and snarks. You didn’t expect to be the one initiating all the meetups. You didn’t expect everything you say to be thrown at your face with a “Well it’s easy for you!” You worked hard towards something? “Well, it’s easy for you, you’re smart!” You do a small rant about society’s problem with your singlehood? “Well, it’s easy for you, let me tell you about this problem I’m having!” From someone you assumed would be there for the major life events like your wedding. You tell yourself it was that one time. You hope that it was that one time. You think it must have been a coincidence. Because once or twice calls for patience, understanding and inner work. Which just feels easier than the reality. The reality that it’s consistent and it’s a pattern. It’s not you, it’s them. The reality that you now have to walk away from something you’ve invested all these years in.
The crushing blow of that realisation and that disappointment is a lot. You had seen how everything had become a complaint. You had thought to yourself “Is there not one neutral thing this person can say? Not even positive, just neutral?” Then you push that thought away because you know this person. You know what they’re like, hell you have a history. A history during which they have never demonstrated such behaviours. You are their best friend after all. You know that, they know that. They’ve said that. That you’re their best friend. The only one who truly understands their situation. The only one who just gets them and makes them feel comfortable about themselves. They tell you that every single time you see them. So, you commit to them. Your people-pleasing tendency turns you into a doormat for them. You go above and beyond for them because come on, nobody gets them like you do. Until one day you realise it’s a form of manipulative behaviour. An overcompensation to keep you at nearby and at bay while not meaning a word of it. Because the reverse is never true. You don’t feel like they understand your situation, you don’t feel like nobody gets you the way they do. But you don’t want to deal with those feelings just yet. You don’t want to admit to the validity of those feelings just yet. So, you push them deep down. Deep, deep down. And you stay at their beck and call. And the one time they do something that indicates any form of remote interest in you, you hang on to it. You frame it. You tell yourself, “SEEEEE! They DO care about you after all!”
You don’t pay attention to how tired and shitty you feel after a meetup with them. Tired of being compassionate and caring for them while getting nothing in return. Tired of how much hate they put out in the world. Tired of listening to what they say because you don’t feel like yourself around them anymore and that makes it harder for you to agree with their point of view now. Shitty about yourself because now you’re questioning whether you’re even a good person. You assess your self-worth based on this relationship. One of the qualities you pride yourself on is your loyalty so now you’re torn between loyalty and doing the right thing. Another quality you pride yourself on. You know people change so you feel like you should be giving them the benefit of the doubt; that the friendship can’t be the same now as it did in the early days. You ignore the rebuttal question that comes up. “So if you’re friends based on how you perceived them when you first saw them and people change, would you be friends with them now if you didn’t know them at all?” You don’t want to answer that so you just choose to feel shitty instead. Shitty about how after all these months they initiated a meetup just to talk about themselves or because they wanted something in return. Not because they missed you or cared about you. You feel shitty about how that small voice in your head tells you the meetup was a colossal waste of time but that can’t be true. This is your BFF.
You try to turn away from these new trust issues that have surfaced. You tell yourself it’s ridiculous, surely, they won’t be talking shit about you behind your back. Yet, yet, you find yourself unable to dismiss that idea altogether. The possibility of it. It’s just not easy. Too many recounts tell you it’s time to go if it’s time to go. But cutting contact is not easy. It’s hard, way harder than staying in a harmful friendship. So, you start rationalising your negative emotions. No relationship is all sunshine and rainbows; every one of it faces a challenging moment. It’s what happens when you put two people together. Differences in opinions, in point of views, in perspectives arise. Which will eventually lead to conflict. But the good times should outweigh the tumultuous ones, they should give us the knowledge that the latter is only momentary because you can work it out. Then you start questioning yourself on “But really, how do you define ‘good’?”
You land on the cliché that communication is key and so you talk about it. You’re offered the promise of change and betterment. You’re offered apologies, a hug, maybe even some tears. Only for all that to go out the window the next time you see them again. Making you wonder whether you even had the conversation in the first place. “This is not working anymore.” It hits you like a tonne of bricks. So, you give yourself time to grieve. It’s truly over now, you have done everything you can so what can you do but grieve? You write them a letter you will never send. It helps. It helps put a distance between you and them, a distance between your guilt and emotions and yourself. It helps you breathe a little better. You tell yourself you deserve better, you need respect in a relationship, not condescending comments and thought little of. You want appreciation. So you remind yourself it’s over and you grieve. You tell yourself you need to be a little more compassionate with yourself while you work through that grief and wait for time to take over. But meanwhile, you can’t stop thinking about whether it was the right decision or not. Whether you overreacted, whether you overplayed things in your mind. You alternate between telling yourself “It couldn’t be more obvious that the friendship was over if it was done up in marquee lights” and asking yourself if it was. You lose a little sleep. You write up an inconclusive blog post for the internet to read.
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