Friendship is an integral part of us. So what happens to us when it ends? In the spring of 2019, my first friendship fell apart. We ended up in a heated argument, tears, and frustration, and we haven't spoken since. For a long time, I grieved the loss of this friendship, its place in my life. Even now, more than five years later,
I still dream about her from time to time and often wonder if we'll ever be together again. But I also embraced the ambiguity. It was a great friendship while it lasted. Coincidentally, my first romantic relationship ended after just five months. I found it much easier to talk about it. I was well prepared, having read years of music, movies, and books about heartbreak. Since then, I've noticed that the end of a friendship is discussed less often than the end of a romantic relationship. Historically, friendships have received less attention from researchers compared to other types of relationships, despite their benefits to long-term health, happiness, and life satisfaction. Grace Viss, a social psychologist at the University of Minnesota, studies the end of friendships. "I think readers will be surprised that we, as researchers, are just beginning to study how friendships end, and that it's a very new phenomenon...the research is just starting," she says. Because the end of a friendship isn't generally talked about much, people may not know how to deal with it, or how to deal with the strong emotions that come with it, Viss says. "There's a very clear societal script for how to break up with a romantic partner," she says. "But there's no prescriptive script for how to end a friendship." Is friendship forever? As children, our parents are our most important support. But as we get older, and especially as we enter adolescence, we spend significantly more time with our peers and place more importance on social acceptance and social status, says Caitlin Flannery, an associate professor of psychology at the State University of New York College in Cortland.
"We have different bonds with our friends, and they help shape our identity throughout our lives. We use our friends as a kind of mirror or guide." Viess points out that early friendships are built on similarity and intimacy. "We are social creatures. "We want to be accepted," Flannery says. "We want to be recognized not only by our families but also by our peers. So friendships can be an important source of social support, but also an important source of fun and companionship." Much of the research on friendship demise has focused on children and adolescents, the age when friendships often break down. In Flannery's study of a sample of 354 middle school students (usually between 11 and 14 years old), 86% reported that a friendship had recently ended. Most attributed it to conflict or a breach of trust. Another indicator is a lack of support from friends or feeling like they are not getting what they need from friends, for example, not having friendships or not having fun with each other. The end of a friendship reportedly elicited mixed emotions in middle school students, including sadness but also happiness and relief, depending on the reason for the breakup, how it ended, and who did the "breakup." Friends help shape our identity. You are our mirror and guide - Caitlin Flannery In some cases, a friendship may simply be "downgraded" from best friend status to "good" friend. Another year-long study of the stability of friendships among seventh graders found that only about half of the "best friendships" remained stable throughout the school year.
Research has found that older teens’ friendships remain somewhat stable as the school years progress. According to one research paper, teens are very likely to have at least one best friend in the spring after they make a best friend in the fall. Such high school friendships may weaken or even disappear as friends move on to college. This may be in part due to the physical distance that occurs between friends at this life transition. But friendships may also become more unstable as young people navigate increasingly complex social networks and their own and others’ expectations. As with previous stages of life, friendships are also an opportunity for young people to practice interacting with others. For example, one study found that people who have a "growth" mindset toward relationships -- the belief that relationships require effort and can grow and develop -- are more likely to maintain and put effort into their friendships. As interests change, some people may find spending time with new friends more rewarding. "I think it's important to recognize that friendship breakups are a part of life and are totally natural," says Wiess. "It's not the number of friends you have that matters, it's the closeness and responsiveness of those friends that counts." Not all friendship breakups are painful and dramatic. Sometimes ties just fade. A 1980s study of 90 adults between the ages of 20 and 28 found that the five most common reasons for same-sex friendships ending were: decreased physical intimacy, no longer liking the friend, decreased interaction, interference from other relationships such as dating or marriage, and friendships that naturally fade away. Intimacy had the greatest impact on casual friendships, while close and best friendships were more likely to end due to less interaction and interference from other relationships. But studies have shown that strong friendships can survive and adapt to such life changes. "When we look at the end of friendships, we see that there are certain aspects of life that can destroy friendships. But there are just as many examples of friendships that have been able to survive life changes and become closer," says Wiess. The dark side of BFFs Gender also influences what we expect from friendships and why they end.
A majority of U.S. adults (66%) say all or most of their close friends are of the same sex, but women are more likely to say so than men (71% vs. 61%). In high school, friendships between girls tend to be fueled by emotional support and intimacy, while friendships between boys tend to be based on leisure. Another big difference between the sexes is the way they form friendships (pair or group). Women often have multiple close one-on-one friendships. Male friends tend to have a denser network where all friends are friends with each other. Flannery says that maintaining friendships looks very different for men because they tend to be friends in groups, but for women, maintaining one-on-one friendships takes more energy. Girls expect more loyalty and emotional support from their friends than boys - Caitlin Flannery This may be why conflict is more likely to be problematic in female friendships, Flannery adds. "[Girls and women] have higher expectations of loyalty and emotional support from their friends compared to boys...[they] reported being sadder after a friendship ended; they ruminated, felt lonely, and were more stressed than boys, Flannery says. Research on conflict resolution has found that women take longer to reconcile with friends after an argument than men, and it also takes longer for their anger to dissipate. The reasons why friendships end are also different for men and women. A study of students at a Midwestern university in the United States found that physical separation was more likely to lead to the dissolution of men's friendships, while dating and marriage were more likely to lead to problems in women's friendships. When Ending a Friendship Might Be a Good Thing So should you hold on to your old friends and trust that you'll get along again someday? Not necessarily, say Wiess and Flannery. In some cases, it's better to let go. For example, ending a harmful friendship can improve our happiness. "Sometimes we romanticize friendships too much," says Flannery. "Not all friendships are beneficial to us, so while most friendships have great benefits, we need to make sure we choose friends who help us." Some friends make us feel like our cups are full, while others leave us feeling drained and drained. But consciously trying to end a friendship can present another tricky challenge: How do you break up with a friend without hurting them? A controversial but widespread technique is ghosting. In the dating world, ghosting is widely known as going underground and ending a romantic relationship while avoiding the conflict that comes with a romantic relationship. But ghosting is also a common way to end a friendship. In a survey of 18-25 year olds, people who ghosted a friend were asked why they did so. The most common motivations were a toxic friendship, loss of interest in maintaining the friendship, finding the friend annoying, self-preservation, and someone crossing a boundary. Although long-lasting friendships played a role for ghosters, that didn't stop them from "ghosting gradually" - that is, friends gradually drifted apart over a period of time rather than ending suddenly. This tactic left rejected friends "sad, frustrated and in pain". However, some founders saw ghosting as a defense against bad friendships and didn't believe that confrontation would help. Many people deal with conflict constructively in romantic relationships, but not in friendships - Grace Viss Viss suggests a different, perhaps better, way: to learn what it takes to maintain and improve friendships, and how to deal with conflict and confrontation. "I think a lot of people have the mindset that everyone recognizes that conflict in romantic relationships is inevitable, so we're prepared to deal with it," she says. But when it comes to friendships, we might expect things to work out naturally and give up when they don't. It's simple, and it brings a lot of joy, fun and laughter to my life," she says. "That's certainly true, but it probably leads to the idea that sometimes it's just not worth dealing with conflict." Romantic relationships and friendships have similar emotional benefits, like warmth and joy, but they have one key difference: In romantic relationships, there tends to be an expectation of monogamy. This varies by culture and person, but generally there's only one partner and the rules in the relationship are expected to be clear. "But in friendships there's no expectation of monogamy. And sometimes that makes things more complicated because you do see jealousy in friendships," Flannery says.
Friendships aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. There shouldn't be any problem with this, but it can actually make you feel uncomfortable if a very close friend has another close friend. "Because this person is very important to me, but she has other people who are very important to her," Flannery says. It can be helpful to remember that they are allowed to have other friends and that it doesn't jeopardize your friendship with them. Research on the psychology of friendship is still in its infancy, but these relationships take up a lot of attention and energy in our daily lives. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 61% of participating U.S. adults said that close friends are very or extremely important to a fulfilling life. One reason for this could be that people are marrying and having children later in life. The average age at marriage is rising in both the US and the UK, and in many other places around the world. In the UK, men and women are now waiting until they are over 30 to get married for the first time, while in the US, the numbers are at roughly the same age. This means that for most of our lives, friends can provide the stability and support that marriage used to provide. In romantic relationships, it is not uncommon for couples to break up and then get back together after some reflection. Is this something we should also consider with our ex-lovers - should we consider reconciliation and trying again? Again, it depends on the type of friendship, Flannery says. "I think there will be situations where a friendship will mend and others where it's best to leave the breakup alone," Flannery says. "Again, it depends on the situation. Would you be relieved that the friendship ended?" Has this friendship brought positive benefits to your life? If you still feel like you really miss her, it might be worth making up for it." If you enjoyed this article, sign up for The Essential List newsletter. Get handpicked feature stories, videos, and must-read news delivered to your inbox twice a week.
How to deal with a friendship breakup, from the experts
"It's probably like with dealing with any breakup – learning to accept the negative feelings that come around with it. Allow yourself to feel that that grief and worry, but then allow it to inform your choices as you move forward into other relationships." – Kaitlin Flannery
"Friendships are important, close relationships, so I think that we should give ourselves grace in understanding that a loss of a friendship is going to be hard. My advice would be to turn to your other relationships, and hopefully, you have other friends that you also value and can rely on." – Grace Vieth
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