How to End a Friendship

This past week was an emotional one, as multiple highly charged things needed my attention to decipher the severity of the situation. One was a professional conundrum and the outcome results of conversations. I won't go into detail about it to hold space for growth and learning opportunities that are yet to come to fruition. I will hold onto my hope that we can learn and grow throughout our lives, and I think it is not my place to speak on the situation in a larger scale way, so I will hold this close for my friends.

On the other end, I needed to sort through my emotions and reflect upon a friendship. In doing so, I wrote draft after draft of a letter outlining my feelings. Some were too soft and glossing over large parts of my feelings in an attempt to placate an imagined worst case scenario where revenge is sought for being too open, honest, and vulnerable. (More on this later.) Other drafts were mean and harsh, cutting through a person in a way that is not like the empathetic person I want to be. Draft after draft, I had to sort through the truths of both versions and figure out what had action steps or feedback or something worth saving. Draft after draft, I had to question what it is that I want out of people and how I ask for it.

This brings us back about a decade. In 2015, my aunt passed away from cancer at 47 years old. Death is always sad because it feels so final, but it is especially difficult when it is someone so young. Unsurprisingly, I was devastated and grieved the loss for a long time. That summer, I was 22, and instead of going out with my friends, I wanted to lay in my bed, watch tv, and cry. I wanted to curl into myself and hold on to this person who I loved so dearly and was sad to no longer have. I wanted the silence and solitude and stillness.

Turns out, that made me a terrible friend.

My best friend at the time was going through her own self discovery journey. A former timid and quiet person had turned into someone who enjoyed going out and meeting new people. The person with no desire to crush on the boys was turning into someone very interested in pursuing them. She met someone, and her world opened up. She was having the time of her life.

Our lives were going in different directions, and we were building resentment for each other. It hit its boiling point when she asked me to join in some plans, but I had to work and cancel once the time changed. It felt like an outreached hand was pulled away. In my frustration, I wrote a letter detailing how we no longer were acting as friends. In all truth, I have no idea what this letter said. There are times when I hold a copy of something for whenever I want to reflect (or one day turn my life into a book or if my future children/niblings want to know more about me), but this was not something I chose to hold on to. I genuinely don't want to know what cringy things I had to say in my heartbreak. Because it was a breakup letter for the most important person in my life when I was dealing with so much loss, I know it was sad and sappy.

After receiving the letter, this person was obviously hurt. It was a breakup letter after many years of friendship. Close friendship. We had been coworkers and roommates and classmates and carpool buddies. This friendship was a genuine loss to me, and I know that sentiment was returned. But in her hurt, she made choices that served as a revenge that honestly feel like a fever dream. My most non-promiscuous friend (because all my friends are not promiscuous, but she was the most extreme one) decided to seek out my guy friends to sleep with them. It was out of character and bizarre, and it was an interesting way to lash out.

In the knowledge of this person and how their actions don't align, I often separate these two people. My friend and this other person who was so severely hurt and who was clearly going through something. Searching for something.

I often think of this and laugh because it feels so absurd. It feels ridiculous and made up. This specific person couldn't have done this. If I am being honest, my favorite part of this whole situation is that she ultimately married one of these men. She met him at my birthday party. It is my favorite part because I am forever tainting their love story and its foundation. Imagine being so mad at someone that you make them that big of a part in your life. Imagine being that hurt that you choose to make it the foundation of your entire relationship and all the choices that stem out from there. I am so flattered by her choice to enshrine me through that decision.

But this past week, in doing this reflection and sorting through my recent friendship brought all these feelings of hurt back. It made me cry in a way I don't think I have ever cried about the situation because her actions never really truly hurt me. I mean, they were aimed at me in a way to prove something, and I never thought it reached its aim. I was never going to have a romantic relationship with those friends, especially if they went along with the plan, intentionally or not. It never made me question my own desirability, if you will.

However, her actions did and do hurt. The betrayal of a best friend by using secret intel to lure these men into her bed. A spy pretending to be a friend with the true malicious intention hidden. A faked forgiveness as means to play nice and buy time. It was mean for the sake of being mean where I was left clueless to the ruse. It doesn't feel good to be deceived.

To circle back to a thread throughout some of these posts, I want to point out the growth that I am trying to do in moving towards the life I want or am hoping to have. I want intentional relationships and have been trying to let go of the old energy that has been lingering. As a result of this past hurt coming back to me in my spiral of a worst-case scenario that someone could want to seek revenge because I gave them a letter detailing my feelings, I decided to close this circle. I sent this person a message telling them that their actions were fucked up and wrong, and they hurt me. We went back and forth about it, and she sent something about how we were unable to voice our frustrations with each other, and this was part of that. She is right that we did fear hurting each other, and we would hold it in until the resentment built. That fear of vulnerability was unhealthy.

I will admit that in my life I have struggled with vulnerability. To stand up for myself and say the quiet parts out loud. It's funny to me that I can be such a timid person when I am also the most stubborn person who does not abandon myself when there is a strong sense of determination. In this new phase of my life, I am quicker to tell my story - all the gory parts that are filled with shame and guilt - without judgment for myself or fear of sharing my experiences. Yet it is also still terrifying to take up space and ask people to value me. How are these two halves that exist within me?

Yesterday, I had dinner with my friend. I was sharing this story, and I was validated that there are people who make it easier and harder to be honest with. You can want to say something (or even do say something) and know that it will fall on deaf ears. You can try to take the lead, and they refuse to follow. It's not that you aren't acting in a certain way, it's that some relationships foster it better than others.

In the same conversation, we talked about how past traumas and experiences live within us. There are times when its confusing because we can't determine if we are creating a problem that doesn't exist or if we are finding a pattern that we've ignored in the past and might be overlooking in the present.

It is hard to trust yourself through past betrayals and through past patterns. There are looming questions such as what if I am doomed to repeat the same thing over and over because I am an easy target or what if I am running away from something that I shouldn't be? But I guess, I should add the questions like how come there are people who I immediately know I can trust without hesitation and why is it so easy to communicate with them?

All I know is that I can only control myself and the trust that I put into my relationships. I can trust that my gut can be screaming at me and if I can't shake the feeling, I need to consider it as something legitimate. I know that friendships and relationships are not easy, and I know that I have had a lot of really messy endings with people who I completely trusted, but it doesn't mean I should shy away from hard conversations. The only real way forward with someone is through removing the insecurities that if someone knows the truth you will be rejected. Ultimately being accepted without the whole truth is a form of rejection for your true self anyways.

I am working to develop this fearlessness and confidence that I am worthy. To take up space. To ask for help. To share my truth. There are people who I can trust with all the parts of me, and I trust that they won't hurt me. I can continue to trust my judgment because if I turn on myself, I really don't have anyone. I never want to lose myself, my favorite person, to that fear.