I believe that quality matters more than quantity when it comes to friends. I have a fairly wide social circle and a handful of super close girlfriends that I treasure. Recently, after four years of friendship, someone I considered a best friend started an out-of-the-blue fight with me. It was hurtful and shocking, and yet felt like something that was bound to happen when I stopped to think. Here’s an open letter to the friend who betrayed me – all the things I’ve been thinking about recently, and the things I would tell you if you were also going through a friendship breakup.
- Friends need to be on your side. Ultimately, what broke apart a years-long friendship was my confiding in her about some recent bad dates. Seems like a pretty normal thing to talk about with a BFF when you’re dating in your 20s, right? Apparently not, because this friend went nuts and called me some choice words. She accused me of stuff that was completely false and said more about her than it did about me. I realized that no matter what, your friends need to be on your side. They need to believe what you’re saying to them and support you. If they can’t, they’re not actually a friend.
- You can’t hide behind text messages. The same goes for the Internet. We all know how that works out – just watch an episode of Catfish. This fight took place over text and ultimately become pretty laughable. Would she have said those cruel things to my face? I don’t know and don’t really want to know. But just because you’re typing up words and sending them through your iPhone or on social media doesn’t mean they don’t have impact. The old saying may go “sticks and stones may break my bones” but guess what? Words do hurt. They have power and that power still exists over text messages and Facebook.
- You can’t take out your unhappiness on a friend. This person had definitely changed over the past year or so, and I ultimately realized that this weird fight was inevitable because she had become a totally different person. She was taking out her frustrations with life out on me and that’s a real shame. Unfortunately, this isn’t an isolated thing – these types of fights take place every single day between friends. If you’re hurting yet refuse to admit it and start treating people badly, that’s just not okay.
- You don’t need to take crap from anyone. When I sent a Facebook message to another best friend and told her what happened, her response was basically, “This is ridiculous. You don’t need to take her crap.” She was totally right. We don’t need to accept the crap that so-called friends throw our way – that’s not what friends are for. If someone makes you feel bad about yourself, it’s okay to stop being friends with them.
- We’re all hurting. Sure, we may drink our green smoothies and Instagram our vegan lunch bowls and post inspirational messages on our social media accounts. But ultimately, we’re all hurting in one way or another. It was borderline hilarious that this person chose to insult me and accuse me of things that have nothing to do with me when all I had done was told her I was having a hard time. It’s more important than ever before to watch what you say to the people in your life. You never know what someone is facing.
- Words sting and linger. Two weeks later, I still can’t get those texts out of my head. They still hurt. It’s silly to think that we can just say whatever the hell we want just because we want to say it.
- Make sure you mean what you say. Did this girl try to cut me out of her life? Were her words carefully chosen so I would delete her from all social media and never talk to her again (which is basically what is happening)? Whether she meant for this to happen or not doesn’t really matter in the end – it still happened. But if you ever consider telling a friend what you really think about them, be careful. It’s probably not the best idea.
- Your time isn’t wasted. As soon as I deleted the latest text message, my mind immediately went to all the drinks, dinners in our apartments and restaurants, presents, stories, laughter, tears that we had shared over the years. It may seem like a waste of time because now the friendship is totally dead but I don’t think it’s a waste after all. It taught me how to be a good friend even this person wasn’t receptive and didn’t deserve it.
- Your real friends become obvious. That friend who I Facebooked with? She followed her dreams and is on a Morocco/Rome adventure right now and yet she still responded to me literally one minute later. I’m so grateful that she was there for me when it would have totally made sense if she took forever to respond. So even though this was a less than amazing experience, it definitely made me appreciate who my true friends are. They’re still here, they still exist, they’re still totally there for me. They’re the ones who matter.
