Words by Jessica Seaborn // photo by Hugh Stewart
Some time ago, a close friend blocked me on social media. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, even LinkedIn. It was overnight with no explanation, and I think about it often. I think about what I might’ve said or done that drove such a reaction. I think about the last time we saw each other – talking over drinks, at a party, fresh out of university – and how it seemed like we were having a good time. One moment we were friends, and the next, they weren’t replying to my messages. Years of friendship, obliterated, and I still have no idea what happened.
Now, years later, I’m able to laugh about it (who blocks someone on LinkedIn?) but for a time – a long time – it was devastating. More devastating than career setbacks or health scares, or being friend-zoned. More devastating than when I’ve ended relationships, even the ones where it wasn’t my decision.
Not once have I wracked my brain about the end of a relationship and pored over my actions. Questioned what I said, or how I said it, and wondered how I could’ve done something differently. I’m a pragmatic person, and I’m self-assured, and I always knew, with time, that the right person would cross my path. But the loss of that friendship? Oh yes, I’ve thought about that many times over the years.
Maybe it’s because I’ll never find out the truth. Maybe it’s because it was the first time I’d lost a friend. Maybe it’s because it was one-sided, and quite frankly, cruel. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been worried that I did something horrible, without realising, and I’m too scared to find out what it was. Or maybe, it’s simply because they were a great friend, and after we ended, I missed them. Their humour and their advice, their taste in music, and their love of books. Their companionship and their attentiveness.
Maybe, above all else, it was because it hurt me more than I ever imagined it would.
I like to think the breakup prepared me for adult life – got me ready, perhaps, for the dissolution of other friendships. Because it’s inevitable, really. You gain friends and you lose friends, and sometimes, there’s nothing we can do about it. Some friendship breakups are unexpected, and sudden, and they’re blocking you on LinkedIn (I’m laughing as I type that), and others are a slow, gradual separation. Fewer messages, further apart, until communication ceases altogether. Until the only glimpse you have is whatever they choose to post on social media.
It encourages us to evolve, I think, when we make new friends. When we meet new people, when we start new jobs, when we grow older. We learn who we are, and we come to realise who we want to spend this life with. There’s a question I ask myself when thinking about a long-term, established friendship, particularly one that feels like it’s teetering on the edge of separation – If I needed them, really needed them, would they turn up? And if the answer is no, the friendship isn’t worth fighting for.
So I like to think it’s for the best, when some friendships end. Whether they’ve run their course or it’s an unexpected loss, they taught me something. Helped me grow. Thickened my skin. I’ve learnt to be logical about it, like the end of a romantic relationship, and I tell myself it wasn’t meant to be. That the right people will cross my path, at the right time, and some friendships just aren’t meant to last forever.
But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.
Jessica Seaborn’s new novel Isn’t it Nice We Both Hate the Same Things (Penguin Books) is out now.
