Losing a Best Friend

speckledegg
Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:47:21 +0000

Acollegestudent: everything you say makes perfect sense. But that doesn’t make it any easier to bear right now.

Friendships have beginnings, middles, and endings. They evolve. There will be times in your life when friendships can exist for many years, for instance, from age 30-50 if you settle into a neighborhood or a job and remain there for a long time with the same people. One characteristic of the neighborhood or office community is that many of the relationships are interwoven… someone might leave to take a new job or to move to a different city, but the other people remain, so the overall “fabric” of the relationship structure is intact even though you might miss that one person very much. Sometimes you can remain in touch and keep the friendship going, and sometimes it’s just not possible.

College is a time of tremendous growth and autonomy. Students are on the go and pursuing changing interests and activities. Friendships can cycle rapidly in tandem with these changing interests and personal growth. True, sometimes social groups overlap and some people continue to enjoy good post-grad times with their college friends, having reunions each year for instance, but it’s also true that some lose touch with each other and move on to new circles of friends. There really is no pattern that is the same for everyone. Especially if you were best friends and did a lot of things together, with not many other friends in the mix, it is natural that you would feel a sense of deep loss when the friendship evolves to something that is not as good as before. Part of friendship is availability. That means more than whether they are free to see a movie. If your friend is no longer available to you at the emotional level you need or once shared, and you both recognize that, then the nature of that relationship has changed significantly. Sounds like it might be time to appreciate all that you shared and learned together, while accepting that things have changed. There will be more changes in the next few months as college seniors fan out to jobs and graduate schools all over the country. It’s a bittersweet time.

That old Girl Scout song comes to mind: “Make new friends, and keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.”

Friendship can be painful! It’s part of the deal. And realizing that there is a change in the nature of a friendship can be painful, especially if one party wishes the relationship could continue the way it was. You sound like a wonderful, caring friend who has a great capacity for intimacy. This will serve you well in future friendships, and it is good to recognize at a relatively young age that you are inclined to develop fewer and deeper friendships rather than large numbers of aquaintances. Some people don’t know that about themselves until they are 30 or 40.