The End Of Friendships
Should we leave, based off bad decisions?
On my way home last week, I came across a new episode of Call Her Daddy — the infamous sex, relationship and lifestyle podcast by Alex Cooper. Last week, she interviewed Shay Mitchell. While listening to Shay speak about independence, relationships, and her journey to motherhood, I found we shared a few ideologies in common. Alex mentioned she’s heard Shay is an incredible friend and really holds friendships as a high priority. Shay expressed what many women do: her friendships are her world. She’ll do anything for her friends and sees them as family. They don’t need to talk every day or even month, to feel connected and feel deep love. Alex asked if Shay has ever ended a friendship, to which she confirms yes; she ended a friendship once because she lost respect for that woman’s decisions. She likens it to dating, “You know when you’re dating a guy and he could move his hand a certain way or do something where you just feel like, it’s over. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. You lose that respect and it’s done.”
I don’t know Shay from Eve, nor do I pay attention to the movies or shows she’s in. However, this stuck with me. It stuck with me because as a woman whose inner circle has shifted and become smaller within the past 3 years, I’ve thought about friendships…well…a ton. I’ve examined and ruminated on why I would end a friendship, what it would take for me to reach that point, if that point is really justified and how to communicate my emotions more effectively. So on and so forth. It’s a common thing many of us face as we grow older; just life forcing two paths away from one another. Even if you swore those paths would never part.
Her explanation of ending previous friendships sat with me because it reveals the true fragility of relationships. I’ve often found the explanations in many friendships can seem trite and unnecessary. To be blunt: leaving someone because you disagree with their life choices seems all too easy. It’s cheap. And it seems to run parallel to cancel culture. Once someone does something we don’t like, there’s a tendency to collectively gather and shame that person, ultimately pushing them out of society entirely. This societal occurrence seems eerily similar to letting friendships go over things that are none of our business to begin with. Are we so naive and emotionally stunted, that we’ll cancel a friendship altogether instead of weather storms to try and see if we can come out stronger in the end?
We all have our own autonomy to live how we want to live. Unless we’re harming someone physically or acting emotionally irresponsible, why would any other reason cause love to go away? Or cause a friendship to break? The counterargument being: if you’re only friends with people whose life decisions agree with you, and people who don’t challenge your mind to stretch beyond its current limits, then how are you creating a space where you will flourish and grow? Where dialectical thinking can be encountered?
My friendships have varied, and some have been lost. This has been painful, but incredibly normal. I’m in the majority. However, throughout all my friendships, I can say I’ve been surrounded by quite the diverse group. Diverse with race and sexual orientation, yes, but also diverse in how we approach life and how we think. My friendships have been with deeply beautiful and complicated women. Women who have dated men, climbed the corporate ladder, had threesomes with women, graduated with Master’s degrees, had affairs, traveled the world, made their own empire time and again, got married, had children, single mothers doing it all on their own, women who dare to be challenged. Women who buck to authority and who love smoking weed just as much as a nice glass of wine. Women who throw drinks in bars, who stay out late, who go home with strangers because they want to. Because they can. Women who were straight A students, women who desire a traditional life, and those who want nothing of the sort. Women who curse like sailors, survive abuse and assault, take care of everything themselves, their independence sharp as a razor. Women who buy expensive homes and apologize for nothing — and to no one. Women who are deeply gorgeous and complicated and phenomenal and threatening. These women — my women — have shaped my world and made their marks on my heart and psyche.
Do I agree with every single decision they’ve made? No. Do I respect every decision they’ve made? No. My opinions are my own and they vary. The thing is, I don’t have to respect their decisions or even like their decisions, to respect them. I don’t have to respect their decisions, to know they have their own autonomy. To know, that as long as they aren’t hurting anyone physically or intending to, emotionally, that really — it’s none of my business. And to know the saying “live and let live” is part of my truth. The women in my heart, also respect me enough to let me walk my path, even if they’ve disliked or felt lack of respect for my decisions.
When looking up different resources on why many friendships end, I came across an article including quotes from a psychologist on the matter. One of the qualifiers for a healthy relationship, was “support for one another’s values.” The psychologist, Marisa Franco, mentioned identity affirmation as an essential marker of friendship; “If I’m good at identity affirmation, I’d recognize that my friend’s values don’t have to match mine […] I can support them in living their version of their best life.” Basically, my version of a best life may be vastly different than a friends’, but as long as we support one another and are here for one another, that’s all that matters. If we dislike each other’s decisions, it’s not our job to police. It’s our “job”, for lack of a better word, to be honest about any concerns, to communicate, to give love and support, and ultimately to let each other live. And if the chips may fall, or the relationship fails, or if the job goes sour, instead of having an attitude of “I told you so”, we can simply sit and hold space for our friend with an open mind and open heart. We can be safe spaces.
Contrarily, one of the obvious reasons to end a friendship is disrespect; because truly, without respect, no relationship would survive. Although, I do question if respect can erode and be rebuilt. But that’s a post for another time. The list of disrespect in friendships, range from: not valuing someone’s energy or time, not honoring boundaries, or continuing to say and do things even when knowing it hurts the other party. For me, my previous friendships eroded due to lack of emotional safety and feeling unheard. Those were pretty big things, which started off as seemingly small, but built and built and built. And along with the building, came resentment, loss of respect, and then…apathy.
We all have our reasons to end a friendship or any relationship for that matter. Shay may be a wonderful friend, and all of my thoughts are with her aside. Her explanation of leaving a friendship due to disrespecting someone’s decisions — was simply my food for thought. I’m naive to what exactly her friend’s decisions were and question, how heinous were they to cause an ending? I understand loss of respect can happen and the desire to surround oneself with positive influences. Regardless, we all have our conclusions. For me, I disagree with a lot in other’s lives. I try my best not to come across as sanctimonious, but I’m aware I tip toe on the line. When I flesh it all out, and think dialectically, my ultimate conclusion is this:
We’re all human. Whether we agree with each other's decisions or not. As long as no crimes or ill intent is happening, I have no choice but to let you dance your dance. We’re messy and human. We have our positives and negatives. Life is not so black and white; it is very much in the grey. I’d like to believe we’re all trying our best, and when our points of reference change, we try our best to work off the new ones too. We build, we break, and rebuild again. We make fucked up decisions. We deceive and lie. We’re honest and sometimes brutally so. We hurt and we heal. We judge, despite trying our best not to. We criticize, even though we know in our hearts it’s hypocritical. We’re different, unique, and all heart.
In one of Colleen Hoover’s questionable novels, her intro is dedicated to a friend. She writes, “thank you for accepting the darkness in people as much as you accept their light.” With the world seemingly on fire, wars taking place, and atrocious crimes and hate towards marginalized communities — maybe we could stand to be a bit more graceful to those around us. If you want to leave someone because they make poor decisions, that’s your prerogative. But if your driving standard for relationships, is to only have those around whose decisions you deem correct, in your eyes — don’t be surprised when you have little to no one accepting your darkness as well as your light.
