How to Be A Friend

More silver linings that emerge after a friendship break-up.

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What does being a friend mean to you?

Friendship is a concept I’ve surmised for months recently. No, years. It’s the topic I’ve written about the most over the past 12 months, according to the incredibly type-A index I keep in my bullet journal. Having found it hard to make friends my whole life, it is a surprise, delight and wonder to have a close-knit circle now in my thirties. And every day, I’m learning more about how to be a friend.

A couple of years ago, I went through a friendship break-up that easily felt 10x worse than when I ended a long-term relationship just months before. We’d been friends since we were 17, bonding while exchanging strings of messages over MSN Messenger until the early hours of the morning, venting about various college and family problems, giving one another relationship advice (LOL). At 17, you feel invincible. You’re full of hope and ambition. (Even if you continue to be so aged 33, it hits different when you’re a kid that thinks they’re nearly an adult.) Our friendship transcended my going to university and leaving them behind, it even survived the two-year period I spent living and working abroad. Really, our friendship was the sort where we were there for each other throughout the good and the bad, the big and the small. When I was in the throes of printing my dissertation and finishing university, they were there for me. When I snagged my first full-time job, they were the first person to congratulate me.

Yet, when it came to relationships and dating, they didn’t take to any new man very well. It’d be ‘they’re controlling’ (he was) or ‘he doesn’t seem to be supportive of your success’ (he wasn’t) and often it felt like pulling teeth just to talk about my romantic life and its woes. In return, they didn’t let on much about their own dating life.

(Reader, I think you know where this is going.)

In late summer 2021, I began dating my now-boyfriend – easily the love of my life – for the second time. Almost instantly, things changed. My friend took days, not hours, to respond to messages. They stopped initiating everyday chitchat and check-ins. Our weekly walk-and-talks disappeared into the ether. It felt just like when my ‘friends’ from school slowly but surely elbowed me out of what was once a tight-knit group. And it’s the slow burn that hurts the most. When I finally managed to pin down a catch-up, it all spilled out:

“He asked me to be his girlfriend!”

A silence so long you’d think somebody had actually hit the pause button.

“I can’t be your friend like this. It’s too painful – I’m in love with you.”

It’s been three years and I still recall the exact chilly breeze that graced the air, the crinkle pattern on the leaves of the tree we had stopped, as though frozen, beside. I remember the exact look on his face and how it looked nothing how I remembered him to look. Of all of the friendship break-ups I’ve endured, this was perhaps one of the hardest: a break-up that ensued because he couldn’t be happy for me. And, of course, no break-up – platonic or romantic – is a shared decision. It took me months, or years, to grieve, process and heal from the loss of this 14-year friendship. But here’s the silver lining:

I learned how to be a friend. To be a friend is to put aside our egos and be there for somebody in their highest highs and lowest lows. It means checking in on each other, but also checking out (when one’s social battery dips). Being a friend is easy and quiet, but equally full of hard conversations (they’ll hear it best from you, after all) and loud laughter. Sometimes, it’s sending each other endless Reels and memes when words have left you sub-9pm. Other times, it’s solving problems and fighting monsters via podcast-worthy voice notes. A lot of the time, it’s laughing so much that it’s silent, lounging on the sofa and feeling enveloped in the glow of being so perfectly seen and unseen. It’s the soft touch of a hug just when you need it. Or the warmth of shared food and stories and games and product recommendations and TV shows we know neither of us will watch anytime soon.

What does being a friend mean to you?