your stories of friendship breakups

Edward Hopper, Hotel Lobby, 1943

(Last call for joining the writing accountability group that will run Tuesday and Friday at 8 AM PST for one hour from November 12th to December 6th. We have ~30 people which feels like a lot to me!)

Hi! I wanted to anonymously ask subscribers about the life and love dilemmas we all go through. I really enjoy hearing about other people’s experiences with things I struggle with but struggle to describe—I think these topics are really hard to talk about and much more universal than we expect. Here are the questions I asked:

How old are you?

What’s your gender?

Where do you live?

Tell me a little bit about the friendship. How long have you known each other and why did you guys become friends?

Why did the breakup happen? How long has it been?

Do you want to make up with your ex-friend? Do you expect to make up?

I picked some of the responses I found particularly poignant but was considering putting the rest into a spreadsheet and sharing with paid subscribers—let me know if you guys would enjoy that! And of course, please share your own thoughts and experiences of friendship breakups in the comments. Keep an eye out for next week’s topic in the Substack subscriber chat :)

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Neel - 30, Male, India

Tell me a little bit about the friendship. How long have you known each other and why did you guys become friends?

8 years. We met when we had barely started our careers. We did not have much money. Our friendship was so unconditional. We kept visiting each other in different cities, crashing at each other’s pads. Then we went to a masters program together. And built a lot more shared life and mutual friends. We stayed virtually connected through the tough times during the pandemic.

Why did the breakup happen? How long has it been?

It is still ongoing. Things have been different since he started dating someone new, two years back. For some reason she and I do not get along so well. It has been very painful to go through this time. I forced myself to attend their wedding last week. She also tries hard to like me. But towards the end of the wedding when she had been overwhelmed enough, she just did not want to have me around anymore. Which now makes me think, if there is still any point in trying to make it work…

Do you want to make up with your ex-friend? Do you expect to make up?

I want to grow old with him. Losing him would need me to build a lot more life for myself to keep myself intact. And I still wouldn’t be able to replace him. But I can’t keep trying to force this. If its meant to be, there will come a time, when it shall happen effortlessly.