When a Friendship Fades Without a "Villain"Why some friendships fade without a dramatic ending—and how to carry the story with less resentment
Plenty of friendships fade without an argument or even a hint of conflict. There’s not always a clear-cut explanation for why you talk less often, spend less time together, text less, or even connect on social media less frequently. You can probably think of friends from all of your “eras” who are no longer a significant part of your life. In some cases, you might have let the “friendship rope” go. In other cases, your friend let it go. And sometimes it was a mutual fading out. And because many of us struggle with ambiguity, we might turn the drifting of that friendship into a story where someone wronged us. Or we were foolish for wanting the friendship more than the other person did. It’s tempting to make someone the villain despite how easily we can explain why our own drifts away from certain friends were a natural outcome. (I drifted away from friend X for totally understandable reasons but friend Y abandonded me and is a jerk.) I understand the impulse to make it someone’s fault. When a friendship that once mattered becomes less close, it feels hurtful or even embarrassing. It can make us question whether we misread the whole relationship from the get go. In this week’s episode of Dear Nina, I spoke with one of my best friends, Rebecca Kotok, about a softer way to think about friendships that faded. Rebecca was first on the podcast years ago to talk about our own friendship breakup in our 20s and eventual reconciliation. This week’s conversation was different. It was less about repairing one specific friendship where there was an actual rift and more about what age, grief, and life experience can do to the way we carry old friendship stories. Rebecca said something that stayed with me: “I now attribute perceived slights much less to someone’s character and much more to what that person may have been carrying.” Sometimes a friendship faded because kids changed schools, someone moved, one person’s job became consuming, one person was overwhelmed with aging parents or their kids’ needs (or both at the same time), one person had less capacity than anyone realized, or it was simply that the friendship belonged to a certain time and place (college, sports team, work, the kids were friends for a while, and so on). That does not mean every hurtful thing gets excused. It does not mean you have to call an old friend, get coffee, or restart the friendship with your new understanding. It means there may be peace, as Rebecca said, “in not prosecuting the case forever in your mind.” A friendship that drifted doesn’t mean the friendship didn’t matter. I think that is the piece people often miss. We assume that if a friendship didn’t last, it must have failed or it was mistake to have spent those years together. But lots of friendships were real and meaningful even if they were not permanent. There are friends who gave us comfort, fun, companionship, or a sense of belonging for a while, and when life changed, the relationship changed too. A softer way to carry an old friendship story might sound like this: I don’t need to pretend it didn’t hurt or disappoint me to lose this friendship. I also don’t need to make her the villain. It’s a hard point-of-view to maintain right in the middle of a friendship that’s fading. Neither Rebecca nor I are suggesting that’s possible. What we discussed is the way you view the situation later so you can diminish the shame or anger you carry around about it. For your own good! Rebecca explains it best in the episode! Listen to episode #201 on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and anywhere you get your podcasts
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