Did you and your best friend break up?

Welcome back to another episode of how to twenty-something and boy do I have quite the episode in store for you

I’ve briefly mentioned what I went through last year on a few different episodes, but someone told me fairly recently that I need to make a whole episode on this subject matter because of how little it’s talked about, but of how common of an experience this is and that is when you and your best friend break up

So here we are

I want you to picture this: you and your best friend, someone you’ve know for years, someone you’ve vented to about all of your life’s problems, someone who knows the ins and outs of you, someone who has always been there for you and you’ve also been there for them, someone who you always pictured standing next to you on your wedding day and vice versa, suddenly find yourselves at a crossroads

You can feel your relationship breaking at the seems, that with every little fight is another fracture in your relationship, but you think you guys are stronger than this crossroad, friendship fights are common and you’ll get through it

Yet, you don’t, this altercation hits different.. This one leads to friendship breakup

And now you are left all alone with no best friend in sight

Your weekends are spent solo, the person you text the most becomes your mom, and you feel like you have to start from scratch and find a new person to take on the best friend role

Today’s episode is going to be all about the unique challenges that come with parting ways with someone you once trusted your entire life with, as well as the personal growth that is forced upon you, and the hardships that you have to deal with as a result

I want to begin with saying, that nobody really tells you how bad this type of breakup is going to be, I personally feel it’s worse than a romantic breakup

They can be just as confusing and painful, but it hits different when you lose your best friend

I can’t really explain it but I guess it’s because this friend was probably around through a lot of major milestones in your life and various romances and breakups and also because it usually means you’re entire friend group is going to be affected as result

Which only emphasizes the importance of having friends outside of your romantic relationship as your romantic partner should not be your sole best friend – but in relation to having your best friend you typically have the same friend group as you two are the ones that always hang out together

So when you two split, who gets the friend group?

In my experience, it’s the one who is more extroverted and that’s not me which makes life a lot more challenging when a breakup like this occurs

Now, I’ve made episodes on making friends in your twenties as well as your sense of community and I’ve made an episode on going through a breakup, but this episode combines the two as you’ll learn soon enough

And like I said, last year I dealt with my own friendship breakup, a friendship that lasted 8 years suddenly gone, and it forced me to pivot and learn a lot about my own comfort zone, insecurities, resistances, and beliefs

This was the first major friendship breakup I’ve dealt with as prior ones were with people that I wasn’t friends with for that long of a time

The very first one was with my freshman year roommate, we were friends in high school, got really close senior year, lived together during our summer semester, and then when fall came and we also lived with her other best friend, which is where things took a turn

To the point where my mom was calling my University’s housing department all the time to help me get out of that living situation

And six weeks into the semester I moved out of that dorm and into one across campus and never spoke to her again.. Well i actually had to block her on everything because she was harassing me even after I moved out

The second one was with a friend I made in college and by junior year she essentially moved on from me, which hurt but I knew a lot of other people at school so I shifted my friend group and actually ended up meeting some of my closest friends to this day

The third is the one from last year, the one that hurt the most because we were friends for so long, told each other everything, trusted and supported each other with our dreams and business ventures and then when I realized our friendship was changing, as in I was feeling excluded with no reasoning for it, I confronted him about it and let’s just say things went from bad to worse to nonexistent

In the end, I’m glad he showed his true colors as I don’t want that kind of immaturity and disrespect in my life, but it did result in me losing just about everyone that I originally befriended here in Charlotte

Not all at once, but a slow dissipation and it finally became clear about 4 months later

That every single person who made me feel so loved on my birthday back in March were no longer in my life just a few months later

You learn, either the easy way or the hard way, but mostly the hard way, that friends are going to continue to change throughout your life, which is fine as you will find yourself growing apart from those around you as you grow into different phases of your adult life

But a friendship breakup is usually very unexpected and you feel there are some people who are going to be in your life for forever, until they aren’t

And it sucks when it happens

You feel so alone as you no longer have that person you tell everything to

So now you are left with figuring out what to do next

You see, when you’re in your twenties you’re going to move around, maybe by choice or with a job, you’re going to grow at a different rate than your peers, you’re going to have a lot of identity shifts, changes in priorities, and differences in opinions

And sometimes friendships don’t withstand these changes and that’s okay, it’s an unfortunate, yet natural part of life

My personal fallout really forced me to look at who I wanted to be friends with, mainly because I didn’t have any friends around for a while, it forced me to ask myself the qualities that I’m looking for in my circle of people and also realize that none of the people from my now ex-best friend’s group aligned with my core beliefs and values

Some of them were great people, others I had nothing in common with and honestly one girl I never liked, but when you break up with the leader of the pack, you lose everyone – even the people you were the closest to

That’s what happens to a lot of introverts who get adopted by an extrovert

And suddenly you are abandoned in the wild and it is a heartbreaking realization to look around and have no one in your corner 

A city that houses thousands of people now feels empty and isolating

And it’s on you to figure out what to do next, which, let me tell you, is not an easy adventure

And as we’ve already established in past episodes, making friends in your twenties is hard

But your left with two directions, one being go find your own friends or two wallow in self pity and hide out in your bedroom

Sometimes you need to do the second one temporarily, in order to heal and strategize, and be able to get to the first one of getting yourself back out there

So let’s talk about the shifts that happen within you when you lose your friend group in the city you live in

Your initial reaction might be, is it time to move?

That’s a tough one, because would moving mean you’re running away from your problems?

And if that’s the case, I hate to break it to you but it’s you, hi you’re the problem, it’s you

Meaning if you move, the chances of finding yourself in a similar situation in the near future is very high

It would be more beneficial, and cheaper, to stay put, to figure out what you need to work on so this experience doesn’t present itself all over again

You might not necessarily be the actual problem, but it could be you are not choosing the right people to be in your life, which is why they end up temporary

This was a hard pill for me to swallow because I don’t have a lot of people in my life who are my ride or dies, I feel like I’m bad at picking good people

Which I was, emphasis on the past tense there, because I’ve done the inner work that is needed to know what I’m looking for in a friend

And I’ve successfully made friends with two specific people, so far, who possess some good friend qualities

I’m not befriending people because they are a certain age or they look like they have fun on the weekends, which was a lesson I only recently learned

Which is friends can come in all shapes, sizes, and ages

I am befriending people because they are driven, responsible, caring, don’t revolve their entire social life around alcohol, and can carry deep, meaningful, intellectual conversations

Honestly, it’s similar to who I would want to date

This was an interesting realization for me to have and really surfaced the day of my speaking event back in November

My coach always tells me to focus on who’s in the room versus who isn’t, but when you are doing a big milestone moment you do hope certain people will reach out and congratulate you or support you in some way

And the people who were in the room for me made my heart so happy, the people who reached out to me that day or once the video got released also meant so much to me and none of those actions went unnoticed

But, there were certain people that I thought would say SOMETHING to me, and gave radio silence and it was very eye opening

The people surrounding me on that day weren’t in their twenties, didn’t go out drinking all the time, and supported me and my big moment

This experience provided this shift in my beliefs of what your community should look like in adulthood

It’s a weird learning curve for sure because up until this point you were only surrounded by people within a certain age range

And when you enter the real world it’s all ages after 18

This is probably the biggest shift that occurs when you and your best friend go through a break up, you realize who else is out there, what type of person you want in your life, and you redefine your definition of what a friend looks like for you

The other shift that happens is the growth in yourself because you have no one, you are forced to do new things in order to meet new people and that’s scary and uncomfortable

You might even realize that the people you were surrounding yourself with were actually holding you back form your full potential, dreams, and ambitions simply because they weren’t after the same life you were so you weren’t being inspired to take action towards what you really want

My mom brought it to my attention that my friendship breakup was partly due to my being super ambitious and when I have a vision I go after it and create it and this ex-friend would have many visions but never made anything happen

The story I can create is it made him insecure that he has never been able to stick by his word and fully go after what he wants and here I am constantly doing so which in a way is continuously throwing it in his face

So instead of seeing my ability to do what I set my mind to and trying to learn from it.. He turned his back and didn’t want to see any of it

Again it’s a story and I could create many stories as to why this friendship ended as you’ll hear soon enough and you probably find yourself creating many stories behind why someone behaved in the way they did – and you’ll never truly know what actually went on in their head unless they specifically tell you.. But the bottom line is we will never be friends again

And if you know me, I don’t like using such definitive language but there are some things I do know for certain and that is one of them

I will say that friendship breakups impact people differently based on your gender and the gender of your friend.. I can’t particularly speak for the LGBTQ community so I’m going to reference this towards straight people although I am an ally to the people who are part of the community, so don’t cancel me… it’s just not in my personal experiences to speak on with this subject matter

Whether it is male versus male, female versus female, or male versus female, the results of the breakup will be disruptive to your life but in very different ways

So let’s dig into how friendship fallouts present themselves depending on the friendship at hand

All types friendships can end due to major life changes like moving, or getting into a serious relationships, even starting a family, and it’s more so you guys have drifted apart and communication fizzled instead of a whole fallout

You can also have the types of friends that you talk to like twice a year but every time you are together it’s like no time has passed at all, but some friendships just drift over time which is fine, that’s part of life

This episode is different, as in I’m talking about a significant event or fight or action resulting in you no longer being on speaking terms with your best friend, potentially for forever

I’m going to begin with male to male, as I cannot speak to this personally, I am basing it off of experiences that my male friends have mentioned

Male to male fallouts are honestly not very common, in part because guys don’t take things that personally and also because guys have a tendency to not discuss their feelings openly

Most guy friendships are action based so through shared activities, bonding happens as they each participate in these sports or hobbies or even gaming

Because this is how they bond there communication is also oriented around the activity or mutual interest rather than emotional conversations

According to my own research, guys will experience their own version of a friendship breakup if there’s unhealthy competition that breeds jealousy like romances or career or anything of the sort

Sometimes when a conflict occurs one guy could have a more direct confrontation approach while the other may avoid confrontation which will only push the two further away from one another

In my experience with my male friends and seeing how they interact with one another, full on breakups are not that common – it’s not saying that they don’t happen just that guys are pretty good at brushing past a conflict with one another and establish really strong relationships with their friends

Which is where the term bromance comes in, they really do have this special bond that hardly ever gets broken

When it’s a female female friendship it’s a lot more catty, these friendships develop with a high level of emotional intimacy, connection, and support

Female female friendships can end for a number of reasons like jealousy, lack of communication or miscommunication, straight up backstabbing the other person which leads to a betrayal of trust, even if you don’t like your friend’s partner which I’ve personally had happen and know other people who feel their friendship is fracturing because of this

It’s no secret that females are more emotional creatures, we thrive on the richness of relationships, but girls are also very mean, and honestly scary

Fallouts can be so horrible because of the emotional warfare that can be exchanged between two females

Speaking as a female myself we replay the scenario in our hands from our perspective over and over and over again as we continue to feed this emotional turmoil

Remember, we all believe we’re right in our own minds, so when fallouts or fights happen we fully stand by our point of view and believe the other person is the wrongdoer

But when it comes to female versus female things can escalate to a really nasty level – girls are nasty people and I can say this because I am a girl

I find it really difficult to establish close knit relationships with girls because they are more scary and judgmental than boys

It’s why I gravitate towards guys for friends as they don’t typically get caught up in the drama of a girls brain and are much more laid back

I mean all of these types of friendships really depend on the person in discussion, but let’s talk about the third scenario

Which is female male friendship fallouts

This is what I personally went through last year, a friendship breakup I never saw happening and never saw coming

I think it’s a pretty common question of can males and females be best friends with no intimate reaction?

If you had asked me that a year ago I would’ve said 100% it’s possible.. But asking me that right now in 2024, I’m not so sure anymore

Based off of what I just said about male to male friendships and female to female ones, we obviously think differently and establish connections differently

I’ve learned recently that guys can’t really distinguish female close friendships to intimate ones in terms of emotional conversations, so on more of a psychological level

It’s like they are getting all of their emotional needs met that would come from a girlfriend but with none of the physicality which is honestly the short end of the stick if you ask me

While I was in the process of planning this episode out, I was having a conversation with another trainer at one of the gyms I work at and I don’t even know how we got on the topic of my friendship break up but we did and I gave the spark notes version of what happened

This trainer was a man and told me right away why he’s pretty sure the friendship ended so abruptly as he was speaking from personal experiences

Whether what he said is true for me or you is another story but this is coming directly from a married man’s mouth and I have heard it elsewhere but as a bruh girl I have a hard time believing it

He basically said men and women cannot have close friendships

He went on to say that women can distinguish friend versus romance but men can’t

That once they develop the emotional connection to a woman he falls in love with her

He basically went on to tell me that my friendship ended so abruptly and harshly because he was falling in love with me and needed to cut things off

I will say there were never any romantic feelings between the two of us, I considered him to be one of my best friends and thought nothing more about it, but this trainer begs to differ

When I would tell people about my friendship breakup just about everyone was convinced that another girl entered his life and pushed me to the curb or that he was in love with me and cut things off because he knew it was never going to go beyond a friendship

I’ll never know what truly happened with that friend

But just like any relationship you form throughout your entire life whether it be romantically, cordially, or professionally you need to practice effective communication, establish clear expectations of one another, and build and enforce trust 

Fallouts are not fun, any type of breakup is not fun

But as you grow through your twenties and into your thirties you are going to experience a revolving door of different types of friends

If you believe there is a reason everything that happens in your life as I do, then you’ll learn that every hard experience is accompanied with a valuable life lesson

My friendship fallout taught me to speak up for myself, set boundaries, and know my worth and he is not deserving of a friend like me

It doesn’t mean I’m fully healed from this breakup but I will say that I have been pushed far out of my comfort zone that has opened the door for me to receive bigger and better people, experiences, and things

It forced me to start a book club, reach out to a girl to be friends with, go to events by myself and talk to new people every time, and get a clear definition of who I do want in my life as my friend

Regardless of the comfort zone barriers I’ve broken, best friend breakups suck

But sometimes they are the best thing for you

This one, while I’m still searching for the light at the end of tunnel, was one of the most transformative and eye opening experiences that I have dealt with to date

So if you are someone out there listening who recently experienced their own best friend breakup, just know that I am here for you, I got you, I will help you get through this

It’s one of the many big life changes that I help young adults navigate

Otherwise this concludes another episode of how to twenty-something, if you liked what you heard please, pretty please give me a good rating, share it with a friend, post it on social media and tag me at coach.jessdiamond when you do

And thank you for listening to how to twenty-something I can’t wait to be in your headphones again next week with a brand new episode