The End of a Friendship

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Location: BellMTS Corporate Office – Winnipeg, Manitoba

I had the same best friend from the time I was five. Actually, I didn’t, but that was certainly the way everyone around me perceived the situation. Appearances are often deceptive.

Over the years, I’ve made occasional reference to the end of a long-time friendship because, whether I like it or not, the event left an inedible mark on my life. There are still stories, ten years on, that I can’t tell without her in them. Our shared history will always connect us, despite the fact that I continue to think it would be best if we never spoke again.

The question then, I suppose, is – why now? And the answer, partly, is simply that it’s January, a quiet time of year when I have the requisite number of hours to devote to properly retelling this story. But the answer, also, is that in recent weeks, I’ve seen references to the end of friendships all over social media. My experience, while individual, was not unique. Friendships end – sometimes very dramatically and painfully. But the end of a friendship is a topic that is rarely broached. The reasons for this vary, I’m sure, but for me they are quite simple; this is a story about two people, but I can only tell my side of it. I think, after ten years, I finally have enough distance from it to be able to do that in a way that is fair to both of us.

Let go of the illusion that it could have been any different.

I met my best friend when I was four. She was six, and lived down the street from me. We would have long phone conversations before we even got around to decide whose house to play at on a given day. But we went to different schools, and our different ages meant we would never have been in the same class. So I started kindergarten in a class full of children I didn’t know. That was fine with me. I played with all of my classmates at some point – Topher was one of them, and I remember being deeply envious of his Batman t-shirt. My friend, who for the sake of this story I will simply call Anne, was one of them, too.

Anne and I played together at times. But she went to daycare, and had specific classmates who were her friends from there. I made new friends, too, including one girl who, according to my mom, I always shared half of my snack with because I felt sorry that her mom sent her the same tinned peaches every afternoon while I got fruit roll-ups and chocolate chip cookies.

Time went on – we moved to a new school. Classmates came and went. By second grade, Anne pronounced me her best friend. My best friend was still the same girl who lived on my street, and I learned early that a close friendship is not always entirely reciprocal. There were birthday parties and swimming pool days and summer vacations. And then, on the first day of fifth grade, I found myself in a friendship dearth. My dearest friend at school, another creative, lighthearted bookworm, had moved to a new city, while my best friend in the neighbourhood was starting junior high. That left Anne.

In all the years in between, Anne was never far away. She wanted to be my best friend, and she was unwavering in her quest for the title. But the second she got it, in fifth grade, my friendship seemed to lose all of its value to her. She was happy to abandon me for anyone better who came along – the girl with the broken ankle whose injury allowed her to stay inside with a friend during cold recess periods; the new girl who had a computer at home; her own friend from her neighbourhood, who lived just two houses down. Anne was my best friend but only when it suited her.

The next year, she dumped me. The girl with the home computer made her a better offer and, from one day to the next, they were thick as thieves, deliberately leaving me out Friday night sleepovers and lunchtime walks. My mom encouraged me to confront her and, with a little push, I did. She immediately burst into tears, claiming she wasn’t even friends with the other girl; from now on, she said, it would just be the two of us.

When I look back, I can’t help thinking that I would love to tell my eleven-year-old-self: “Be careful what you wish for.”

It truly was just the two of us. When our friendship deepened, I noticed that other people gave us a wider berth. I couldn’t understand it. But I was an awkward teenager, with unflattering glasses, frizzy hair and braces. To make matters worse, my homework was always done on time and my grades were embarrassingly high. You’re just too nerdy, I thought. No one is interested in spending time with a bookworm. A few years ago, Topher revealed that Anne actually told him to stop hanging around us. I will never really know how many other people she said the same thing to, but I know the result was that I thought there was something wrong with me, that people didn’t like me. And that made me need her more.

We left junior high as a class of about ninety, and joined high school in a class of close to four hundred. I was eager for new experiences and new friendships. While I found both, Anne was always there. “I still wonder how you fell for it for all of those years,” Ian said to me, when I told him I was finally writing this story. (Anne disliked all of my boyfriends, but, perhaps sensing the seriousness of my relationship with Ian, was exceptionally unkind to him. She went so far as to make a thinly veiled and very flimsy accusation that she had seen him cheat on me. The story fell apart in three questions.)

The thing is, it wasn’t about falling for it. My friendship with Anne was, by that point, my oldest friendship. The way things were between us – the fact that she was always ready with a whispered judgement to make me second guess myself, but also the way that she clung to me, her only friend, joining every club I signed up for and every class I took – was normal to me.

It was normal, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t resent it. By tenth grade, Anne felt like my shadow; I couldn’t turn around without seeing her there. When I wanted five minutes of space, I couldn’t shake her. But when the weekend came and I wanted to have fun, she preferred to stay at home. Sometimes, she would deign to invite me over, or to accept an invitation from me. But she refused just as often. She made excuses. Lame excuses, like needing to walk her dog. It made me bitter. I want a divorce! I would rage in my diary. But how can you divorce your best friend? 

Far from asking for a divorce, I didn’t so much as dare to confront Anne. She was often insulting – her best party trick was to slowly convince an entire room full of people, one-by-one, to join her in making fun of me, all of them thinking that it was good natured ribbing, while she meant every callous word. But if I made the slightest hint of a suggestion that she had crossed a line, she backpedalled instantly, insisting she hadn’t meant what she said the way I heard it. It wasn’t gaslighting, although she often made me question my judgement. But she was an expert manipulator, and any conversation I attempted to start about how she made me feel turned, almost instantly, into a conversation about how I always misunderstood her.

She applied to the same university I did. Days before the start of our first year, I made the fatal error of telling her what classes I’d enrolled in. She did the same, and I was relieved to hear we would have some breaks from each other. By the time school actually started, she had changed her schedule to ensure it matched mine exactly – so we could do everything together.

Anne will never have the opportunity to tell you all her side of this story, so I will say this; I believe, with ten years of hindsight, that she is a character to pity rather than deride. When we knew each other, she was a sad and angry person. She took a lot of that sadness and anger out on me, which was unfair. But I was her only friend, and her desperation to hang onto me at any price increased with every year that passed. That desperation drove her to behave in a way that I suspect she is not proud of – but perhaps I’m wrong; perhaps she still believes that I just misunderstood her. I’ll never know.

Some years are for growing but this one, this one is for blooming.

Our story moved quite predictably towards its inevitable ending. In second year university, I applied to a program that Anne didn’t want to pursue. The following year, I moved across the country to study at UBC. My world opened up in Vancouver. For the first time, I met new people and made an astonishing discovery; I was likeable. People enjoyed spending time with me. I developed new friendships easily. (I am sad to confess that even ten years later, I am still surprised to find that people enjoy spending time with me. The scar is fading, but it is taking longer than I expected.)

Anne didn’t like new things; more than that, I think she feared them. For years, she ordered only chicken fingers when we went to a restaurant and only bought clothes from one store. She was miserable with the way things were, but unable to take a leap to find what would make her happy. When she wasn’t with me, pulling me back towards my comfort zone, the rich tapestry of life unfolded before me and I discovered a sense of adventure I didn’t know I had.

When I went back home after two years away, Anne was the same. I expected nothing less. What I didn’t expect was how much less patience I would have for her. If it’s true that misery loves company, then Anne was misery and I was the company she craved. But I couldn’t take it, because I was happy. I lived with my boyfriend, who I adored. I got a job that made me feel adult and successful, but also had plans to take a leave of absence to travel. My deepest regret is that I didn’t just say, “I think we’re moving in different directions,” when I saw that happening.

I let it go on. I let myself get angry and frustrated and resentful. Anne developed a mental illness that exacerbated all of her worst behaviours. It got so that I couldn’t imagine how I would move forward in life with her in it. How will I be able to get married, I wondered, if I have to ask her to be my maid of honour? She’ll pick and pick and pick at every choice I make, telling me why it’s wrong, until I hate my own wedding. For a while, I stopped returning her calls without explanation. It was the wrong thing to do. I knew it, but I didn’t know what else I could do. Finally just losing my temper with her after decades of calm wasn’t what I wanted but I was seething – so in the end, it’s exactly what happened.

I tried to restrain myself. I tried to say we needed to talk in person, but it was Anne; she was ready to talk which meant we had to talk right then, in the middle of what had been an exchange of snippy one-line emails.

What I could say without expletives amounted to approximately one hundred and fifty words. Anne dismissed me in a series of paragraphs that shamelessly contradicted things she’d said the same day and, true to form, emailed all of our mutual friends to tell them how much I upset her. She was careful to specifically mention crying. “I think,” Topher sighed, resigned, “that she is actually hoping I will pass the information back to you.” He was not wrong. I did not engage any further. The email I sent was the last I ever addressed to her.

For the record, it’s okay to miss people you no longer want in your life.

It took me years to move on from the fallout of my break-up with Anne. The anger followed me around like my own personal cloud. Once, I dreamt that I chased her out of my apartment, throwing my shoes at her. I did not miss her. But she was a fixture of so many of my routines and habits that when our friendship ended, my whole life shifted. It gave me perspective. I was able, for the first time, to think critically and ask myself why I did things the way I did them. In a lot of cases, it turned out I didn’t know. So I gave my life a makeover. Sometimes, I blamed myself. Sometimes, I wondered how long it would take before I stopped thinking about her every day. But mostly I just felt better.

A decade later, I can no longer imagine what my life would be like if Anne were still in it. But I suspect it would be smaller. Narrower. I sincerely doubt that I would have had the courage to launch this space. Anne would have been right there with me, a personification of the voice in my head, telling me all the reasons why it wasn’t a good idea.

Every friendship is unique and complex. I would argue that we invest as much emotionally in friendship as we do in romantic relationships. But we talk about romantic relationships and their inevitable end constantly, while we leave friendship out of the discussion, like every single one we begin is meant to last forever. In reality, friendships come and go. Often, people come into our lives for a period of time to teach us something that we need to learn. Once the lesson is over, the friendship has served its purpose; the friend moves on, and so do we.

From the outside, my friendship with Anne looked happy. I know that because after we stopped speaking, people told me over and over, “But you were so close!” No one knew the truth unless I told them, repeatedly. And I didn’t know that I could, not really. I learned it from my experiences with Anne. And because of that, despite all of the years I spent feeling belittled by her still have value. She taught me that the only person who can stand up for me in a relationship is me, and that I owe it to myself not to accept less than I deserve.

I can appreciate those lessons. I think I could even be civil, if I happened to run into Anne at the grocery store. But I am grateful that she is no longer part of my life.

She realized that life is way too short to leave the key to your happiness in someone else’s pocket.

If you’ve read this far, you’re my hero – thank-you! This is the beginning of a week of writing about friendship. On Wednesday, I’ll share my best advice for navigating the end of a friendship with grace – in other words, all the things I would better if I had a second chance. And maybe, just maybe, if I’m feeling sassy, on Friday I’ll bring out some old (and less objective) writing from my journals, so that you can really see what I was thinking when all this went down – it isn’t nearly as polite as what I’ve written today, but that’s what makes some of it so very funny.