Written by Amy Beecham
To mark International Day of Friendship (30 July), one writer reflects on what it’s like to watch a friendship fizzling out in front of your eyes – and being the only one who tries to save it.
We’re often told that even the closest of friends change and gradually drift apart, but you never really believe it will happen to you.
You grow up imagining a future where Friday nights are spent in each other’s kitchens as your spouses bond and children play together. You have your own lives, sure, but you share them. But before you know it, 10 years have passed and you’re scattered across the country, desperately trying to keep the once-active group chat alive.
One of the hardest things you ever learn about friendship is that it isn’t always meant to last forever. It’s a lesson I put off learning, choosing instead to pour all my energy and effort into being the glue we needed to keep us all together.
I’d always been the ’mum friend’ – the social secretary who kept our calendars filled with fun plans, but sensing that we were on the verge of breaking up, I ramped up my efforts. A summer meet-up? I’ll plan it. A birthday party back home? I’ll drive everyone. Zoom catch-ups over lockdown? I’m the first one there.
And it worked… for a while. We did all the concerts and the parties and the drinks like we used to, artfully ignoring the growing elephant in the room: we didn’t really know each other that well anymore.
Keeping our friendship afloat was hard, but it never felt like a burden. While I hate to admit it, I enjoyed being needed so greatly.
It felt like being a parent who was desperate for their children to get along, organising playdates and putting out fires. It was exhausting, yet strangely energising. I was single-handedly saving us.
So the more I sensed people starting to drift, the harder I worked. How could I let our friendship die when we were once so inseparable? We were the kind of group that others envied. It’s perfectly natural that the older you get, the less you have in common, but to let what we had shrivel into sporadic messages and the odd birthday card felt like a crime against the love we’d all shared.
Despite our differences, I really believed that we all had enough in common to keep us together. But as anyone who has ever attempted to get six people with conflicting schedules and calendars in the same place at the same time will know, it’s rarely plain sailing, particularly when tensions are beginning to rise within the ranks.
To counteract any distance, I’d take on the role of matchmaker, suggesting common ground or activities they could bond over. “Why not go for lunch together?” I’d suggest to the two vegetarians in the group. “See if Katie* wants to go to that gig with you,” I’d tell the music lover.
Things changed when two of the closest members of the group stopped speaking. As much as I tried not to take sides, we all fell into different camps and an iciness spread among us. People began to be notably absent from celebrations or we’d avoid having them at all. It somehow felt easier for none of us to go than to have people missing.
In friendships, the person that finds themselves caught in the middle is probably the biggest people pleaser, the one who puts others’ wants above their own, moulding into whatever the other person needs them to be. Their life consists of picking up the pieces and trying to make them fit, all the while hoping that effort alone can reconcile the growing rifts.
It took dozens of cancelled plans and “Maybe one day…” prevarications for me to finally realise: we probably wouldn’t all talk if it wasn’t for me.
Now, our friendship hangs in a strange kind of limbo. We’re all locked together by the nostalgia of what we had, but with no event quite catastrophic enough for us to let each other go for good. I don’t imagine there ever will be, just a slow fade to black like the ending of an arty film.
Friendship is the true joy in my life. My friends are my people: they love me, see me and support me, and all I’ve ever wanted is for everyone to feel that for themselves. And while I don’t operate at the level I used to, I’m still the one occasionally reviving the group chat or trying to get us all together for that long overdue catch-up.
No matter what, I’ll always be happy to be the glue. It’s simply up to everyone else whether they choose to stick.
Image: Getty
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