The Best Friend Break Up

Most people know how much it sucks to break up with a boyfriend. Whether he treated you horribly or the relationship has just run its course, telling your boyfriend adios is not easy. And is usually followed by tears, vodka, long trips to the gym, or some combination of all three.

The only thing harder than a romantic breakup is breaking up with a friend.

How do you tell someone that is your ultimate best friend and gal pal that well, you’re just not that into her anymore?

Breaking things off with a BFF is definitely one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Bottom line, this best friend just wasn’t really a friend anymore. She’d been flaking out on me, was way too caught up in trivial drama, and was never there when I truly needed her. She would only talk about herself and seemed completely uninterested in any details about my life. She seemed to be oblivious to her behavior and our deteriorating friendship, and I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had a genuine conversation.

Once I came to terms with the issues, I knew that our friendship was going to have to end. And then I noticed how eerily similar the end of a platonic relationship is to that of a romantic one.

The Fighting: We started to fight and bicker about the most insignificant details. Our opinions seemed to be on opposite sides of the spectrum, even though we used to finish each other’s sentences and always be on the same page.

The Little Things I Never Noticed Started to Piss. Me. Off: How did I not realize how petty and ignorant she was before? Did she always talk this much gossip about our friends? If she says the phrase,”I’ve never felt this way before!” about another guy, I will scream.

The Talk: I decided to sit down and have the talk with her. You know, about “us,” how it’s just not working and how I really felt. The talk went well, she promised she’d change and apologized for being a bia.

Phasing Her Out: After a few weeks with zero improvement since our talk, I tried the phase-out approach and just stopped hanging out and calling as much.

Let’s Meet for Coffee: The Phase Out Stage didn’t work as we still hung out with the same group of people and were always at the same places. She started to sense that I was distancing myself from her and so we had yet another talk over coffee. And another when nothing changed again. And another after that.

It’s Over: Finally, I told her that I didn’t think our friendship would work. Yes, I friend broke up with her. It’s not that I didn’t want to try and fix the friendship, because I really did, it was just past the point of fixing. I thought long and hard about what it would really mean to lose her as a friend, but I also thought about how happy and free I’d be if I didn’t have to stress about her anymore.

And now here I am. Sure, I spent some nights on the couch feeling lonely as I watched (crazy) girls compete to be Paris Hilton’s BFF, but I’m slowly moving on. Based on my break up calculations, I have a few more weeks of feeling sorry for myself, then I’ll hit the town, distract myself and move on to someone else.