The Best Friend Break Up

August 18, 2009 9:00 am     Posted in Reality, Relationships  Kim - Stanford g+ page

best+friendsMost 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.


By Kim

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.


26 Comments on "The Best Friend Break Up"

  1. geauxtigers says:
    Tue, 18th Aug 20094:57 am 

    That sucks, I have to say I have never had to friend breakup, but I guess that's something that guys just don't do; however, I think what you did by addresing the issue and letting her know how you felt was a far supperior method of coping with this dilemma rather than just continue on having her believe everything was copasetic. Most people would have just pretended everything was hunky dory and put on a phony mask and been fake. MAD PROPS YO!!!!!

  2. Fox says:
    Tue, 18th Aug 20096:53 am 

    Lol, i'm a dude and i've actually had to deal with something like this.

  3. Heather says:
    Tue, 18th Aug 20097:47 am 

    The way you handled the 'friend breakup' really shows how good of a friend/person you are in the first place. I have a couple of friends who I'm pretty sure want to 'breakup' with me, but instead of talking to me about it, they just ignore me and pretend they love me when I bring it up to them….SO ANNOYING.

  4. Ace says:
    Tue, 18th Aug 20097:48 am 

    I had a friend breakup my freshman year. We made the incredible mistake of living together and because of it I am no longer best friends with the best friend I had since I was 5. However, because of living with her I really got to see how selfish she was and how willing she was to use people. Breaking up with a friend sucks and it hurts, but sometimes it's the best thing you can do for yourself.

  5. Lenna says:
    Tue, 18th Aug 200910:51 am 

    I've had to do this before. This girl and I used to be pretty good friends, but then she just got annoying and childish, and I couldn't stand it anymore.

  6. Sara says:
    Tue, 18th Aug 200912:34 pm 

    I had to do this today! It was actually much easier than I thought it would be too. You grow up and change as people and different things become important. I got married, moved to Hawaii, and and my old friend would get mad that I didn't text message her back while I was talking to my husband in Iraq. When we did talk I began to realize how much she'd complain, put me down, and insulted other people. I guess moving away helped me realize how negative she was, and when I had the talk with her today I felt very relieved. It will be so much less drama and I'm really looking forward to it.

  7. yep says:
    Tue, 18th Aug 20094:52 pm 

    i had to do this too. it's funny cause everyone's always like "you guys are like a couple, the way you fight and you're on and off." and i'm like well, we're very off. like. forever. hahaha

  8. Celina says:
    Tue, 18th Aug 20096:24 pm 

    what a great post. ive had "the talk" with my friend like 7000 times and it never seems to stick. its SO hard to really say goodbye and stick to it. i think its actually a lot harder than saying goodbye to a boyfriend, because usually that actually stays over, friends: not so much. thank you for this post and helping me realize im not alone!

  9. Marcy says:
    Sat, 29th Aug 200910:02 am 

    ugh, my friend is pulling the same thing, I love her to death, ive never had so many things in common til we started hanging out. But lately its hard to get her attention, and we usually hang out if we are not with our boyfriends. but I think since she isnt as shameless that ill have to talk to her. bc our friendship is very important to me.

  10. Toni says:
    Mon, 31st Aug 20091:43 am 

    I had to do this while still living with my best friend. We were friends for 5 years and lived together for 3. She was not a good friend to me to say the least and by the end of it I pretty much thought I was going to kill her for all of her annoying habits and sneaky ways… It is a tough thing to have to do, but I feel like I am living a better life without her in it.

  11. Olivia says:
    Tue, 1st Sep 20097:20 am 

    My first best friend and I 'broke up' sophmore year of high school. It went pretty badly, but after a few years of distance we managed to at least talk again and develop a friendly aquaintance. Now, 3 years later we have reconnected a bit, and although we'll never be best friends again, we are at least working towards a casual freindship, which I think will be a good thing for us.

  12. kate says:
    Mon, 7th Sep 20091:46 pm 

    it never fails that when i come on this site, you have a new article perfectly aligned with whats going on in my life :)

    thanks college candy ! <3

  13. Chris says:
    Wed, 9th Dec 20091:00 pm 

    I'm a guy and going through this with another guy. we were best friends almost like brothers. we worked togethe and hung out together. People always knew if they saw one of us, the other was soon to show. I even introduced him to his wife. A year or less after the got married he started not calling, not saying hi and just being MIA. His whole demeanor changed and he became pretty much a jerk and abandoned all his friends. I think it has more to do with his wife being controlling and him being a follower but we all have free will. Right now, we haven't talked since his son was born close to two months ago. It's weird because when we get together he seems the same as always. I don't feel like I changed or did anything. It's tough since we were so close.

  14. BabanQurban says:
    Sat, 26th Dec 20094:20 am 

    Даа… Но, как говорится в поговорке, а воз и ныне там :)

  15. Will says:
    Thu, 7th Jan 20103:15 am 

    I'm going through this right now as well. My girl pal and I use to be so fun together. However, lately I started to realize it was becoming a one-sided friendship. I was starting to get upset over every minor annoying thing she did. I had the talk with my girl pal this week. At first she said she didn't have anything more to say, because she didn't know I felt that way. However, she continues to text me and email me. We shall see how it goes. Either way, I felt so much better getting it off my chest and telling her what was upsetting me.

  16. Mel says:
    Mon, 10th May 20106:02 am 

    I'm in a dilemma quite like yours, but i just can't decide what i should do yet. I've tried to talk to my bff frankly about what i dislike about her, in the most gentle way but instead of apologizing like your ex-bf did, she said "It's just what i am, i don't care what you think", and after that things got even more out of control. I would REALLY appreciate it if you could give me some advice and drop me an email. I'm desperate for someone's wise opinion.

  17. kate says:
    Fri, 13th Aug 201010:12 am 

    Me and my best friend broke up… since then my life change. . . She was everything for me!! She had made me believe that we will be forever together but one day she just FORGET ME. . . today she has a new best friend and we are now just friends. . . I m crying all the time and we had 7 months we are apart. . . Every day i see her with her NEW best friend to make things than we used to do together. . . the pain is inside me and no one can see it. . .TODAY i m travelling at france with my parents but i can t be excited because she saw me again that i m not her friend. . .

  18. Star says:
    Wed, 1st Sep 20109:40 pm 

    I don't get it. How can you love a friend but not want to be best friends anymore?

  19. Annie says:
    Sun, 5th Sep 201010:15 am 

    Did you ever think about what she was feeling? She never did anything intentionally to hurt you or cause you serious emotional harm, and I'm sure, being her friend, if she knew her action would cause you harm, she wouldn't do it. You on the other hand did cause harm, and you knew full well that she would be hurt by this. So you eject someone from your life because you're slightly annoyed by them? that's not fair.

    I only say this so adamantly because recently something similar happened to me, only I was in the opposite shoes, and it was slightly more brutal.

    I never did anything to hurt my best friend and I never would. She had low self esteem and I was always there to help her and guide her though it and tell her how awesome she was. we were attached at the hip. then she started picking fights over tiny things and the next thing you know, she just stopped talking to me. literally. this time i know for a fact i didn't do anything to trigger it. We have the same circle of friends and they all love her, but now I cant hang out with them anymore because she shoved me out. And I can't tell them what happened because that would make me the bitch. This feeling is so awful, i just want people to know how it is from the other end of a "bff break up." Not all are so clean. Some leave you wondering "what the hell just happened?"

  20. Three Girls and a Mi says:
    Mon, 13th Sep 201012:36 pm 

    Three Girls and a Mic is a radio show for young adults. We are doing a show all about BFF Breakups. Check us out at http://3girlsandamic.blogspot.com/

  21. shyme88 says:
    Wed, 29th Sep 20107:56 am 

    i’m deeply frusrated over my bestfriend’s breaking up with me. we were bffs for 7 months thru facebook. we used to be schoolmates in highschool but we were not friends that time. we met again in facebook when she added me. from tht time on, we chat every night which made us closer and became bffs. from the time we became friends, i found out how negative person she is, how she loves to talk against people and she dislike almost all of our batchmates in highschool. she would make up stories just to put other person as the bad one. honestly, i saw how mean she is as a person. despite of it, i continue to love and care for her and even protected her from all her enemies. i became bad bec of her and bec i love her, i dont wanna lose her being my bff. im afraid to go against her that’s why, i seemed to be like her..mean. i have discovered many things from her including all the lies she made for me yo believe. i ignored it all bec its the friendship that is more important to me. she always get mad at me when i talk to other friends and even to comment on my friend’s post in fb. all our common friends that she had quarreled on, she deleted and she told me to delete all her enemies from my list. stupid i was, i also did it but honestly, i was unhappy doing it. she always find fault with me if i make friends to others and would then say that i might as well go to those friends and she will delete me. afraid she’ll do it.. i refrained from making friends to others. one time, a college friend of mine talked to me and asked me if i have a male friend that i can give to him. since im not into boys, i told her to makean fb acct and add this lsdy friend of mine in fb bec she got so many guy fRiends. to cut the long story short, my bff asked me if i know this person in fb who is just appearing. afraid to say yes, i did say to her i dont know the girl. i was afraid bec for sure, she’ll get mad at me and would drive me away. until she found out herself that i lied to her. she hated me so much and no matter how asked for forgiveness and how sorry i was, she deleted me fRom her fb list. she told me that we are now enemies, that im a traitor to her, that i was a big fat liar, and fake i was…..she did not accept my apology and it hurts me so much. she doesnt want me anymore. cant stop from crying, pls help me what to do. i love my bff but she took me away frm her life now.

  22. enn says:
    Fri, 4th Mar 20118:35 pm 

    its easy. my friend and i just broke up. at the end of it, she made me feel like crap. her feelings for me changed one day, and we mutually stopped talking to each other. i tried to reach out to her but she shut me down, then she tried to say she wanted to be friends and i shut her down. i couldn't forgive her and i definitely won't forget. i'll always miss the way things used to be. and i'll always wish we'd had more time. a part of me will always love her, but sometimes friendships just dont work out and its best for the both of you to move on. i still cry about it and i can't believe it really happened. i wish it was all a terrible dream.

  23. EJAI says:
    Fri, 10th Feb 20127:47 am 

    me and my best friend broke up before xmas last year , one day she was everything and next she turned her back on me. its hard, and it hurts . i feel that the pain we'd been drifting apart for a while but i held on not wanting to know about cause i loved her so much. just the thought of it still hurts and it will never be the same i know all my other gf relationships have been affected cause my loyalty has been burnt by her and now im not so giving as i use to be . Actually tonight while back up my computer i stumbled across old photos of me and her so i email her just wishing she was happy and that I'll always love her. Not sure if i should have but i was speaking from the heart ** EJ

  24. Best Friend says:
    Thu, 23rd Feb 201212:20 pm 

    I broke up with my best friend and it was the hardest thing I ever had to do! The only thing that got me through was hoping one day I would have a new best friend!

  25. Christina says:
    Fri, 6th Apr 20121:52 am 

    Literally the SAME EXACT thing happened to me and my best friend that was pretty much my sister. We had been best friend for pretty much my whole life..since pre school and now we are 15. It's hard because we were both in the same group of friends and our moms were also best friends. And she lives in my neighborhood and we go to the same the same school AND are on the same sports team. She has the better end of the deal because she can still hang out with our friends, but, I however was dumped. I think it's crazy though how similar your story was to mine. I thought I was alone, but you and other girls are going through this pain as well.

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