"Just get new friends" isn't empowering or healthy.
!["Just get new friends" isn't empowering or healthy.](/content/images/size/w2000/2024/06/old-friends.jpg)
You're receiving this the day after I will have hopefully just completed a 206-mile bike ride in two days called the STP. I'm writing and scheduling this post early as I'm planning on sleeping in and then having some much-needed quality time with a friend I've known for 15 years as she takes me back home after my double century. My first post in August will be talking about my experience riding my bike from Seattle to Portland over a weekend.
Today, since I'll be spending time with a friend I've had since college, I wanted to talk about this really irritating idea that people have that you can just up and get new friends whenever a friendship ends. This shows just how sick we are as a culture, that we would so devalue the most important relationships in our lives (yes, even above marriages/romantic relationships), as to dismiss the pain of losing a friendship. I've had at least four very close, long-term (over a decade) friendships end (three of them very abruptly with no chance for repair), and I've had three romantic relationships (including a marriage) end, and I have to say, they hurt about the same. Maybe it's because my romantic relationships (up until now!!) have not been that great. Or maybe it's because friendship is actually that important.
I'd argue that you can live a perfectly happy, fulfilled life without being married (and if you know me, you know I've wanted marriage more than anything except Jesus, even after my divorce four years ago). But I don't think you can be happy/fulfilled without friendships. If that sounds codependent, that again just shows how sick our society is that we think it's healthier to be on our own than it is to admit that actually, we DO need each other and that's okay. It is not a sign of weakness to not be able to do all of this incredibly complicated thing called life alone.
And, unless I'm doing it wrong, it's not as easy as just getting new friends as an adult. I'm not talking about replacing a friend - that is obviously impossible - but just even making new friends. You can't make childhood friends in your thirties, and you can't just go get decades-long friendships, even if you are better at deeply connecting with people than I am, which is entirely possible. Why isn't there space in our culture to grieve the ending of a friendship? Why, when a friendship ends, do we jump right to, "You're better than that anyway" and "you don't need them" and "just get new friends?" Obviously, there was something wrong in the friendship for it to come to an end, though perhaps it was actually fixable and one person wasn't willing to go there (that's definitely been my experience). But it's still a loss, and losses should be grieved rather than papered over with shallow affirmations and petty "encouragements" to just move on as if friendship is clothes shopping.
...even then, it can sometimes take quite a while to find the right fit.