FRIENDSHIP

As someone with social anxiety, friendships have always been interesting to me. I have kept my circle small since I was a young girl and I have more or less kept the same friends from grade school. Of course, as I have grown I have gained new friendships, but nothing will compare to the friends I have had since I was child, as they know me the best and I don’t have to worry about being awkward around them.

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I had this friend, though, that didn’t fit that mold. We weren’t childhood best friends, but it felt like I had known him my whole life. We met in our 8th grade German I class and had an instant connection. We understood each other without actually saying anything, we always kept each other laughing, we texted for hours on end, we just had a bond that couldn’t be explained. He was my best friend and I was his. He knew me better than I knew myself and I trusted him with my life. We always said, “‘Till death does us part, we’ll be in each others’ lives forever.” We stuck together throughout high school, but I started to notice some of his toxic ways. He cheated on his girlfriend a lot. He lied to other girls, including me, and made them believe he was single and wanted a relationship with them. But when him and his girlfriend broke up for the first time and he went into a mild depression, I was right by his side, telling him that it was going to be alright. People thought I was dumb for caring, but he was my best friend and I couldn’t let him go through that alone. 

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We both decided to attend University of Michigan and that’s when our friendship turned sour. An incident happened at the beginning of freshman year, causing the initial crack in the foundation of our friendship. It worsened as the semester carried on and he made sure to tell me how I was such a bad friend. All the time. I knew I didn’t do anything wrong besides slowly pull away from him, so I asked him to meet me for coffee so we could talk about it. We did and it was one of the hardest things I had to do. I realized that after we met up, it was going to be the last time that we spent time together willingly. We weren’t going to be friends anymore, but oddly enough, I was okay with that. Our friendship was fantastic while it lasted, but nothing gold can stay, as the great Robert Frost once said.

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Friendships are a lot of work on both ends. Like I had stated for familial relationships, friendships require two people to be invested. If one person decides to give up, then there is no point in continuing the friendship. Sometimes, friendships slowly fall apart over the years, and that is okay, too. In cases like mine and the advice column above, one person in the friendship changed or their true colors were finally revealed. If it harms you, then it is okay to end that friendship. There is no need to stick with something that brings you pain. Your happiness is more important than staying in a potentially abusive friendship.

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However, jumping to conclusions that the friendship is toxic happens quite often. Many people, including some of my friends, are quick to call other friends “toxic” if they make a single mistake. It’s okay to make mistakes in friendships; we are human and it’s in our nature to make mistakes. Someone does not need to be labelled toxic for something small. This is where shared vocabulary plays a role in friendships. Some friendships, like mine and the advice column above, appear to be toxic, as our “friends” that we once trusted with our lives became someone that does not want us to be happy. Other friendships are labelled as “toxic” but are not actually, as they might be a bit rocky at times. The vocabulary used should be saved for friendships that are truly harmful.