Breaking up with Friends

Sometime in early June, I was watching a segment on the Today Show on NBC, and they have this very interesting concept. Breaking up with a friend, what was intriguing about it is that so much emphasis is placed on friendships as being a very integral part of the human experience but not too much is ever discussed about breaking up a friendship. Is this one of the last taboo’s about relationships? After giving it some thought every other relationship, marriage, parent, and even family ties have been discussed ad nauseum as to when it is appropriate to break it of. Yet this is not the case with friends.

But if one looks at pop culture, which is a sign of our times for better or for worse, then it seems that most people are dissatisfied with their friendships. One of TLC’s earliest hits were “What About your Friends” where it discussed the very notion of friendship and are they really people in your life who are there to help you when you need it. Tony Toni Tone’s hit “If I had no loot” discusses the matter of fair-weather friends “When I need them, I have nobody to call, but when they need me my phone rings off the wall” was a line that resonated with audiences. You can even look at television programming how many shows does it seem that someone’s best friend repeatedly gets someone in trouble, this same plot is depicted in reality shows, comedies, dramas, and TV talk shows. So what is this saying, are the state of friends in a state of emergency?

From my own personal experience, there have been people who I thought were my friends, and I’m fairly sure they thought as well, did some pretty crudy things. There were times when I was sick and I was calling people, and I had to beg people to give me medicine, some who are infamous for claiming they only live 15 minutes away said that they were too busy. Others said that I didn’t sound too sick, granted I had a fever and I have shivering from the flu but because they did not want to help they did not think I was sick enough. It wasn’t for my a pretty soror who drove 45 mins to give me medicine I would have been shit out of luck. Now I am not bitter at those people who did not help me but it really opened my eyes and answered one question for me. Are these people really my friends? The answer no.

But what happens when you have a friend, a best friend who does something to you that hurts, do you divorce yourself of that relationship or do you talk it out. Its seems like so many talk shows have story lines of “spouses who are cheating with their wife/husband’s best friend” that friends hurting friends is more common place than not. On the today show when they talked about it, its basically a personal decision, when you need to let someone go. The easiest way is to avoid them, and to avoid confrontation. But if confrontation cannot be avoided then telling them that you need your space for awhile will help. If they still don’t get the message then the time has come to be blunt, and brutally honest.

Breaking up is never an easy thing to do, especially if you truly care for that person. But when the relationship is toxic then its time for a change, if that change means that cutting that person off, or trying to work things out, that is a personal issue that no one can decide for yourself except you.