Friendship breakups

And the expensive cheese theory

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They say that only two things are guaranteed in life: death and taxes. Well, I’m going to have to add a third to that list - friendship breakups.

When I looked at the girl in front of me, the girl who I had called my best friend for two years during university, I didn’t recognise her anymore. I felt nothing. My heart had turned grey.

We had once felt so connected, like our brains were operating on the same wavelength, always able to guess what the other was going to say next, always wanting to eat at the same restaurants or go out dancing on the same random weekday nights. But now, it was like we were on completely different planets.

We became friends quickly. I first noticed her walking into class with an air of confidence that most nineteen year olds don’t yet have. She answered questions with full bravado while other students kept quiet. I complimented her outfit and she returned the favour by saving me a seat the next week and let me have a bite of the homemade slice her mum had made.

Our friendship felt like a light raft that allowed me to finally breathe. I’d been treading water for far too long as I struggled to find my place in a new city.

And then she moved away for a year abroad and I was heartbroken.

But we would stay in touch, I convinced myself. We would chat every day, or at least every other day. We would have stories to tell each other. Everything would be fine.

For a split second, I considered letting the friendship go. We hadn’t been friends for that long, after all. We didn’t have a long history like I did with my school friends.

But, scared to let go, we clung onto each other as life pulled us apart.

We kept in touch for the first few weeks but it was taxing. Navigating the time difference and trying to find time between uni, work and a social life was a minefield. Our phone calls became less frequent and messages would sit unopened.

The days and months passed us by and yet we still convinced ourselves that when we saw each other things would get better again. We would return to our old selves and it would be worth it.

We could have let each other go then. Let the distance drag us apart. But we were both stubborn - a trait we’d connected over. And so instead we planned a trip for when she returned which gave us something to look forward to.

Things changed in the months between her returning to Australia and us going on the trip.

She called me one day, just as I was about to start a ten hour shift at the bar I was working at, and dropped the bomb that she had, in fact, started dating the guy who I’d had a crush on at uni.

She laughed about their secret romance as if it was nothing. But it felt like she had reached into my heart and started prodding at it with a fork. All I could think about was how she’d made fun of me for liking him. How she’s told me over and over again that he wasn’t even attractive and that I could do better. That is was embarrassing that I liked him.

I considered cancelling our trip after that. But the flights were non-refundable and I hadn’t just worked 60 hour weeks all summer just to throw it all away. So I brushed it under the rug and never raised the issue again.

Before I knew it, we were cramped next to each other about to endure a forty hour travel day. Why had I let her book the flights, I wondered?

We yo-yoed between best friends and complete apathy. She yelled at me whenever she was frustrated, tired or hungry (which seemed to be a regular occurrence). She yelled at me again when we didn’t have phone service and couldn’t figure out how to get into our dinghy Air BnB.

But the worst part was that I turned into a bad friend too. I would Irish goodbye on nights out, making her worry about my whereabouts in an unfamiliar city. I held my tongue when we didn’t agree and I let her think that our friendship was fine when really its light had flickered out long ago.

When I watched her flirt with other boys while she had a boyfriend I finally knew that our friendship was over. She cheated on him. And then she came crying to me about how confused she was. What did it all mean? Was she a terrible person? Would I keep her secrets for her?

I wanted to yell at her, tell her that yes I thought she was a horrible person who deserved to feel all the guilt and shame that she was experiencing.

But I also wanted to enjoy my trip. So again, I held my tongue.

After that trip, a wedge formed between us apart. We never really talked about it. We drifted apart, the space between us filled with all the fights we had refused to have.

I know it was the right thing for us. That our friendship had served us for a time but now it didn’t and that we had to let each other go.

And I think that’s what I’ve learnt about friendships - as sad as it can be at the time, some of them have an expiration date.

If we had been more willing to accept this fact, I think we could have saved ourselves a lot of hurt. We could have let each other go sooner, and been left with a happy memory. Instead, we clung on for too long.

Our friendship was like the fancy block of cheese that you spent $35 on at the deli in a moment of naive excitement after finding a recipe online that only mature palate’s (like your own) would enjoy. Only to realise that a) you don’t actually like that type of cheese and b) it’s way too expensive to throw out, so you let it sit at the back of your fridge, growing more and more mould, until it’s changed colours completely and you can’t open the fridge without gagging a little in disgust.

Just throw out the goddamn cheese! It’s not worth saving.

I’m not saying that friendship breakups don’t hurt. They absolutely do. They’re an ending after all, and need to be grieved like any other loss. But I’ve also learnt that they’re a natural part of growing up.

Friends will come in and out of your life constantly. If you’re lucky, you’ll find some really great people who stay in your life for the long-term. But even if these friendships don’t last forever, they still serve a purpose at the time. And I’ve come to realise that we are lucky to experience these shorter friendships too.