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#65, June 25th 2024
Hey Shani,
Any advice on handling friendship breakups?
Hey You,
Whenever a question centers around “how to handle” something, the first thing I want to remind us all is that we don’t necessarily have to “handle” anything. When things are difficult, we are allowed to simply let them be difficult, and let our feelings about them exist and flow through us naturally. The compulsion to make our natural feelings go away or instantly “get over” an unpleasant situation is something we learned so that we’d be easier kids to manage, but it’s also something we’re allowed to unlearn. No feeling is forever, not even the pain and confusion that can come from friendships ending.
More specifically to your point, this can really suck! It’s never pleasant when a friendship ends or changes in a way that you don’t like. While the lion’s share of language around “breakups” is reserved for relationships of a romantic nature, that’s not really fair to friendships, because those relationships are just as important if you ask me. But pretending like these things don’t happen or that they don’t hurt isn’t productive, so let’s acknowledge what’s happening and maybe that can help shift our perspective and help us move through our feelings a bit. You’ll be ok.