This is the third close friendship in five years to end. One faded, one ended in an argument over something small, one you stopped answering. Each has its own story, and you have told all three. Lately you have noticed that you are the one person who was in every one of them. I've started wondering which of my friends are really my friends.
Friendships also end for plain reasons, and three endings are not proof of anything.
01
What you do in friendships
Set the stories side by side and look for what repeats.
It may be how they end. You go quiet, or you take one slight as final, or you decide they never cared and act on it.
It may be how they run before that. You may be the one who listens, drives, remembers, and never asks. Or you may keep track of who was invited where, and feel a cancellation for days.
I've handled everything on my own for so long that super independent is just what I am now.
People say friendships are hard to keep as an adult, and that is true. It does not say whether yours have anything in common.
The cost may be more than the friends. Each ending can make the next friendship start with less trust on your side, before the other person has done anything.
02
What the endings may have in common
"I need to be chosen."
A friendship may be something you are picked for, again and again. Under Chosen, a friend's other friends can read as competition, and an unreturned call as a decision.
Read about Chosen →"Asking creates a debt I don't want to carry."
You may give freely and take nothing. Under Burden, a friendship can stay at the distance where you never have to need the other person, and a friendship kept there may not last.
Read about Burden →Others are possible. Being the one who gives may also be Needed, where the fear is that without your usefulness there is no reason for you. It may be none of these.
03
What is under the rule
Under Chosen, the fear may be that if you are not selected, you were not enough to select. What would answer it is belonging that isn't competitive.
Under Burden, the fear may be that your needs make you too much, and too much gets left. What would answer it is being able to receive without owing.
A new set of friends would not answer either one. The same fear may simply come along.
04
One question that separates them
When you picture them leaving, is it because you weren't enough, or because you were too much?
Take the friendship you miss most. Not enough is the Chosen answer. Too much is the Burden answer.
If neither is how you picture it, there is not enough to tell, and that is allowed.
Plenty of this is not a rule. People move, have children, change jobs, and friendships thin out with nobody at fault. Some friends are careless. Grief over one real falling-out is grief. For Chosen, what counts is the pattern across unrelated rejections and not any one of them.
Subtraction asks you to keep only an explanation that fits all three endings, and to drop one that fits a single ending and no more.
05
One thing to try this week
Pick a friendship that is still going.
Ask that friend for something you would usually do without: company on an errand, help choosing something, half an hour on the phone.
Before you ask, write one line about what you expect them to do. Afterward, write one line about what they did.
More on being the one who keeps a friendship going is on When You're Always the One Reaching Out.