Gettyimages.com/Two young businesswomen are chatting while waiting for a job interview.
Never forget how precious your friendships are. Your friends will get you through breakups, job losses, fights with family, apartment displacements, periods of self-doubt and so much more. Friends make everything better. You’ve laughed your hardest with your friends, and cried your hardest. So, failing to nurture those friendships in favor of say…your marriage or…your career…would be to lose perspective on what matters. Those other areas of your life are top priorities, of course, but you wouldn’t even enjoy your marriage or your job if you didn’t have friends. You know it’s true. I say all of this because, you should do all you can to prevent friendship breakups with your good friends. Once that bridge is burnt, it’s very hard to re-build it. Remember that it takes years to build trust and seconds to break it. If you’ve been neglecting your friend, you could have a friendship breakup coming your way.
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Text replies are slowing
She used to reply instantly, and you’d get into a hilarious, silly, meaningless but fun text thread about what you’re doing in that moment. Now, by the time she replies to your story about the fart in the changing room, the moment has passed. That was hours ago.
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And becoming shorter
You also just get an answer that’s long enough to count as a reply, but barely. It’s a “Ha!” or “Oh cool!” but she doesn’t ask questions or make other comments to keep the conversation alive.
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They won’t make plans now
This friend used to pull up her calendar the second you asked to hang out, and pick a date. Now, she says that she’ll have to get back to you. Or that things are crazy right now and she can’t say for certain when she’ll be free.
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They loop you in with errands
If you do see this friend, she just loops you in with her errands. You go with her to grocery shop or get something tailored. She doesn’t dedicate real time just to the hangout anymore.
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You weren’t invited to the group thing
You hear of a group thing that you would have typically been invited to. You aren’t entitled to an invite, of course but…this group has gotten together before and, your friend invited you then.
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You dropped the ball too many times
You’ve cancelled at the last minute a lot, or not been helpful when help was needed. You’ve just been a bad friend too many times in a row recently.
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You get news through third parties
You hear about this friend’s big news—she’s engaged, she’s moving, she’s expecting—from somebody else. Not from her. Oh, and by the time you hear the news, it’s old.
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You’re not on the committee
The planning committee, that is. This friend used to always recruit you for help to plan her birthday, her boyfriend’s birthday party, the New Year’s Eve party, or the Halloween party. You’d go pick out quirky decorations and plates together. But you aren’t on the committee this year.
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They’re always “super busy”
You’ve heard the word “busy” from this friend a lot lately. If you text to ask how she is, you’ll get “busy” somewhere in the response. That’s code for, “You won’t see me for a while and I barely have time for this conversation.”
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You’ve been replaced
You used to be the one invited to the workout classes, the sample sales, and the Spring cleaning days at the apartment. But someone else is doing that with this friend now.
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You’re seen under time constraints
Every time you see this friend, it’s under tight time constraints. You meet at 12:30 for lunch and she has a hard out at 2. She’s giving you less and less of her minutes.
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Updates are superficial
She tells you about her health, her job, her dog…but she doesn’t talk to you about her feelings and deeper thoughts anymore.
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You’re getting their voicemail
This friend used to pick up the phone as much as possible, and now she seems to pick up as little as possible. She would answer nine out of your 10 calls and now she’s answering one out of ten.
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They offer to help less
You mention you’re moving this weekend and she says, “Oh, wow…hope it goes well!” There once was a time when she would have offered to help.
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They’ve given you notes
If this friend has had to give you several notes on your behavior lately (i.e. you only talk about yourself or you’re flaky) you probably have a friendship breakup coming your way.
