How do you break up with a friend?

     I’ve had it done to me; I’ve done it to someone (poorly, I might add). I have relatives who have gone through it, and several friends. We’ve all probably gone through it from one side or the other, but nobody can tell you the best way to break up with a friend.
     You’ve grown apart, you are no longer gelling, or the relationship has gotten downright malignant, but only you seem to really know it. With romances, it can be hard to explain why a relationship needs to end, but with a friendship, it’s nearly impossible – there is no “goal” to a friendship, where if you feel the relationship will not achieve the goal, you’d better end it. Breaking it off then seems like a pure rejection of this person, as a person, whether that’s your experience of it or not. What’s the point, then, in ending a friendship?
     Friendships can cause you just as much pain as romantic relationships. It’s painful if you feel you are not really accepted for exactly who you are, and it’s painful if you feel like you are having trouble accepting your friend for exactly who they are. It’s painful if you feel you aren’t getting as much as you are giving in a friendship, and it is painful if you feel you are unable to give what your friend seems to need. And it’s horrible to feel that, whatever combination of these feelings you are having, your friend will not understand and will therefore be truly hurt by what you are about to do.
     Unfortunately, there is no good way to break up with a friend. The whole reason you have to do it is that he or she doesn’t understand the problem – otherwise the friendship would blow up, or simply melt away effortlessly, as they sometimes do. This makes a good conversation with an amicable conclusion almost impossible. Unfortunately, as with everything, you can be sensitive to your friend’s experience, but you cannot be responsible for your friend’s reaction. You can try to be both clear and kind, but you can’t control his or her interpretation.  So the focus has to be on you. What takes the best care of you? What form of communication will be the most productive? To what extent and in what form would I best be able to explain the problem? How can I do this in a way I won’t regret later? What needs to be said, and what is better left unsaid? What part of the problem can I own? Who do I want to be in this situation?
     It is possible that there is almost no way to end a friendship that won’t be accompanied by some form of regret. There will almost always be a sense that this friend deserved better, and there will always be pain over hurting their feelings. Or there may be a lingering question mark about whether the relationship could have been repaired. Maybe you will even feel hurt or unsatisfied with your friend’s response. In the end, all you can do is stand in your truth – you know when a relationship has become a negative force in your life, and it is your responsibility to yourself, AND to your friend, to choose to let that go.

The Personal in a Public Forum

     We are so spread out today. Friends and families who, back in “the day”, would have stayed within coffee distance now have to move where the work is. Even when we live within that distance, the increase in the hours that go into a normal work day make it difficult to make that coffee date a priority. So we are so grateful for the opportunities the internet provides to stay connected and share with everyone we’ve chosen to include in our communities. Blogs, Facebook, Twitter… we can better keep track of what’s going on in the lives of our “people”, and we can make sure no one is left in the dark about the basic goings-on in our own lives. It’s a wonderful and useful adaptation to changing circumstances.
     But there are aspects about this public sharing that are challenging to our personal relationships, and I’m afraid we may have to learn how to handle these challenges the hard way. This blog, for instance, whose purpose differs from these social-networking sites, has become a real challenge for me in this sense. Though not meant to be a forum for posting my personal news, in order for my writing to be meaningful it has to be in some part personal. But how do I address these personal issues without possibly offending friends and family for making these personal stories public? This has, in addition to the overwhelming amount of writing I have had to do for school, been a large factor in my not having written in a while. I am having trouble reconciling this issue for myself.
     Social-networking sites like Facebook leave us vulnerable to the same kind of offense. We may post something publically that some friends are really happy to have access to, but a specific person may wish we had not shared that way. And there are additional concerns. The “mass” quality of the choice to share information this way makes these communications less intimate, less special, and therefore can devalue the relationship. Friends may be grateful for the information, but unhappy that they had to find it out “that way”. It encourages a lazy, impersonal approach to our relationships, and gives us opportunities to cop out when facing personal discussions about difficult things. It can also seem to devalue the information itself – when we casually throw something on our Facebook wall, this brief and public communication can give the impression that we have a cavalier attitude towards our own news.
     These are all manageable issues, and I am in no way taking a stance against social-networking and blogs. The intention of these constructs is to allow us to stay connected and close. But if we can remember to value the relationship first, and use the social network to serve the relationship, hopefully we can avoid sacrificing relationships for the sake of the social network.

Honesty isn’t honesty if you’re lying to yourself.

     This thing with actress Katherine Heigl has been bugging me.  Do you know the story?  She decided against submitting her name for Emmy consideration for best featured actress this year, and explained in an interview that “I do not feel I was given the material this season to warrant a nomination.”  The producers and all those involved with Grey’s Anatomy are furious, and are clearly looking for ways for her to get out of her contract.

     I couldn’t figure out what bugged me about this.  First of all, I absolutely agree with her about the material she had been given on the show.  I used to be an avid fan of the show, but stopped watching sometime last season for that very reason – I felt the writing had gotten really poor.  And I can even see her making an argument that her material was particularly bad – I had begun to despise ”Izzy” despite liking the actress and the character very much through several seasons.  And I’m all about honesty.  She was asked the question, and she answered it.  I felt that I should be applauding her in respect for her judgment about the material, and for her willingness to tell the truth even if it meant she would have to leave the show.  Clearly she ought to leave if she is feeling that way, and wanted to leave if she was making these kinds of statements publicly.

     But I found myself siding with the producers on this one.  And though of course it made sense to me that they would be offended and looking to relieve her of her contract, I couldn’t figure out why my sympathies seemed to lie with them.  But then I realized, the Emmy was for “Best Featured Actress”.  The Emmy was NOT for “Best Writing” or “Best Material”.  And though I fully understand the connection between the quality of the performance and the quality of the material, I have also seen many examples of actors rising above crappy material to deliver a stellar performance.  In fact, those performances may be even MORE worthy of award.  If she felt that her acting suffered for the material, that’s fair – I’ve certainly felt that way in my life.  But then let’s be honest about why we aren’t worthy of an Emmy.  Say, “I failed to make it work”, or “the work wasn’t good enough”.  But Heigl withdrew not because she didn’t feel she deserved the Emmy, but because she wanted to make a statement about the material she was being handed on the show.  It was a passive-aggressive decision involving third parties.  And that’s why it seemed an unnecessary and unsavory “throwing under the bus” of the writers.

     What has this got to do with relationships?  This was a private conversation that went public and has destroyed a relationship.  Perhaps because she felt inhibited from having this conversation straight up with the people directly involved (or because of the failure of those conversations), Heigl acted out in a way that ruins any chance for real understanding and a win-win solution without bad feelings, or at least of getting out quietly without residual public negativity.  This is the price of passive-aggression for Heigl, and it may end up having resonating negative affects on her career. 

     Honesty is the best policy…as long as you are being honest to the appropriate parties, and as long as you are being honest to yourself about the role you are playing in any challenging situation.

Easier said than done, but something to consider.

There’s a fine line between wanting to be right and wanting to be understood in any argument and they can often look like very much the same thing.  We push and push and push to get our point across, relentlessly pursuing a concession.  A concession, yes, but of what kind, exactly? 

 

I push because I assume you don’t understand my point.  After all, I think, if you truly understood, you couldn’t possibly still believe I was wrong and you were right.  But then what if you demonstrated you absolutely understood?  What if you took a moment to not only acknowledge what I was saying, but that you understood why I was saying it, why it made sense to me?  What if you did all that, and then told me why you STILL disagree?  I suppose I would have to listen to what you were saying, or at least stop pushing my point.

 

And who knows, maybe if I truly understood what you were saying, if I took the time to demonstrate I absolutely understood, maybe I wouldn’t still believe I was right.  Or maybe I just wouldn’t care so much about being right anymore.  Either way, it’s worth a try.