Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash
“Tom, I need to talk to you. I had a falling out with my friend, and I need some advice.”
When your brother says something like that, you’ve got to listen. I called him at midnight and we talked for an hour.
Something weird happened with his friend — a disagreement — and now prospects for them remaining friends seemed dire.
As he talked, I saw my own experiences flashing before me.
“Rob, first of all, don’t worry about it that much. Second, losing your friends is more the rule than the exception.”
You could look at that as a cynical view of the world, but it’s not. I don’t hold ill will towards previous friends, I just understand that friends are meant to come and go.
Losing Friends Is The Rule, Not The Exception
Famous chef Francis Mallmann had this to say about an old friend..
Once a friend came to me and said, “Francis, you don’t like me anymore.” and I said “No, it’s not that I don’t like you, we’ve chosen different styles of life.
I still have beautiful souvenirs of all the things we did together and how close we were, but I don’t enjoy talking to you anymore and there’s nothing in common between your life and mine nowadays”.
That’s a savage way to look at it, isn’t it? Francis is a cool guy. He was featured on Netflix’s Chef’s Table and he is truly a man who lives by his own rules.
The truth about our friends is one we don’t want to accept.
Most of our friends will exit stage right at some point in our lives. We can either be sad about it, or we can accept it’s normal and move on.
Who Does Deserve To Stay In Our Lives?
Family. I would say family. I mean, I don’t blame anyone for cutting out toxic family members from their life, because sometimes that needs to be done.
However ever since I’ve started living here in the Philippines, I’ve seen just how much they care about their family members. I talked to one fruit vendor yesterday and he was visibly upset about not being able to see his sister and family for 7 months since the lockdowns started.
It was just so odd to see someone that upset about not seeing their family for only seven months. My sister sees my parents twice per year. I haven’t seen my family in a year and a half.
It’s just a drastic shift in priorities here. Filipinos look at family in a totally different way than Americans. Americans are more independent. We care about our jobs, typically, more than we care about our family.
For me, I believe that friends can come and go. We don’t need to be bitter about that. What we cannot afford is to let our family come and go. We need to do everything we can to keep them inside the revolving door of our lives.
Be Happy That Your Friends Were There In The First Place
I interned at Disney World for eight months in 2014. It was life-changing, and I made three really special friends while living there.
Back then I thought our bonds would never be broken. I fell out with one friend in 2016, then another in 2018, and every time this happened I felt like a horrible person.
But I’ve come to realize it wasn’t really anything I or they did. It’s a losing battle to try and keep friendships alive from so far away or for so long.
I could be all wrong about this. Maybe other people have found ways to keep their friendships as strong as they’ve ever been through decades worth of time. Maybe.
But my way works, too. I’m no longer super close with my friends from college. Same with high school. And you know what? That’s okay. If I ever saw them again, I’d be very happy to be in their presence. We’d probably grab a beer or something and chat.
But who says friendship needs to be worked at like a field? Who says we need to do everything we can to keep friends around us? Why can’t we let them go off and live their life and be happy for them when they do?
Do the most you can for people, and when you grow apart, be happy you helped them on their journey.
As you can see, this is not a malicious way to look at it at all. It’s a realistic one. It’s sad, sure, because your time will most likely end, but it doesn’t mean you’ll ever forget about the great times you had.
There’s a famous quote from Maya Angelou.
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
The bonds you built with friends — the bonds you can feel with every atom in your body — will echo through to the end of your life. You’ll never forget. Don’t ache to go back too much, just be happy it happened.
This is the way to weather the deadly blows that come with departing friends. These blows don’t miss. They land perfectly every time. Smile after the hits and stand there, straight and tall, welcoming the next one.