The Quiet Quitting of Friendship

Friendship is work. 

It obviously wasn’t always this way. In high school, man, everywhere I looked it seemed like I had a best friend waiting. 

College friends feel like forever friends until they’re not. 

I’m in my early 30s now, and I can count my good friendships on my fingers. 

The list of friends I would think to call at 3 a.m. with awful news is maybe two names long. Maybe. 

When my mom died in 2018 the first friend I called in those early morning hours ghosted me about a year ago.

Friends who had been close for years have made no effort to keep me in their regular rotation of socialization. 

After years of feeling like the friend who consistently put in effort to keep friendships afloat, having to watch them fade with my effort was like finally throwing away a bruised banana: regretful, kinda squishy but absolutely necessary. 

I was bitter about it for a while, but ultimately I’ve come to the other side and this is what I’ve learned: You’re not guaranteed a spot in anyone’s life and neither are they in yours. 

It takes work. It takes planning and forethought. It takes prioritization and a genuine desire to do all that’s required to not only keep someone in your life but to keep them well.  

Some people you do the work for automatically. For some people the work takes effort, but you do it happily. Others you realize as you grow no longer deserve the work. And others you quit on quietly even though you love them and wish them well all the same. 

One thing it also takes is an actual connection. Maybe those friends who are gone stopped liking me. Maybe they didn’t see the value in a friendship with me anymore. Maybe they just got busy dealing with life shit and there’s no bad blood but they literally could not handle one more thing including maintaining our friendship.

Such is life, I guess. 

The friends I have in this season of life are here because they truly want to be. They make an effort without prompting to keep me in their orbit, and I do so in return because I appreciate them. And I want to show them I value their efforts in purposefully carving a spot out for me in their hectic life.

The friends who have become distant acquaintances or even strangers will always be a part of my story and I theirs. But we’re writing different books now, and that’s okay.