05/09/2025
“You don’t need a guide for breaking up with your friends, because you don’t need to break up with your friends,” Olga Khazan wrote in 2023. “You just need to make more friends.” https://theatln.tc/4jNgXgve
Advice is proliferating on how to aggressively confront, or even abandon, friends who disappoint us, as though the struggle is in what to say, rather than whether to do it. Psychologists say that “there is a kinder, more realistic way to maneuver through a friendship that’s lacking in some area,” Khazan wrote. Although it is natural to have expectations of your friends, the problem is that few people state those expectations directly—and even fewer meet them organically.
Jeffrey Hall, a University of Kansas communication professor, has broken friendship expectations into six categories, Khazan detailed. “What many experts recommend instead is to ease up on your one or two closest friends and befriend people who can do whatever it is your besties are failing at,” she continued. “Some friends are good listeners, some invite you on fun trips.” Communication is important and crucial, but it doesn’t solve everything. If we “recognize this person might not be in a position to meet that need, we can then take steps to go out and build new connections with people who can,” said Miriam Kirmayer, a clinical psychologist who specializes in friendship.
“You might feel relieved, in the moment, to cut out a person who’s upset you, in the same way that any final decision provides a sweet release from dissonance,” Khazan continued. “But people are messier than that, and relationships blurrier.”
Read more: https://theatln.tc/4jNgXgve
📷: Dario Mitidieri / Getty
