Is It Okay to Cut Off Friends? If So, Which Ones?
I recently caught up with a friend who mentioned he’s been letting go of friends who don’t reciprocate and said he’s felt lighter and happier since.
A couple years ago, I did the same.
After realizing I was the one typically reaching out, setting up dates, checking in, asking how the new job/boyfriend/apartment has been. But they rarely were curious about me and how I was doing, like really doing.
My friendships are split about 55/45 with a little over half here in NYC and the rest in other places like California, Texas, Seoul, and other cities. I thought about letting some of the long distance friendships naturally fade but I observed that when I’m down and sobbing wherever I am in the world, the friends I call immediately are the ones in other timezones and they answer right away. We also handwrite letters and send care packages.
I’ve written extensively about friends— why you shouldn’t settle, how to make new ones, what to value, and how to tell if you’ve outgrown them.
I care so much about them because 1) I get irreplaceable joy out of sharing things with friends, 2) coming from a small family, I lean on them in terms of feeling connected, 3) having deep conversations with the right ones fills my soul like nothing else.
“Do you think your friends know that you’re expecting them to check in on you?” an acquaintance once asked me.
“No,” I replied.
Anna lives in SF though it’s been years, I think of her often and each time I’m out there, I always try to see her.
My thinking is that I shouldn’t have to tell you - you should just care.
This feels vulnerable to share about myself but my former therapist mentioned that having the same expectations of friendships to romantic relationships is unfair. In romantic relationships, I’ve realized I generally don’t need to tell him “hey, can you check in on me sometimes?” or “hey, would love it if you could hug me and actually mean it when you see me.” He just does them and it’s probably because he really likes me. Friends, obviously, don’t like you the way a romantic partner would. It is a different kind of love but genuine nonetheless. It could be a bit narcissistic thinking that I would imagine friends would do the same as a potential romantic partner would, if they cared.
I don’t know. Is that narcissistic?
I guess I think that because – I love to do things to show love, without asking.
But then comes the question - why do I do those things without them asking me?
In a recent podcast with Oprah, she and her co-author say that we do things for 2 reasons– to be loved or out of love. I do almost all things out of love but I slip up and I find myself doing things hoping they love me back.
I tend to go through a relationship cycle with friends that goes like this:
Dinners with friends in NYC is how dinner is done.
We vibe and I think you’re great
I show my love without thinking about it so cheering you on, supporting you, being excited about your wins, being there for you when you cry, hugging you tight when I get to see you
I don’t feel the same level of love and excitement in return and I get sad, I think you don’t like me as much maybe I got too excited about us and I pull back in disappointment
I remember this quote I love: “when we are lonely, it is often our own love that we long for.”
The love I’ve been showing to you this whole time, I give back to myself and it feels good again. I’ve come back home again.
Then I remember James Baldwin’s quote: "the longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light."
I showed up for you and poured love, I didn’t think you were anywhere as excited for me than I am for you, we fade because I do not fucking settle in my relationships because relationships are everything and that would imply I’m settling for everything
My entire 20s have proven that I eventually attract my people. I guess I get a little golden retriever excited when we first met years ago and I saw us as being friends but yeah I could work on this. I am working on this.
My last night in Santa Barbara with my roommates and some friends I still keep in touch with to this day.
If good friendships are where I pour my most valuable resource of time and heart and energy, then why should I ever settle? It just breaks my heart because if this is the standard I want to hold, some people naturally fade out or what a friend once shared with me “let them be acquaintances in your life.”
Sometimes people break our hearts without knowing. I’ve made myself feel lonely by having insanely high expectations and no one meeting them and making me feel the way I know I make others feel.
I don’t know if it’s OK, but I do this to myself.
I might not have meant to cut off some friends but because I wasn’t able to communicate that I felt uncared for and unimportant to them, I just assumed so and so I stopped seeing them.
Others, I fully intended to cut off because we just don’t vibe the way we used to and that’s okay.