I spent several years getting to know an individual I eventually came to consider a pretty close friend who consistently told me throughout how they were always able to see the end of their friendships. I always found the statement alarming and never quite understood how they could see such a thing, that was until I experienced it first-hand myself, when I came to believe it’s something they probably have done before in prior connections and made a repeating self-fulfilling prophecy.
Friendships, like any relationship, take work on both parts. Sometimes even a lot of work. But not everyone wants to work on keeping a friendship going, especially when the newness of it has long worn off and all those quirks from both individuals seem to become more of a challenge to accept. I believe this became the case of this friendship, at least in respect of how they felt towards my quirks. While I’ll admit I definitely bring my own challenges to any friendship I make, I constantly do my best to grow, change, adapt, and adjust to each connection and joke it comes easily because I’m a Gemini. This friend however was far more set in their ways, and became even more so after the newness of it wore off. And once the pandemic came and went, they became even more reserved, and dare I say extremely resistant to change.
For the longest time, I think we both did our best to both adapt to the differences each other brought to the table in our friendship, but eventually, it began to feel like I was the only one trying to make it work. When they started to not be as motivated to drive the 30 miles to where I live on the weeks we alternated visiting each other, when they stopped being open to taking day trips somewhere more than 30 minutes away, when they stopped enjoying going into Starbucks with me, a place our friendship began in, when they lost interest in going to the movies, something we once did with regularity, it ultimately began to feel like they were only interested in doing what they wanted to do and I had to just be ok with that. But, the last time I drove out to their home to hang out for dinner they made and a movie I brought, they feel asleep for the entire running time and barely said anything to me while I was there.
Trying to talk to anyone set in their ways rarely goes anywhere, as was the case with this friend. It became very frustrating to me, wanting to explore more in the friendship and them becoming less and less interested in doing anything but quick dinners and sitting around watching tv. When I asked them if they still enjoyed hanging out with me, their answer was sometimes. Their answer stung, as this very individual once told me how much they considered me to be their best friend. But best friendships take an immense amount of work to keep going and my best friend Cedric would attest to this, as we’ve successfully navigated plenty of troubled waters for 25 years now to still be the closest of friends.
This friend though didn’t seem interested in doing that type of work to keep it going so I thought that maybe they just needed some time apart from hanging out. They agreed that would help and said they’d get back to me in a few weeks to set up our next hangout time. It’s been months since I’ve heard from them. In light of that, I accept now this friendship is over, but I also accept that it wasn’t because of my doing. It was because of the very principle I’ve come to learn in how friendships sustain the test of time and that’s how much work an individual is willing to do on themselves to keep connecting with someone who’s different than them.
When one individual in a friendship stops working on it and becomes more set in their ways, it makes for a very lop-sided feeling, one where the interests of the other often don’t feel as important. All that leads to in the end is being able to see the end of that friendship because for one set in their ways, it becomes very easy to predict the end of a friendship when they are the one causing it to happen.
They say friendships come into our lives for a reason, a season, or a lifetime, and I’m blessed for the bunch of seasons I had with this individual and all the spiritual lessons I learned along the way spending time with them. I still love them immensely and always will. I just hope one day they may realize the only reason why our friendship ended is not because I stopped trying to make it work, it’s because they did, which in the end, made their self-fulling prophecy come true…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
