Life is long and complex and there are many reasons why people stop being friends. But I’ve identified four main reasons throughout the many changes to my social circle over the years. Here are my thoughts.
The first two are unconscious, usually time-and-distance related.
Scenario 1 – Those friends that were once close, but now they’ve moved away, or moved on. Your lives are so different that you aren’t even travelling on parallel paths anymore. Days become weeks become years, until you finally realise there’s nothing tying you together. It’s a soft and gentle ebb, becoming footnotes in each other’s history.
Scenario 2 – Sometimes though, there’s enough blood under the bridge to keep you emotionally close. Your friendship becomes a dormant seed, that with a little watering and tending can bloom again. Maybe you will never be as close, but you still care enough to orbit each other’s peripherals, and call on each other from time to time for friendship and support.
The last two are conscious unfriendings.
Scenario 3 – There’s been a schism, a hurt, a misunderstanding. Words were said. Deeds were done. Maybe intentionally, maybe not. Maybe you made some selfish decisions and hurt them and they have gone no contact or into retaliation mode. Or maybe it’s you that feels the sting of their betrayal like a slap in the face. There’s fallout, there’s aftermath. For a while, your thoughts about them are so sharp your mind has to dance away. So you enforce distance – physical, emotional – to keep yourself safe.
But you can reconcile. You can sit down and explain, you can hear their explanations. You can make promises, you can make amends. If a friendship is worth it, if you value the person enough, you can repair.
Scenario 4 – The person has revealed themselves to be someone completely misaligned with your values and ethics. This is less about what they did, and more about who they intrinsically are. Red flags you can no longer ignore. Behaviours, habits, addictions they are unlikely to change. Now, you can be friends (or at least acquaintances) with people you don’t see eye-to-eye with, as long as you are able to set boundaries. But these friends are people who can’t- or won’t – respect boundaries.
So, you can decide to walk away. You can decide not to condone them or their behaviour or their character. Even if you’ve known this person for 10 years, 20 years. Even if you used to be like them. People do change, and it’s not outside the scope of imagination to think that they may one day be different, but you don’t owe them friendship while they’re figuring it out.
My motto for 2026 is – Protect Your Peace. I am taking steps to protect my peace. I am actively removing drama from my life. I am taking note of who is supporting me, caring for me, caring about me. I am taking note of people’s silences too. I am taking note of who only seems to want something from me, and making decisions about where I am spending my energy and where I am reserving it.
But who I am is who I’ve always been. Truthful, honest, generous, loving, kind. Creative and intelligent and resourceful. Someone broken, and beautiful in their brokenness. Someone worth getting to know, if you have the bravado to be fearless and vulnerable and genuine with me.
Standing for “no more hatred” doesn’t mean “love everybody”. It doesn’t mean being “nice” and trying to save everyone. Sometimes it means saying “No thank you” to people lost in darkness, lost in their old ways. Sometimes it means pushing onward, forging your own path and not waiting for others to decide to join you.
I hope I meet and make many friends this year. And I hope at least some of those friendships will be wild and wonderful and deep. But my first allegiance is to myself, and to my sustained happiness, and I won’t compromise on that.
Cadence Poetica 