I’ve said this before and I’ll say this again – friendship breakups are worse than romantic breakups. You can fall in love in first glance and multiple times. But making friends is something that takes more time and trust than people let on. The kind of impact broken friendships have on people is seldom talked about, even though the hurt is near impossible to recover from.
A woman named Gurpriya penned down the complexity of broken friendships and the loneliness that comes with it in a hard-hitting Twitter thread.
The loneliness of not having friends…a thread
— Gurpriya (@GurpriyaSidhu) December 7, 2022
She says that our generation suffers from broken friendships more than any other generation because people before us weren’t as migratory as us. This means that our generation is probably the first where every other person has moved out of their home in their 20s and settled in bigger cities or abroad.
It’s a feeling that I think most people in their 20s will relate to today than any other generation before them. Perhaps because we’re more migratory than people before us were.
Over the years, I have lost many close friends – sometimes life happened, sometimes Canada (lol)
— Gurpriya (@GurpriyaSidhu) December 7, 2022
We all moved from our hometowns, in search of better opportunities, in search of a more exciting life, and as a result friendships got lost in transit. Small sacrifice one would think for a better future. Yet, a sacrifice still.
— Gurpriya (@GurpriyaSidhu) December 7, 2022
With that comes an immense sacrifice…the sacrifice of friendships. And it is a “silent killer” because we express the sadness that comes from romantic heartbreaks very easily, but that’s not the case with friendship breakups. Instead, we brush the hurt under the carpet and pretend to be cool.
Enough is talked about heartbreak from love and how to cope with that, but I think loss of a good friendship is almost a silent killer – there is no social conversation around it and you never really understand how to express what you feel
— Gurpriya (@GurpriyaSidhu) December 7, 2022
It is said that money can’t buy love, but it can to some extent still buy you intimacy. A paid subscription on Bumble can still assure you a date night. However, there is no recourse for finding a good friend instantly.
— Gurpriya (@GurpriyaSidhu) December 7, 2022
Unlike dating and marriages, you can’t decide to propose to a friend, put a ring on them and declare “till death do us part”.
Unlike love, friendships don’t happen at first sight. They take time, a lot of time, to grow. It’s like growing a tree, there’s no way you can fast-track the process. And when you lose that tree, it leaves a gaping hole in your life that you never quite understand how to fill.
— Gurpriya (@GurpriyaSidhu) December 7, 2022
There’s a reason that ‘Friends’ is a such a loved tv show for this generation. A group of friends sharing life experiences together year after year. There is comfort and security in those relationships – two terms that are almost alien for us now.
— Gurpriya (@GurpriyaSidhu) December 7, 2022
Nowadays, we are lucky if we get to meet our friends once every few years and even if we don’t, it doesn’t really effect us as much.
Everything is transient. Instead of growing trees and sitting beside them, we now live our life in railway carriages. People keep shuffling, we keep moving from one station to another, and sometimes if we get lucky we meet again…
— Gurpriya (@GurpriyaSidhu) December 7, 2022
Several people online could relate to this Twitter thread and shared heartbreaking incidents from their lives too. There are people who find it too difficult to fill the void that comes from having lost a friend.
Feel for you. I started meticulously maintaining a list of people I wanted to remain in touch with and reaching out to them periodically.
Its helped build much closer relations and is a nice way to stay connected even though we are spread over the worldhttps://t.co/vr0X1aRq99
— Shubhankar Chaudhary (@shubhankarchau7) December 7, 2022
Wow feels like you wrote this for me, yesterday I cried my heart out thinking everything is changing around me especially my friends are not same maybe I am loosing them ….
— Navdha Vijay (@NavdhaVijay) December 8, 2022
I’ve had a tough friendship story, I’m in a minority religious community, I’ve tried to be good friends within but everyone seems whitewashed, and I can’t relate to them one bit, I’ve tried to make friends in college but it didn’t work out because of the lack of interaction,
— شاہزیب (@shahzamshahzeb) December 8, 2022
Now days I don’t expect from someone to give back,(as friendship)
I help people around me in anyway I can, and don’t expect anything from return.
— Harsh sharma (@Harshsh72075692) December 7, 2022
Nothing’s worse than losing friends, for whatever reason and not being able to make new ones! Over time you just accept it and move on till a time comes when you realise that you’re too lazy/introvertish/old to make new friends. It’s not a nice place to be at.
— Vatsal Jain (@renaissance_bk) December 7, 2022
I can relate to this. I have lost so many friends lately specially in these two years of pandemic. To be honest, it really hurts but the positive side is that I am closer to my mother than ever before because I found a friend in her. Now she is my movie and travel buddy !
— Kartik Beriwal 🇮🇳 (@beriwal_kartik) December 7, 2022
Couldn’t have put it better myself. Totally agree that our generation values material pleasures way above friendship & as a result is left alone. The archetype of today’s generation is someone browsing through their Instagram feed on a weekend instead of meeting their friends.
— Gaurav Ahluwalia (@gaurav30933a) December 8, 2022
I’ve lived in most cities. Mostly before i went to college. Friendships didn’t last. Now i have some amazing people. But sad part is. We cannot be together due to career and lot of other factors. It’s just sad. But we gotta move and live. Life goes on right.
— Aishwarya (@kunjooguru) December 8, 2022
Hold on to your friendships. You never know where life takes you.