When Carole King’s iconic song about friendship first hit the radio waves, I was fresh out of high school and had just landed a job at a drop-in centre for the wave of 
teens thumbing their way across the country in the summer of 1971. It was a heady time to be young and free, and the world seemed full of possibility and promise. I believed in Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata, that the words to ‘All You Need is Love’ were true and that every day was the first day of the rest of my life, although in my rush to get to the next one, I missed the point altogether.
Sprung loose from the social confines of high school –where I figured somewhere near the bottom – I was happy to discover that my shyness there had been more to do with not fitting in, and that in my new life, friends—and one in particular—were more readily made.
She was four years older, and for the nearly-17-year-old that I was, it could have felt like a bigger difference, but we clicked immediately. It was a bit like falling in love. We were amazed to discover how much we had in common and full of the delight of an intense connection. We spent as much together as we could and when our paltry paycheques would allow, went out for meals together at a funky restaurant downtown where we talked for hours about philosophy, psychology, love, politics, books, friendship, music, our place in the world and our dreams for the future. She was bright and funny, insightful and vulnerable. I was honoured by her trust and confidence, and gave her mine. We felt so familiar to each other that the only possible explanation seemed to be that we’d been friends in a previous life.
Years went by and we stayed close. She got a degree and a husband, while my career path zig-zagged from one thing to another, and boyfriends came and went. She had children and became a full-time mother; I lived on my own and loved being free to travel whenever I could. When the funky restaurant closed its doors for good, we went suburban and Italian, still meeting nearly every week to talk until closing over lasagne and endless cups of coffee. Words and ideas were our mutual loves; our discussions sometimes so stimulating that electricity seemed to shoot from our fingertips.
We finished each other’s sentences, shared a similar life perspective and sense of humour, wore the same styles, and could almost have been taken for sisters. I respected her judgement and learned from her experience. When later I had children of my own, she was my role model for motherhood. There were times when she faced problems so difficult that she retreated from the world, but even there she saved a place for me. Our friendship survived a long separation and one early, major disagreement that we both were thankful had no long-lasting effect. I never considered for a moment that it could be lost.
A certain ebb and flow in a friendship is natural, and often linked to geographical, professional or lifestyle changes. Some friendships are situational and don’t last once the kids stop playing soccer or going to the same school. On a couple of occasions I’ve avoided getting in touch with someone after a long absence out of embarrassment over my own inattention, and worried that maybe that very tardy phone call or email will only make more obvious just how ‘out of mind’ they were.
There are 9 to 5 friendships that can’t always make the move outside the office. Or sometimes, although there seems to be enough start-up interest for a lasting relationship, the common ground simply erodes, leaving you to later ponder, “gee, whatever happened to.....?”. But in the case of close friendships, in the absence of an obvious trigger, there is a need to understand why they falter and die.
My once-close friend of thirty-five years has been silent for three years now – for what reason, I have no idea. She might have been ill, or depressed, or didn’t have energy or desire to pursue a friendship that she might have felt had run its course. I tried to find out, but after a while I had to accept that her unspoken message in not replying to mine was clear. A last attempt at reconnection—a letter I wrote to her in the hope that she would understand that her absence needed neither apology nor explanation—got no response. I believe that I have to respect what appears to have been a decision made. All I know for sure is that she’s still around, but I only ever see her in dreams from which I awaken feeling unsettled and sad.
It’s a bit naive to think that the book-ends of friendship should or could be announced, the way children often do. “I want to be friends with you”, a six-year-old might say—or the opposite! For an adult to confirm that a friendship term is up is potentially confrontational, almost certainly hurtful, and not really workable. When do you say it, and how? In some cases it’s unnecessary—everybody knows the score—but when it involves a friendship that felt like sisterhood, the lack of an explanation is a heavy weight. Not knowing why or how compounds the loss.
A very decent young fellow I know who had been happily involved for several months with someone he thought was ‘the most sincere girl I had ever met’ has found himself in this situation. His girlfriend broke up with him by simply disappearing off his radar, not answering messages and deleting his plea to get in touch from her Facebook page. He was left to draw his own conclusion that no news meant bad news for him, and it has ripped him apart not only to have lost her, but to be treated with such apparent thoughtlessness.
We’ve all heard stories about wives who leave husbands (or the other way around) out of the blue—just pack up and go—leaving the other to grope in the dark for answers. We might roll our eyes at the idea that anyone could be so oblivious, but the fact that these spouses missed all the warning signs does not make the agony of not knowing why any less awful. A fellow I knew from high school was left in this manner, and it took years of therapy for him to finally come to terms with the fact that he would never have any kind of explanation for his wife’s decision. He wasn’t trying to find an answer that would satisfy—he only wanted to hear a reason. Something. Anything that could help him half-way understand how the woman he had loved and lived with for fifteen years could put an end to their life together, just like that. When I decided to end my marriage, his story was part of the reason I believed I owed my husband a complete explanation, and he got it, over many long and difficult conversations. It didn’t make him feel any better and I’m not sure he really understood the ‘why’, but it did give him, I hoped, something to hang his hat on.
In one of her excellent posts on the nature of humans, Bonnie of Original Art Studio writes about the torment of unanswered ‘whys’ and how asking different questions like ‘how did I contribute to..?’ or ‘what will I do next time?’ can be productive and bring understanding and peace of mind. Her excellent suggestions are well worth reading; they are based on sound principles and certainly effective for many situations.
But for the inexplicable rupture of a good friendship or established relationship, in the unanswered, “Why did you leave without saying anything?” is the echo, “How could you think you mattered so little to me?”
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