Grief: Friendship Breakup, My Worst Kind Of Breakup

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I have experienced breakup a couple of times both the voiced one and the unvoiced one. By saying the voiced one, I mean the sort of breakup where someone says to your face "it's over!" And I curl myself up in a corner, cry and get over it. Then there's the unvoiced one where the person didn't explain what happened, where you went wrong, absolutely nothing! I just woke up to an attitude of either my message being ignored, my calls going unanswered or odd replies and boom! Lovers turned strangers.

Breakups can happen either in friendships or romantic relationships, even families too. I feel like all forms of relationships experience a breakup but today I'm keen on friendship breakup.

Friendship is a big and personal thing for me. People go out, meet a person, exchange contacts and on the next meeting you hear them introduce the person as their friend, how lovely! That cannot be me.
If I met a person at the bus stop and we just got talking, if I'm introducing the person I'll say "hello, meet Tem's, a sweet girl I just met at the bus stop"(that's assuming she's sweet though).

I see really deep into the word friendship. That's why I don't tag just anybody with the title. This already gives you an impression that I'm selective or picky, you're absolutely right and I'm equally very intentional about all I do including friendships.

There's more to friendship than just the name if you ask me. Friendship is about loving another person as yourself. Striving to make each other better, showing support and understanding everywhere you can. It's definitely about tolerating excesses too, trust me friends will always test your patience.
It's standing by someone else's side throughout all the stormy, difficult and messy situations they'll be in. It's a really deep thing on its own, not just from my point of view.

It's for this reason that the grief of friendship breakup is deep. The pain of losing someone you've known for ages, supported and sacrificed a lot for. For me it's the worst kind of breakup. Friends are people I'll say in our Nigerian slang "aff seen you finished". This means people who know you through and through. Those personal issues you cannot always bear to share with others, your friend will definitely know of it.

You probably must have planned how you'll go on a vacation together during summer and out of the blue everything comes crashing, expectations get shattered. The part that hurts most is having really exciting news or being in a difficult situation and when you rush to talk to the one friend you know you could always count on, you suddenly remember times have changed and you just have to let go. Friendship Breakup hurts!

Possible Causes of Friendship Breakup

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• Changes in goal and focus
  Friendship is majorly about two or more people coming together because of a common purpose. Friends always have something in common. People could be friends because they are all celebrities, or because they're students studying the same course and they are all smart. There is always a common goal in friendships.

If a friendship breakup occurs it could be because someone didn't agree to the plan again, someone wanted something different. Someone's priority changed.
Let's take for instance, I want to go to Las Vegas to study medicine, my twin wants to go to London to study Law. We both can't be together for obvious reasons which is because we don't have a common goal and we're not headed in the same direction and so we have to split and go our separate ways.

It's just the same for friendships, if the priority differs or goal differs, there'll be a reason for partners to find their own way.

• One sided affection, sacrifice, care etc
  It is said that it takes two to tango. If one person is always doing the whole work, always showing up for the other, always being supportive and understanding but never gets the same vibe or energy from the other (s) there's bound to be a break up.

Life is getting crazy, people really need the same kind of energy they're giving out. Everyone is going through something. So if someone is showing up for you and you're not doing the same, I won't blame them for moving away.

• Lack of understanding and lack of proper communication
  Few days ago I shared my thoughts on communication as one of the most important tools necessary for all kinds of relationships. Here's the link in case you'd be interested. Communication a necessity for every relationship

Friendships crumble as a result of poor communication and lack of understanding. Oftentimes we react to things because we misunderstood the action or what was being said. There's a need to always try and show understanding, we shouldn't be too quick to give ourselves to anger and passing judgements. Communication should be good too.

In Conclusion:

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There are some friends who stick closer than a brother or sister and some bonds are really worth building and maintaining. We shouldn't lose our friends for petty reasons. There are friends who are very rare and we may never find their kind after they're gone. Rather than experience the grief of friendship breakup, treat your friends well and show them you appreciate them as often as you can.

Thank you for reading.