27 Oct 2016

Social media prevents the once inevitable drift between friends, the drift that occurs as you move through life’s stages at different paces. She moves away, he gets a girlfriend, she starts university, he starts full time work….

Facebook shows us that he/she exists and participates in the world and yet we question why he/she doesn’t participate in life with us. It’s strange, because we know all about them. We know where they’re holidaying and who they’re dating and when their dog died and from what. Yet, we no longer know the small intimacies: the existential crises, the disagreement they had with their mother, how their sex life is. We forget the natural flow of friendships and take this lack of detail personally. The separation becomes lathered in a layer of bitterness and we question what we did or did not do that caused us to be pushed this far away.

We experience waves of emotion: do we invite them to this event? What about that one? Is it awkward if we run into each other? Oh, I certainly don’t want to run into them. Oh no, she’s calling me. Do I pretend to be in the shower and not answer and then just forget to text back? I better just send her a message to try and organise a catch-up to show I’m not a mean person but bail anyway.

Sometimes we’re the one intentionally pushing away, we’re the one who has entered a new world and has found connections with others that are more aligned to our social lives, our beliefs and our hobbies. We don’t have time to maintain every single friend we have ever had, but Facebook forces us to. There is nothing wrong with them (or maybe there is), but how can you articulate that? You don’t want to string something along that doesn’t exist anymore.

“It’s not you, it’s me… soz”

Here are some signs it’s happening, and maybe some things you can adopt if you want to make the first move, so to speak:

  • The ‘hang outs’ eventually become ‘catch ups’.
  • Someone does the first Event You’re Not Invited To. It might have to be you.
  • You take a little while longer to reply to messages
  • You bail on events until they get the hint
  • Post an indirect Facebook status about ~a real friend~ (jks, they should be pushing you away if that’s the case)
  • Be straight up about it if they confront you (it’ll be awks, but you won’t have to deal with it much longer)

I definitely use the blunt, straight-up option. This can create bitter situations, but in the long run, you don’t have to spend months having catch ups you really don’t want to have, and putting energy into a person you no longer have energy for, and feeling sh*tty about a situation you ultimately have complete control over.