My best friend has new friends, I’m freaking out!

The question for Daronne

Dear Daronne,

I’ve known my best friend since I was a teenager and to this day (we’re in our 30s), we’ve always been close friends and have always done everything together. We look a lot alike – we’re quite introverted and don’t have many friends – but that suited us perfectly.

Except he recently found a job that he loves and while there, he bonded with his co-workers, including a girl he instantly clicked with and hangs out with a lot. This girl is very sociable, very talkative, etc. She honestly introduced it to my best friend and she didn’t like it, because I find it tiring and a bit immature. I really don’t understand what you find in him. Also, since they’ve been friends, he takes my best friend on all the outings with colleagues…

So my best friend has less time for me. I feel that he is moving away, that he is less available. We usually have lunch together on Sundays at noon, but two weeks ago he left me completely because she was exhausted after being out all night. I thought it was super disrespectful and let her know but she just told me it could happen. I waited for an apology or explanation, but NADA. Is it me or is it not happening?

And me, how can I find my best friend?

Vanessa

Daronne’s answer

My bottle of sparkling water,

As an adult woman, on whom the train of life runs regularly, I have to admit that if once in my life I canceled an appointment with my best friend and she yelled at me, how could I tell you… It would tire me a bite. Our adult life is already restrictive enough that we can’t afford to let go now and then. If our best friend can’t understand that we need to rest, who can? Nobody.

In friendship we are required to respect each other, I have never said otherwise, but the notion of respect you invoke seems very severe to me, especially as the event seems exceptional. Forgive me my little vixen, but I get the impression that you didn’t have the rudimentary instructions on friendship (even the big one) as an adult, so let me refresh your memory a little before your attitude… Possessive don’t scare her dear power in your heart.

Being friends as adults: no pressure!

To illustrate the word toxicity in the dictionary, we could have put a picture of a teenage friendship, or at least a teenage friendship from the 2000s (it seems young people are smart and tolerant now).

Adult friendship is in principle much more serene. For example, when we become great people and our friends have satisfying new experiences, we are happy for them. I’m not saying that when their lives suddenly become hectic while ours struggles to shift into second gear, it stings. However, as we grow older we learn to be genuinely happy for our friends when they are too.

When we are adults, we also disappear. That doesn’t mean you can’t have a lifelong best friend, just that your horizons are broadening. Couple and/or children for some, careers, passions, the world is big and time is so short. Even when we madly love our friends, we don’t necessarily have the ability (nor the desire) to spend our time in a vacuum.

Which brings us to the fact that, once we become adults, we often see each other less without that changing anything. Everyone is exhausted and very busy and knowing that we don’t need to question everything anymore because we no longer see our friends every week, it’s still damn relaxing. Just like knowing that we can cancel our appointments, postpone them, maybe get screwed over and finally be able to have fun together.

How to find your friend?

To find your friend, you would still have to lose her. I don’t think so since you seem to know exactly where she is right now (at work since it’s Friday) and you have the means to contact her. On the other hand, I can tell you how to avoid losing your best friend: support it and (sincerely) welcome its development with enthusiasm.

Did you meet a girl who makes you feel good and with whom you have fun, it’s cool right? It’s time to give your friend the space she needs. Not because she doesn’t love you anymore or because she has had enough of you, but because she is a human being like the others and therefore she has the right to be able to occupy her free time as she wants without having to account to anyone.

In short, stop resenting him for living his life. If you persist in grumbling when she exceptionally allows herself to rest rather than see you and express your displeasure when she discovers the world, she will end up really disappointing you. And she will be right.

Let’s talk about you, a little?

I’m not even asking you to make an effort to get along with his new girlfriend, or even hang out with his co-workers. On the contrary, it is good that it can invest spheres of which you are not a part. These new activities can still inspire you – you too may see the world differently than through it, right? So, I’m not telling you that from now on you have to spend the night partying in the presence of people that drugs would have made even more talkative than usual. We agree that it is unbearable. However, this redistribution of cards can push you to experience things just for yourself, in the presence (or not) of new people. Volunteering? Ceramic painting? Badminton competitions? Cosplay conventions? Oh, I don’t know, but hey, it’s not like there’s a shortage of cool things to do down here.

Come on, I’ll leave you, I have an appointment with the new friends of my feminist bookclub.

cookies,

Your daronne.