How do you cope withe losing friends?

[PNGMK]

Well I lost a friend again.... wasn't my fault. And it hurts.

How do you guys cope with it? It so bloody hard to make friends as an adult that they become precious and rare. To lose one is dreadful. The last one I lost - well she died of Cervical Cancer. I still think of her every month or so - almost 6 years later and I remember her last phone call - she said - "I've got the big C and the prognosis is negative". What the hell does one say?

The last friend I lost before that - well he just kept borrowing too much money.

The most recent loss - well I can't even begin to comprehend the pain she's in.

For some reason, even though I'm a man, I make friends usually much easier with women (platonic FYI). I find them chatty, interesting, not over bearing and far more interested in being friends than most men who are bound up in some macho bullshit.

When I was younger I thought you could repair friendships - I'm quite certain now that you can't - of course you can't maintain a friendship with someone that's died but losing a friend who is alive is almost the same.

I know I'm an asshole, I was voted my arrogant outspoken jerk in my last year of Uni so it's been a life long battle not to be one. But in this case it really wasn't my fault but I know it can't be fixed.

Do I risk reaching out again? Or just close the door on that part of my mind? 'It's not about me, it's about you' as they say.

[Fortan]

Mate, it is the way life is. I have lost friends recently who I considered being really close and you just have to move on and cherish the memories. I don't try to repair old friendships and they can die for a number of different reasons. I guess one of the most frequent is money or someone talking behind your back when you expected to be able to trust them. I recently lost a friend because of money. He was in deep shit. No job, couldn't pay his rent, just had a few months worth of savings. I let him move into my place temporarily and fed him and I did so until he got a job. Took a few months. After he started working, I of course asked him when he was due his first paycheck and when he expected to find a place to live. He said he didn't know. It kept dragging on and he got his first paycheck and blew most of it going out the first weekend and was back with nothing. At the end of that week, I asked him to leave. Told him that I couldn't keep supporting him, if he continued living the way he was. Looking back now and we haven't talked since, I can see he used me - and not just me but he constantly borrowed money from anyone and never paid it back, just kept on spending. I'd known him for a long time and thought I knew him well enough to trust him. I didn't (apparently). I guess I was used because I was kind. Lost another friend recently. We were very close and we told each other everything. Found out he would share some of our secrets with some of his other friends and that apparently ended up with me as starting off with one feather and when it reached me it was ten geese. We don't speak anymore either.

I reckon that in life, you will only ever find 2-3 perhaps up to 5 people who you will truly consider friends that you have in your heart for a lifetime. The rest will just be moving in and out of your life. You develop as a person and so does everyone else, so it is only natural.

I come from a smaller village with about 10,000 people in Scandinavia. The friends I used to have there in my schooldays, they are still stuck there where as I have moved on and lived abroad in various countries for years and years now. When I go back I meet up with these people who used to be my closest friends and they don't seem to have developed at all and they are still stuck with the same conversations. I have experienced cultures and all of the world and we don't seem to share many perspectives on life anymore - but we still meet up - and every time I think, we used to share the same views on everything.... but now, we share nothing.

I guess what I am trying to say is you just have to move on and meet new people. Enjoy their company for as long as it lasts. Smile be happy and enjoy the moment and worry about the rest of it, for when it happens...

[earthfriendly]

Tis the nature of life, we lost friends either thru natural death or man-made problems. It is not easy to find people to click with, so I try to enjoy the present moment of their company. Each of us is truly unique and there will always be differences between me and the other person and this can lead to conflict especially when it boils down to fundamental beliefs.

For some reason, even though I'm a man, I make friends usually much easier with women (platonic FYI). I find them chatty, interesting, not over bearing and far more interested in being friends than most men who are bound up in some macho bullshit.

My best friend is a guy. Hope my hubby is understanding about it . I get along better with men. Women don't usually take well to me and vice versa and I still have not figured out why. Man-to-man and woman-to-woman interaction is different then when interacting with the opposite sex.

[JR8]

When I was younger I thought you could repair friendships - I'm quite certain now that you can't

I find this an interesting point. My long time 'best friend' of 20+ years and I are no longer in contact (and this despite our respective wives being cousins and very close friends).

I was his best man, my wife their 'Maid of honour'. They're coming to stay soon. How am I expected to receive him after a very obvious 'cold shoulder' and silence, for the past 5 odd years - like my long-lost best mate?

I don't think you can figure out such things, especially if the other party has no interest in being in contact. To be on the receiving end is confusing, annoying, disappointing, and like being in a kind of unexplained mourning of a loss...

At some point I think it's realistic to just give up hope, and psychologically and socially move on.

[Fortan]

When I was younger I thought you could repair friendships - I'm quite certain now that you can't

I find this an interesting point. My long time 'best friend' of 20+ years and I are no longer in contact (and this despite our respective wives being cousins and very close friends).

I was his best man, my wife their 'Maid of honour'. They're coming to stay soon. How am I expected to receive him after a very obvious 'cold shoulder' and silence, for the past 5 odd years - like my long-lost best mate?

I don't think you can figure out such things, especially if the other party has no interest in being in contact. To be on the receiving end is confusing, annoying, disappointing, and like being in a kind of unexplained mourning of a loss...

At some point I think it's realistic to just give up hope, and psychologically and socially move on.

Not keeping in contact takes two. Did you try contacting him? If you did and he didn't reply, then it is truly an awkward situation....

[v4jr4]

It is not easy to find people to click with, so I try to enjoy the present moment of their company.

^ +1

[JR8]

Not keeping in contact takes two. Did you try contacting him? If you did and he didn't reply, then it is truly an awkward situation....

I don't even remember what triggered this most recent 'silent treatment'; but he has done it before and it ended with me having to make some grovelling symbolic recompense* - i.e. being pathetically grateful that he deigned to eventually go out for a highly orchestrated and symbolic 'clearing of the air' lunch. (*for something I still don't recognise or understand).


Sometimes I don't think you can ever find logic in the illogical. #1 For what ever (apparently irrational) reason me marrying his cousin-in-law almost snapped him in half. It think just dating her got the silent treatment for a year+.

#2. We were both 'at the coalface' bankers. He still is, climbing the greasy pole every day, I '''retired''' at c40, having set up a successful 2nd career. He has to be fiercely competitive to be in that industry at c50, and I don't think his ego can deal with peers/friends who've made more of a success of it. [I only vaguely recall now, the rabid 'attack and destroy' ego that went with the job, but maybe this is it].

The challenging bit, will be a 'best friend' of all those years. Who I haven't spoken to at all, for maybe 5? years; now coming to stay. I'm not sure how to respond, or what to say. He won't discuss or touch on it, for sure. The power of it, is that it cannot ever be discussed. I am a little surprised that he feels positioned to accept my hospitality.

Ah well, such are life's challenges

[PrimroseHill]

Tis life.
We have a really close family friend, we are still friends but he now lives in Nigeria and we are here, so arms length a tad. They as a family of 3 (wife and young child), he has 2 children from previous marriage; whom we are close to as well. He hit skid row on a combination of factors; financial crisis, he played stupid buggers with his expenses and his wife's maternity etc (they both worked together but he was the director and she was the clerk). Got found out, etc. OH called in a favour from a employment lawyer to advise him. We pretended we didn't know about his expenses fiddling.
He then opened up a shop, sort of a combo of Sweaty Beaty and Marks lingerie dept type shop. Unknown brand. High rental as it was in prime Kensington High St. Wife has delusion of grandeur as per always and the shop allowed her to run wild, had 3 fulltime staff, she "managed", shop did not open on Sundays, summer sale was in Aug, did not open on Boxing Day etc. Shop went bust in 10months. Used house as a colletral despite our advise.
Continue private Knightbridge day care for child, despite being in the hole for GBP1,500 per month and both of them without employment. Found out that they have been loving the lives of no idea what- maxed out CC, loans upon loans, store cards, etc.
Got dole, but she refused some of the work that job centre offered, advised that either one of them or both of them retrain to be a teacher, after all not working.
Loaned them our attic to store everything from their house, loaned them our car constantly, loaned them GBP5k. Lost their home, she went to live in South of France with a friend of his, got offerred a job packing yoghurts, she turned it down. HMMM

[Steve1960]

I really only have two friends. My oldest and dearest goes back more than 30 years. We have regularly been out of touch for a year at a time especially in recent years. Mostly its been my fault, wrapped up in my own life, sometimes his. When we do make contact again we scold each other and tease about who was to blame this time then we just pick up where we left off. I will be seeing him next month when I head back to the UK and he will see my wife and half Filipina daughter for the first time. I expect to be told off again for lengthy periods of no contact!

[JR8]

I really only have two friends. My oldest and dearest goes back more than 30 years. We have regularly been out of touch for a year at a time especially in recent years. Mostly its been my fault, wrapped up in my own life, sometimes his. When we do make contact again we scold each other and tease about who was to blame this time then we just pick up where we left off. I will be seeing him next month when I head back to the UK and he will see my wife and half Filipina daughter for the first time. I expect to be told off again for lengthy periods of no contact!

Yes, and this is what 'true' friends are like. You just hook up again, and it's like no time has passed at all.

No song and dance, no drama, no apologies...

[Grumpy77]

^+1

But why is it so hard to find...

[JR8]

I agree.

Friends like that are rare indeed, it seems.

[Mi Amigo]

I agree.

Friends like that are rare indeed, it seems.

^^^ +1

Yer man Morrissey had it right:

Morrissey - Hold on to your friends

[JR8]

Nice lyrics, very insightful*

I noticed one of the suggested links 'on the right' from that page offers up a counter-point opinion of Morrissey >
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8EXFS7ruU4
Henry Rollins on Morrissey

After sleeping on it, I've sort of settled on the following. Even as a child our family moved house a lot. I got quite used to being uprooted, moving across the country, and having to make an entire new set of friends. I continued this as an 'expat' being posted here and there, but during this period we had the likes of e-mail available to the masses. So even when you moved, you could still keep in touch with friends.

So that's it. I think this is the first time I have a friend (and he was my Best Man, and I his, no less!), *positively opting* to no longer be a friend.

A new experience for me. But as was said above, sometimes you just have to shrug and move on. It is not always possible to rationalise the thinking of others, even those you thought you knew best of all...


* Sometimes I think Manic-depression, which I understand Morrissey suffers from, is a kind of brain-tweak that leads to such heightened observation [refer: many legendary comedians, who are literally 'certifiably nuts']

[Barnsley]

I really only have two friends. My oldest and dearest goes back more than 30 years. We have regularly been out of touch for a year at a time especially in recent years. Mostly its been my fault, wrapped up in my own life, sometimes his. When we do make contact again we scold each other and tease about who was to blame this time then we just pick up where we left off. I will be seeing him next month when I head back to the UK and he will see my wife and half Filipina daughter for the first time. I expect to be told off again for lengthy periods of no contact!

Agreed my best friend I have known since I can remember and we have periods of non-contact 3 or 4 phone calls a year depending on how our football teams are getting along

When I go back to UK for my yearly visit he usually takes a couple of days off work so we can hang out.

Still got a couple of friends from Uni and we get together once every couple of years when I am back in the UK. We barely contact each other except a couple of Facebook posts now and again, but after 5 mins together the banter starts flowing and its like we have never been out of touch.

We dont even pretend to keep in touch , we tell it how it is, all got different lives these days and we just enjoy the crack we get together.