“We walked home and to school together since we were eleven, and that friendship was a really big part of what was happening when I was 16. We were so aligned in the things that we wanted to do and the things we were interested in…”
Emily Kokal on her friendship with Theresa Wayman (Lead members of L.A. rock band WARPAINT)
A few years ago, the last of my oldest close childhood friends silently started to move away from my life. By the end of 2023, I recalled when we hung out and philosophated at his parents’ house, at mine, or with larger groups and noticed that, living far from my home country, that kind of friendship was something I missed. That very night, I had a dream.
In the dream, I was at a party and was shocked to see multiple instances of him, “clones,” doing different stuff: eating, drinking, dancing, and so on. I expressed to other attendees my concern that when all his instances merged back again, he would suffer a terrible hangover. None of the clones spoke to me during the entire dream sequence, which ended shortly after.
This is not my first time losing a friend, but the lack of an easy-to-spot reason makes the experience tougher to accept. Present-day social media doesn’t make it easier, especially since I first noticed he’d removed me from his Facebook “friends” (I am not surprised that FB is probably the only remaining social media app still using this concept of friends and relationships while in the other ones, you just “Follow” other people.)
The Personality Factor
While there are still people I’ve known since childhood and get along with pretty well, catching up every five years or more doesn’t turn them into close friends. This made me realize all my good friends can be counted on a hand’s fingers and are people I’ve known not earlier than my college years, though I suspect it has to do with my personality.
During first and second grades, I was a lonely boy and still recall walking alone with my thoughts during recess time. This changed slowly in third grade when I remember having my first best friends. But these only lasted two or three years; when we were separated into different classrooms, and they got along with people who were too different from me.
I am the second of three siblings, and I wonder if anything about the “children of the middle” is also a factor. For example, my older brother has kept a selected group of friends since his early school days. While I don’t know if there’s closeness beyond hanging out and frequently catching up, they still can call themselves friends.
Recently, I was talking with a friend about personalities, and he told me about this famous metaphor: “Extroverts” can be compared to people who receive “gold coins” whenever they interact with others. At the same time, “Introverts” give away theirs under the same conditions. The flip side is that whenever “Introverts” spend time alone, they obtain their gold coins, while “Extroverts” seem to lose them. Each personality type needs to recharge in its “coin-earning scenario” to maintain a healthy balance when interacting with others.
Dynamics at Work
If you are a music fan, you know that a group of people collaborating to create something as good as music is not a guarantee for a lasting friendship (Pink Floyd, Simon & Garfunkel, The Pixies, Van Halen, Evanescence, the list is long). Still, you can also pick from the other side of the spectrum where their journey together has strengthened their bond (U2, Radiohead, Coldplay, Warpaint, Green Day, Foo Fighters, etc.)
Collaborating or working together can reinforce a relationship, but it also has the potential to break it. I’ve seen cases where even family members have reached such a disagreement point that they stopped talking to each other. In these cases, it would be interesting to find out if this breaking point was unavoidable (due to their personalities) or if it could have been prevented if the people hadn’t engaged in that specific dynamic.
Each Person’s Path
Mark Manson, the author of the recently popular book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving an Fck [paid link],” stated on social media the clearest explanation for friendships that simply can’t work anymore, without sweet coating but also free of hate. Paraphrasing Manson’s statement, as we grow older, we stop depending on friendships to find ourselves.
When we know who we are (whether right or wrong), we are less prompted to remain close to people not aligned with us, and sometimes, this happens naturally, without having any disagreement or disrupting incidents.
Following the case I mentioned of my former friend at the beginning of this story, looking back at specific points during our friendship, I was able to connect the dots and understand why we parted different ways. As for the dream, and based on the Analytic Psychology way of interpreting them, the symbol of the multiple instances of this person appeared to remind me how none of the different facets of this person were likely to befriend me anymore. The fact that this was an immediate reaction of my unconscious (the same night after having the thought) is an admirable feature of our mind. It shows how meaningful friendships are for our adaptation to life, either having them or moving away from them.