Hello readers! Welcome to another blog of Trendphobia. There are various points in our life where we find ourselves at crossroads. We can’t decide whether we should choose what feels easy or what feels right. One similar example of such situation is when we have to make a decision to stay in a friendship or leave it.
The idea of not being friends with your best friend can feel terrifying. No one likes to split up with someone who have been very close to them at one point in their life. Nonetheless, it’s very normal to not feel as passionately about a friendship as one might have in the past. Outgrowing your friends is a part of growing as you move forward in your life.
Sure, lack of interaction with your best friend can make you feel disconnected and distant from them. However, if these feelings remain unchanged even after several interactions, it is time you asked yourself why that might be.
Here we have compiled 7 signs that show you’ve outgrown your best friend:
The silence is awkward
There are times when we don’t have much to talk about around people we’ve known for a really long time. But if we really enjoy someone’s company we don’t mind those conversation lulls. We feel relaxed in their presence despite those moments of silence (Especially around our best friend). However, if the silences between the conversations start to feel awkward, it is a sign that you don’t feel as comfortable around your best friend as you used to before. You find yourself thinking about things to say anytime you encounter a conversation gap.
You feel like a different person around them
Do you feel like you’re not your most honest and natural self around your best friend?
It is very common for people to change with time as they come encounter different experiences in their lives. Our behaviors towards certain things and people also change. We feel at ease when we can openly express these ‘behaviors’ without the need to feel accepted by others. If you start to feel like you have to force a certain kind of behavior upon yourself in order to feel accepted by your best friend, it is time you reconsidered your friendship. You’ve certainly outgrown your friend if you can not be confident in being the newest version of yourself around them.
Read more like this: You will Never be Good enough for Anyone
You don’t understand each other
It’s very common to grow up forming different opinions than your best friend as you find new interests and hobbies. With new interests come new perspective which can create a huge gap between you and your friend’s viewpoints. You no longer relate to your friend’s conversation and they seem to be indifferent about conversations that arouse your interest. If the understanding is starting to fade away and you feel more distant than ever, it’s because you have outgrown your best friend.
You catch yourself criticizing them often
It’s totally natural to not like the way your friends approach few things. As long as you’re confronting them about your disapproval and being honest about how you feel, you’re playing your part in the friendship right. However, if you constantly find yourself criticizing them in your head or complaining about them to others, you should take a step back and try to understand why it’s happening. Criticism is a sign of suppressed emotions. There could be many different reasons for feeling this way. It could be because you feel avoided by your friend, or not supported or annoyed by their behavior. Maybe they did something that really hurt you or this criticism could be coming from a place of deep-rooted insecurity.
Whatever the reason may be, don’t let the criticism grow stronger. If a being friends with someone triggers negative emotions in you, it’s for the best to walk away from the friendship. If you don’t like your best friend or their way of doing things anymore, you’ve simply outgrown your friendship.
Read more like this: Argument to Agreement
You make excuses to not hang out with them
Another sign that you’ve outgrown your best friend is if you feel your friendship has lost the spark. You don’t make plans with them, don’t spend quality time together. Every time you guys meet, you make excuses to get away with some or other excuse. Spending time with them feels like a waste of time. Being with them exhausts you emotionally instead of making you feel happy or better.
It is important that we surround ourselves with people that help us grow and make us feel better about ourselves. If you’re always trying to turn down the plans your friend makes thinking you’d rather do something else, don’t be afraid to cut ties with your friend. It’s not a bad thing if you want to get the best out of your time and do not want to spend your energy into someone you don’t like being with.
You seek a “better” friend
There’s nothing wrong in socializing with new people or making new friends. However, if you constantly wish you had someone else as your best friend or that you had a “better” friend, you no longer want to be friends with your best friend. The desire for “better” clearly indicates that you feel unfulfilled in the current friendship. You may even feel like your friend lacks the qualities that you’d wish to have in your best friend.
It is much better to make a new friend whom you feel a connection with than to expect your old friend to change for you. Sometimes, people don’t grow in ways we want them to. That’s okay. We all have different paths to walk and we can always choose the people we would or would not like to accompany in our journey.
Read more like this: Solitude – A Way to Reconnect with Yourself
You don’t care to share important events of your life with them
It’s absolutely fine to not share every single detail of your life with your best friend. However, if you have stopped caring about sharing the most significant events of your life with your friend, you’ve probably outgrown the friendship. The reason why you don’t care to share anymore may be because you haven’t gotten the response you expected from them in the past or you feel like they don’t reciprocate as much as you do.
When people share things with others, it is with the intention to strengthen their relationship and to deepen their connection. When you no longer feel the connection getting stronger with your best friend while sharing the important parts of your life, it’s natural to question whether you want to continue being friends with them or not.
Conclusion
It can be hard to let go of a friend you’ve shared most of your life with. You have lived some of the best moments of your life with them, made core memories with them. But there comes a point in our lives when we realize that not all friendships last forever. And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. We can always carry the love and lessons our old friends gave us in our hearts and offer even more to the new people and new friendships.
I hope this helped! Stay updated with Trendphobia for more articles on topic related to health, relationships, travel, life and more.
Thank you for reading!
Also read: The Dilemma of Change – How to Deal with it?
Image source: Freepik