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Losing friends when growing?

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  • February 5, 2019 at 3:47 pm #278851
    Sara
    Participant

    Hi there…

    Moving back to my hometown last year, after many years of living on a different continent, I found myself feeling lost and questioning everything in my life. While I kept growing as a person and starting to feel more comfortable with myself, everything around me ended in my old world (because I had to leave) and I ended up feeling very lost in my new world with only a few friends remaining. Yet, I realize that the friendships to certain friends in both worlds are crumbling, which leaves me shocked and sad, but could it be that as soon as you change as a person, become more confident, self-sufficient and just grow that relationships start to fall apart? I do believe that this is the case right now and even though I know that my growth is essential to me, it obviously makes me sad to lose friends on the way and I am asking myself how far this will go and it leaves me worrying. Anyone else having similar experiences?

    February 5, 2019 at 4:08 pm #278861
    Valora
    Participant

    Hi Sara,

    I’ve absolutely found this to be true, especially if you’re growing and changing and they aren’t. You start to have less in common, and the friendship/relationship just doesn’t work like it used to. I think this especially happens if you get to a point where you aren’t really into drama, gossip, or negativity but your old friends still are.  The good news is, you will start to attract new friends who fit into your current life and mindset, especially if you get out and do things where you can meet like-minded people. So try not to worry too much about what drifts away and be excited about the good things that are ahead.

    February 6, 2019 at 9:50 am #279001
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Sara:

    Certain people see you a certain way and don’t want to see anything different. So to be in a relationship with people who don’t want to see you in any way but the way they saw you before, you are pressured to be the way you were before.

    For example, let’s say you used to be a person who looked up to others to tell you what to do and they liked that feeling of superiority, then you are gone for a few years, feeling confident in your ability to make good choices, you return to your home town, confident, but the people who knew you as lacking confidence don’t want to lose their feeling of superiority over you, so they may question you about your choices, trying to  get back the old you.

    In this example, it is a bad idea to try and please these people. The price of socializing with them is way too high.

    If this example applies to you, then I say, better the people who knew you the way that you were, learn, accept and respect the changed you, or get out of your way.

    Is it possible for you to make a new friend, with someone who didn’t know you before you left?

    anita

    February 6, 2019 at 10:17 am #279007
    Inky
    Participant

    Hi Sara,

    I think this is extremely common. I always joke about those people who grow up together, go to college together, never leave town, and if they do, they move to Boston or London together. Then they marry their best friend’s old girlfriend who’s still in the group, of course. Yet I’m secretly jealous of that too. But if I never left town and had the same stagnant stalemate friendships, do you know how depressed I’d be? *shudder*

    The remedy to crumbling ancient friendships is to make new vibrant ones. And maybe in ten or twenty years you’ll run into an old friend who has refreshingly changed.

    Best,

    Inky

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