When Friendships End

They say we learn to socialise as children, that all that rough and tumble, the 'dobbing' on each other, the push and shove, the winning and losing, the raw honesty "I'm not your friend anymore", "I hate you!" puts us in good stead for adult relationships, so we know how to have friendships when we 'grow up'.

There are two points there, we really need to know when the 'growing up' part happens and who is ever ready for adult friendships?

I watch the shows on TV (soap operas, sitcoms etc) and I see all this honesty, the perfectly scripted dialogue the resolutions and the tender parting of ways and I wonder …. WHAT THE FUCK!

That's not how it is, that is never how I have experienced it.

I think my life is back to front or upside down or buggered if I know …

The people I fought and played with when I was little, are still my friends. The person I came together with over a common cause, like standing up to a bully, she is still my friend, the person I shared some real moments with like when I got engaged and her marriage ended, (so did mine eventually), we are still in touch, the friend I met through our boyfriends and we decided we enjoyed each others company better than the boyfriends, she is still my dear friend, the friend I made by sheer coincidence and we now don't see enough of each other. These are all my friends.

So what *is* it that ends friendships.

For me, I believe it has been bad communication, because I have friendships that have ended, and I still don't understand why, or maybe even the other way around, maybe they were left reeling, but I was hurt, and that is often hard to say to a person's face.

Or we just change, our interests change, our life directions change and we start to have less in common, less to keep us together.

Everyone's experience is different, because, as I mentioned before, we are groomed for this as children.

Just writing this post though, I've noticed a common thread that weaves it's way through the friendships I still have … They have substance.

My friends are real, true and honest.

So, how do you end friendships? Do you even make that choice or do they just slip away? Or do you try hard, when you see them changing, to hold on?

What is your soap opera of life as far as friendships go? I truly am interested to know!