Friendship’s Impact
By: Kyle Reynolds
Tags: Friends, Friendship, People, Relationships, Community

One thing I have not thought about is how my relationships affect others. If someone is fun and we get along and we become friends. That is great for me and hopefully for the other person as well. It never occurred to me that my making friends with someone might make a third party who is a mutual relation happy as well that we have become friends as well. If I don’t get along with someone and they don’t treat me particularly well then that may upset me and make me feel bad and I am unlikely to become friends with that person. It may also be that my not getting along with someone and not becoming friends with them may be disappointing for someone we both know because they wanted us to be friends.

Perhaps I am too much of an insular person. I tend to b introverted and introspective. I think a lot about my own internal life and values and how things impact me. Perhaps I have not given enough though about how certain parts of my life impact others.

I have been friends with people whose marriages have ended. In almost all of those situations I was mainly friends with one person in that couple. So, the ending of that marriage did not directly impact me. As in I was able to maintain my friendship that I had prior to my friends’ relationship dissolving. If I had a friendship with a couple where I was equally close with both members of the couple and their relationship ended I am not sure how I would navigate a world where I wanted to maintain my friendship with each member of the couple as individuals.

That seems like it would be a difficult friendship relationship to navigate. One filled with minefields and pitfalls for everyone. Would you be able to successfully navigate that together or would at least one of the friendships have to dissolve to save the other relationship?

While that seems like an obvious conundrum in the case of a marriage it did not occur to me that a similar dynamic could arise in a purely plutonic friendship as well.

I the recent past I had a friendship essentially dissolve overnight. When one person decides you are no longer friends then you are no longer friends no matter how you feel about them.

My former friend sand I had many friends and connections In common. We were both a part of a group that met regularly to do things together. I was not opposed to continuing to go to our group get together despite our one on one friendship ending. But without a word being said I felt so unwelcome in that group that I stopped showing up and no longer saw many of the friends I had in that group.

During this time one friend in particular from this group continued to engage with me and we continued to do things together. Mostly without many of the other people from the group.

Recently my friendship that had dissolved has been on the mend and I have begun to reconnect with that friend.

Recently my friend who stuck by my side during that dissolution asked me how things were going and if I was spending time with that person again now. My friend told me they were glad to hear that the friendship was on the mend because it was very difficult for them while we were not friends. When asked about it in the past by the other half of in my friendship they stated that they were not going to talk about me and were not going to be put in the middle of it. They told me that it was difficult because they wanted to maintain their friendship with both of us even though we were not friends with each other anymore. They said that it felt like they were cheating on one of us with the other whenever they hung out with one of us.

In the moment I didn’t know what to say. I wish I had said that I never had a problem with them remaining friends with my former friend. I wish I had told them that I did not judge them for that. I wish that they had told me this a while ago so I could have tried to alleviate their stress over it. I suspect they kept it from me because they didn’t want to hurt me.

I never occurred to me how my relationship with one person could impact another person not directly involved in that relationship. I only thought about how the ending of that friendship made me feel. I did not stop to consider how it impacted my other friends. I wish I had. I wish I had been a better friend to them.

I had not been the one to end the friendship, but it didn’t mean I had to stop showing up for my other friends. I could have been there for them in other ways. I wish I had reached out more.

I think that this is probably a lesson we can all benefit from. It can be difficult to think about how relationships involving us affect others in our circles.