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A few years ago, my colleague Olga Khazan shared a radical proposition: What if we stopped firing our friends? The friendship breakup has become a feature of modern life: Online, advice abounds on “how to aggressively confront, or even abandon, friends who disappoint us,” Olga noted. But what if another solution exists? Instead of firing your friends, psychologists told her, it helps to expand your circle, allowing more people to provide you with different types of support or camaraderie: “Rather than resting on one pillar, healthy friendship is better imagined as crowd-surfing—many hands holding you up,” Olga writes.
The magic of friendship is in its murkiness: We meet a new friend, make room for them in our lives, and sometimes come to rely on them more than we ever expected. But unlike in other relationships, communicating our needs isn’t the norm in friendships—which gives our friends more opportunities to disappoint us. Today’s newsletter explores what to do when your friends aren’t giving you what you need.
On Friendship Disappointments
That’s It. You’re Dead to Me.
By Kaitlyn Tiffany
Suddenly everyone is “toxic.” (From 2022)
Stop Firing Your Friends
By Olga Khazan
Just make more of them. (From 2023)
The Six Forces That Fuel Friendship
By Julie Beck
I’ve spent more than three years interviewing friends for “The Friendship Files.” Here’s what I’ve learned. (From 2022)
Still Curious?
- It’s your friends who break your heart: The older we get, the more we need our friends—and the harder it is to keep them, Jennifer Senior wrote in 2022.
- “Dear Therapist: I’ve been dumped by my friends”: “I thought our shared history would keep us close, but it hasn’t,” a reader wrote to Lori Gottlieb in 2023.
Other Diversions
PS
I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. Pnina Bright, 72, shared this photo from Sag Harbor Cove in New York. “I walk my dog past this cove one or two times daily, and I’ve seen some remarkable sunsets from this view. This one astounded me and I haven’t stopped looking at it with amazement,” Bright writes.
I’ll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks.
— Isabel
The post What to Do When Your Friends Disappoint You appeared first on The Atlantic.
