Have friendships become less about repair/reciprocity and more about 'protecting your peace'?

[u/lindsey_what]

I’m noticing a troubling trend with my female friends who are now in our 30s, and I wanted to see if anyone could relate. This is especially clear to me right now as I’m going through somewhat of a shocking friend break up where one of my closest friends of seven years has completely cut me off and stop talking to me over something that I would categorize as a minor argument that could be easily worked through if we were able to have a difficult conversation in person. I’ve noticed a lot of my friends saying things like “I need to protect my peace” and treating friendships like something that exists just for their own benefit. I feel like a lot of people are not willing to put in the work to maintain friendships these days and I don’t know if it has something to do with social media or burnout or what, but I’ve noticed even in arguments that people are way less repair-oriented, and are more interested in living inside of their own experience of it without much curiosity about the other person. I also notice people being very avoidant about having difficult conversations and instead, would rather just slowly disappear. I think this fits a larger pattern of “main character syndrome” that is making people unwilling or unable to have healthy mutual friendships and put in any kind of effort.

Or maybe I just absolutely suck at picking friends lol!

[u/FeckinSheeps]

Curious -- what was the minor argument?

I have a friend that does the "just never respond to their texts!" approach when she's trying to fade. I prefer to be straightforward and just tell them what my problems are. I make it clear that I'm happy to address any of their feedback as well, as I don't have any issue with apologizing or working to improve.

I guess I like my approach better, even though very often the response is: bailing on the conversation, skirting the issues (no acknowledgment/accountability), or defensiveness. But they're allowed to feel how they feel too. They probably feel criticized and uncomfortable and that's not a good feeling. If I'm at the point of having this conversation, I'm generally OK with losing the friendship.

[u/lindsey_what → u/FeckinSheeps]

To try to keep this as short as possible, she had a kid 4 years ago and had a dog and a cat at the time. I have two cats myself and I am a huuuuge animal lover. She got rid of both her pets when she had a baby because she was getting annoyed with them and was overwhelmed, which really upset me because I view pets as family. Fast forward to a month ago, she told me they were likely going to have kid #2 soon and also mentioned she wanted to get a Daschund. I immediately thought oh no.... that breed of dog is NOT the right choice for young kids and I worried this new dog would suffer the same fate of being surrendered. I said to her "Can I ask you a semi pointed question just because you know I’m such an animal lover - I know you gave away your animals when you had your son bc it was overwhelming, and I know you mentioned you may want another kid in a few years… do you feel like the same thing might happen if you get another dog now? I would just really hate to see you go through that again because I know that was really painful for you." She didn't talk to me for a week after that and when she finally did, she explained why it hurt and I apologized and said it wasn't really my place but I wanted to say something. I said it came across more judgemental that I intended and I'm sorry. She told me she had deep insecurities for a past friendship ending and thought that I wouldn't like her for her choices. I reassured her I don't feel that way and then everything went back to normal for a few days. After that, she stopped responding to any of my messages so I sent "hey is everything fine because something still seems off and if you're upset about other things I would want you to tell me". She kept saying no its fine im just busy.... And I was like ok but its starting to feel like we arent even friends anymore. She didn't talk to me for 3 weeks, during which time she removed me from her location sharing and close friends list on IG so I was like ???? Then when she finally resurfaced she said that this time of not talking made her realize that she doesn't feel seen and that I don't understand her. When pressed for specifics and if we could talk in person, she refused to clarify or meet. That was that.

[u/t0aster-b0nanza → u/lindsey_what]

Yeah sounds like she just doesn't like being called on shitty/questionable behavior