Graphic by Max Weinstein
As you revamp your closet and catch up on the latest trends, don’t forget to keep the old with the old and the new with the new—friends included.
As incoming freshmen make the transition from high school to college, it becomes apparent that the people you’ve spent the last four years with were mere acquaintances. You really thought trauma bonding over calculus would’ve been enough to bond you guys for life, but guess again.
As the fall semester starts, with new social events, classes and people, friend groups find themselves either growing or shrinking. Change is inevitable and can’t be avoided; however, when people exile their “friends” just because they are suddenly unbearable, there needs to be a reevaluation of how modern society views people as disposable.
If there was open communication from the start, maybe people wouldn’t wake up one day wondering how they were ever able to tolerate the friend who doesn’t tip at restaurants.
When a friendship ends, an actual discussion about why it ended is needed, and definitely preferred over an awkward slow burn into strangers. When people grow apart without any closure, it makes the loss more painful, so confrontation is a must.
We can only grow as people when we are shown our faults. We can only come to a compromise by actually talking about our feelings.
Having uncomfortable conversations is necessary, even if you’re the avoidant type. Some may argue: Can’t friends just go their separate ways without making a big deal about things? If people naturally grow apart, why bring attention to the situation?
Sorry, you’re wrong. You should care and it should matter.
Recently, society has adopted a norm of being so averse to confrontation that people treat one another like a bad thrift find. While a culture of swiping, unfollowing and ghosting may lead us to believe that people can be treated like disposable objects, they are humans, with real emotions, experiences and perspectives.
Should you have a heart-to-heart with your old favorite pair of Converse, which are basically sandals now, before throwing them out? No. Should you have a conversation with your friend before deciding to go a different direction? Definitely.
Friendship and human relationships in general have always been significant biologically, socially and psychologically.
Lauren Brent, along with other researchers from the National Library of Medicine, wrote an article titled “The neuroethology of friendship” in May 2014, detailing the need for connection between humans and how it's developed from an evolutionary standpoint.
Understanding friendship as being so biologically fundamental that it became an evolutionary trait passed through generations of our species, it becomes easier to comprehend how losing a friend can feel like life or death.
Jinny Kim, a Syracuse University freshman, had a physical reaction when her friendship ended. She broke down crying, as she felt loss, and her character being diminished.
“He went on a text rampage cursing me out about how I was a horrible friend and person, and how I stressed him out so much to the point of resentment,” Kim said.
While this friendship breakup had confrontation when it ended, the lack of communication earlier-on ended up hurting both Kim and her friend. The text from her friend was necessary, as she was left fully aware of his feelings. But if she was alerted to them before then, she would have been given the opportunity to change.
Due to the importance of friendship, and how ingrained it is biologically, it should be common decency to talk with people before leaving them. People need people, and losing them hurts.
Sydney Ceruto, neuroscientist and author, explains why inexplicit absences hurt more than ones with direct reasoning in her article, The Neuroscience of Ghosting.
“Ghosting produces greater neurological disturbance than explicit rejection because the anterior cingulate cortex, the brain’s social pain processor, requires a definitive signal to begin its recovery sequence,” Ceruto wrote.
When you ghost someone, you are actually hurting them more than if you were upfront. The indirect social distancing results in confusion, uncertainty and a lack of closure.
SU Freshman Sahithi Shabada believes that being nonconfrontational is rude and confusing. Built-up resentment often results in the cessation of the relationship seemingly out of nowhere.
“I was friends with a girl for 8 years, and she ended our friendship in my senior year,” Shabada said. “To my face she just acted distant, which I confronted her about, and she would deny that anything was wrong, until one day she sent me a long ass text about all the things she hated about me.”
Unsurprisingly, a friendship ending after eight years without any prior warning causes confusion and pain. Shabada felt the need to directly confront her friend in order to receive closure after her friend attempted to let their friendship fade into oblivion.
Unfortunately, said friend ended up ghosting Shabada after she responded to her hateful message. As a result, a resolution was never reached, and Shabada is still feeling the consequences of that to this day.
Even if you wish to end a friendship, remember you did care about them at some point, and they’d like to know why you’ve suddenly become so distant.
Ghosting someone should be a crime. You are allowed to act in whatever way you find necessary, but, before leaving someone on read, remember that they’re a real human being deserving of respect.