Navigating the Slow Death of a High School Friendship

Secondary school is a place where many formative memories and experiences take place including forging friendships. This year marks six years since I left secondary school, precious time snatched away by the coronavirus pandemic. I have maintained close bonds with my core friendship group ever since as we have travelled to university across the country and made home in different places. 

While it is a period of my life I treasure, school was sometimes and my friends were an anchor for me during both the happy and the challenging periods of my adolescence. Recently, I discovered that one friend from this group who I had drifted apart had decided to reflect on her time at secondary school and believed her connection with our group had been inauthentic and performative. I felt very hurt reading these comments in black and white on a public social media post. This was the first time I had ever heard her express these feelings. I had believed our connection to be, I was deeply upset and sent me on my own journey of reflection. 

She had joined our school later on than most, a very difficult position for her to be in. I remember befriending her and hanging out at breaktime and lunchtimes, sitting together in lessons and walking out of school together. By the abrupt end of school, I would have called her one of my closest friends because I felt comfortable around her and we could joke, laugh and be serious. We got along really well and I felt we formed a close bond. It was a friendship I wanted to put time and effort into maintaining. There were a few things I thought slightly odd like her never replying to messages or backing out of hangouts at the last minute but she presented it as being one of her quirks so I chose not to interrogate it any further. 

We ended up going to the same sixth form which I was pleased about because I knew I had a close friend going with me. From early on, I observed we seemed to be drawn to different personalities and spent less time together but we were still part of the same friendship group and hung out together. With A Levels drawing to a close, our paths were diverging for the first time since we met. I said the distance didn’t matter and we could still be friends, I realise now she never said the same to me. For me, university was a chance to broaden my horizons while maintaining my core sense of self. For her, moving away was the chance to reinvent herself and close a chapter of her life permanently. 

I made several attempts to get in touch with her but my efforts were never reciprocated. I quietly made peace that this was a bond which was ending even though I did not want it to. I accepted she needed to move forward without us and create an existence which she was happiest in. Occasionally, I bumped into her when I was back home and we would exchange friendly small talk. I thought we had just reached a natural, peaceful conclusion. 

That was when I saw things on her social media which hurt me. I remember seeing a video she reposted disparaging the friends you had in secondary school. It could only mean us, it definitely included me. I made myself believe I had misinterpreted what she had done, maybe it was an ironic joke I was a part of. It was not. After years of denying her past, she has decided to re-examine her history and has found there was something lacking in the friendships she had, including mine. 

After closing the tab on my phone, I was angry, hurt and confused. I am beginning my process of accepting this gradual then brutal end to a friendship that played out over the course of several years. I see we did not have anything in common anymore and our communication styles clashed; she was not willing to have conversations I would have liked to explore. She was only willing to do so indirectly over online platforms in a public forum which did not meet my needs as a friend or a person. 

Over time, I have learnt some friendships are transient and this one from secondary school was truly unsustainable. I hope she discovers what she is looking for in her friendships which she could not find with me. I am lucky to be surrounded now by people who care about me and mutually nurture our connection from both my long-term and recent past. I have been through the stages of friendship grief; I am now looking forward to the future. 

Written by, Eve Hutchinson