In her latest book, my boss and Mamamia Out Loud co-host, Mia Freedman, writes that friendships aren’t always mutual.
Sometimes you’ve drifted apart, or no longer have anything in common. Perhaps you’re not as compatible as you once thought. The end doesn’t need to be dramatic or confrontational, she says. We just need to understand that it would be completely unsustainable to remain friends with everyone we’ve ever met in our entire lives.
Many of us subscribe to the belief that friendships should be for a lifetime. That we should make the effort. But where on earth is that coming from?
I often feel great anxiety about the friendships I’ve let go. The people I used to work with, or the friends from school I no longer see. I grieve them. But life is busy and messy, and friendships inevitably end.
Mia Freedman, Monique Bowley and I discuss the phenomenon of the obligatory friend. Post continues below.
Vanessa Van Edwards wrote a column published on Medium last month titled, “The Obligatory Friend.”
“What happens when you realise an old friend has become an obligatory friend?” she asks.
An obligatory friend is someone who, “you don’t enjoy spending time with, but end up spending time with because you feel guilty, it’s a habit or you do not know how to stop,” Van Edwards explains.
