How Avoiding A Tough Conversation Cost Me My Best Friendship
If you ever end up having an argument with someone who really truly matters to you, learn from my mistake.
tetxu/ Shutterstock These are some of her last words to me, and it’s also the key takeaway I want you to have from reading this:
"A true friendship doesn’t just ignore the crappy bits; it means working through them."
How naive I was to not understand this back then. I still miss her, and I blame myself for losing her.
My callous disregard for her feelings and point of view cost me this best friendship.
By exposing some of my past wrongdoings with my story, you can see what I did wrong and where things went wrong.
Consider this a guide on what not to do with your best friends.
Here’s some context so you can understand the incident.
It’s been years, and I don’t even remember exactly how the argument went.
We met on Twitch.TV during my days as a streamer. I streamed content revolving around encouraging people to think, as well as giving people a healthy dose of motivation and truth.
I found her in another streamer’s chat and we clicked quite easily. We added each other on Discord and pretty much never stopped talking for the next one and a half years.
We rode the same wavelength and always had room for each other’s company on most nights of the week.
We lived in different countries, but we made the timezone difference work. We stayed up late for each other.
But one night, everything changed.
We were calling each other through the app as usual.
We were talking about a specific subject that was intended to be a joke, but she took a rather serious route with it while I leaned on the side of the matter being a joke.
I was quite astonished that she had taken a joke very far even though the subject of the joke was a hot-button topic and consequently, I didn’t take her point of view seriously.
We started to argue about it, and in the heat of the moment, and in response to seeing her unwillingness to see the joke for what it was, I rudely stated:
"I’m glad I knew this side of you before the relationship progressed any further."
This left her reeling with hurt, confusion, and a sense of betrayal.
What started off as a friendship had slowly been turning into more.
But with that heartlessly expressed statement, I threw it all away.
All over a joke.
I reached out to her a few days after that night attempting to apologize and express my point of view, but I was combative in my approach, and we ended up bickering once again.
A week after that convo, I did a random check-in on her with a text that was adorned with positive vibes. We had taken some time apart from each other and by then, I was ready to let bygones be bygones.
She, however, wasn’t on the same page, and rightfully so.
While I had gotten over the incident and wanted to move past it, she wanted to talk about it to work out the kinks in our relationship.
Clearly, the way I had behaved was wrong and I was trying to sweep the issues under the rug.
But as she so correctly stated:
"A true friendship doesn’t just ignore the crappy bits; it means working through them."
This next part was the nail in the coffin.
I relented and asked her what parts of the dispute were still bothering her, and when she brought them up, I basically said that the conversation wasn’t heading in a good direction, so I bid her good night and avoided addressing what was bothering her.
We didn’t speak for about two weeks afterward.
Our final interaction was her reaching out to me and asking me to let her know that I was doing ok, to which I responded that I was.
I expressed gratitude towards her concern and mentioned that I wanted to keep in touch with her, but also that I needed more space at the time.
She was glad to hear I was doing ok and hoped that I would continue to stay in touch with her.
Then, one day, her account was deleted, and with no other way to reach her, I never heard from her again.
I still think about her to this day even after years have gone by since this happened. Every time I tell this story, I’m slapped in the face with the consequences of my sins.
But as I especially learned through this incident, admitting to one’s wrongdoings can serve a greater purpose.
Friends are hard enough to come by as it is, even more so for someone picky like me.
Best friends are obviously even harder to get. And this person made the cut. She was an absolute gem. (Pun intended, if you missed it.)
Through my grave mistake, I lost:
- A conversationalist like no other.
- A caring and gentle person.
- An absolute genius with trivia.
- An expert with a diverse set of skills, from being able to forge metals to bake six different types of bread from home.
- A queen of comedy whose ability to crack jokes on the spot rivals my own.
- One of the most open-minded people I’ve ever met.
- One of the strongest, most determined people I’ve ever met.
- An awesome, best friend.
All because I essentially showed her that her feelings didn’t matter and that our bond wasn’t strong enough to work through one bump in the road.
Don’t pay the same price I did. Heck, this wasn’t even a price. She was priceless.
If you ever end up having an argument with someone who really truly matters to you, work through it with them.
I don’t care if you’re wrong, if they’re wrong, or if you’re both wrong.
You can’t do what I did and brush their feelings and thoughts aside. You can’t just try to bury and forget what happened, especially if it’s something that’s still lingering and bothering them.
Communicate with respect and open-mindedness. Seek to understand before seeking to be understood.
In the end, it’s not you two against each other. It’s you two for each other.
Honest conversations like the ones where you talk about your issues with each other are not a matter of how uncomfortable you get having them. It’s not about saving face and sweeping your wrongdoings under the rug.
It’s about showing each other that you care enough about one another to expose your flaws and vulnerabilities, and then being able to work through them together.
It’s not easy, but you gotta know how to admit it when you’re wrong. You have to stop deflecting the blame and pointing the finger back when you made a mistake.
Hold onto and care for your best friends. They’re not a dime a dozen.
Lucas Hawthorne is a Gen Z content creator writing about motivation, perspective, self-improvement, and more. He seeks to create a legacy by empowering primarily kids, teens, and young adults through his work.