‘Quiet Quitting Friendships’
Earlier this year I found my mind drifting over a very dry cheese board at an extortionately overpriced wine bar in my university city while sitting across from my ‘friend’. I listened as she rambled on about all the boys she was talking to, her wild nights out, the complexities of the university hockey society that I ‘could never understand’ due to my sporting ineptitude and the drama in her friendship group... Of which there were extensive amounts. It took me about 35 minutes before I realised that she hadn’t asked me a single question. After another 20 minutes of me nodding unenthusiastically while trying to battle Tinder date flashbacks as she showed me video after video from her camera roll, one of which showed her shooting vodka out of a very hairy belly button, she finally asked me how I was.
Our catch-up had been organised because I had very recently gotten into a relationship (Its quick demise after the fact is irrelevant) And my ‘friend’ was supposedly ‘desperate for the details’. On queue I began chatting about my partner before I was hastily told through crossed arms that I had become ‘very boring’ now I was happily in a relationship and asked why I couldn’t be more like how I was ‘last term’ when I was ‘soooo much more fun’. Her efficient shutdown was more impressive than hurtful, however, her latter comment stung. The ‘last term’ in question, the first term of my third year at university, could be best described by the sinking feeling of room-temperature tequila on an empty stomach. To set the scene I had a bad reaction to some new medication and quickly became an insomniac, simultaneously my ‘best friend’ of three years started sleeping with the boy she knew I was misguidedly in love with. Safe to say I was a wreck. In my ‘friends’ defence, I was very fun, expertly balancing borderline mania with mild self-destruction, never letting a night-out end. However, in between nursing hangovers, eating a full rotisserie chicken on my bathroom floor, contemplating shaving my head (again) and almost getting a misspelt tattoo of ‘CRAPE DIEM’ in bold across my forearm, I was falling apart. What was worse was that my ‘friend’ not only knew it but had a front-row seat. The girl whose hair I’d held back more times than I remembered, the girl I'd held while she cried, whose tops were still in my cupboard once borrowed and now forgotten, had trivialised one of the darkest moments of my life because I was a ‘good time’. It hit me in that moment that my worth to my ‘friend’ was purely superficial, whereby as long as I kept spewing witty anecdotes about my spiralling life my company was appreciated and loved, with any turmoil behind the well-polished facade laying irrelevant. The person behind the entertainer ignored and despite my best efforts to compartmentalise, I felt used. It was at that moment as an awkward silence hung between us that I realised I didn’t actually like my ‘friend’ all that much.
Although this incident may appear trivial from an external perspective it was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. Between us in that dimly lit room was not only vinegary white wine and a faux rustic barn table, but 100s of social slights stinging like paper cuts. I had become far too familiar with her eyes slowly glazing over whenever I talked and the frequent one-sided phone calls when she needed a rant but the empty sound of the voicemail receiver whenever I rang. Her self-indulgence once endearing had become grating, and the increasing frequency of her veiled comments alluding to my prior messy dating exploits being slutty made me want to smash the wine bars artisanal table dressing over her head.
In my opinion, deciding you don’t want to be friends with someone is the easy part, you look at your relationship and ask yourself, do I enjoy being with that person? Do I feel good about myself after we meet up? Does the bad in our relationship out way the good? Do they call themselves ‘so petite’ unironically when they are 5,4? However, actually disentangling yourself from said friendship, particularly when mutual friends are involved, is much harder. I know the methodology of ‘quiet quitting’ a friendship has stirred up much controversy, however, in this instance, I felt like it was the only option.
For those unaware ‘quiet quitting’ was popularised last year throughout social media describing the trend of employees slowly removing themselves from the corporate sphere since the covid pandemic. Instead of officially quitting, employees were slowly limiting the amount of energy they were giving their work lives. This involves no longer indulging in office small talk, leaving at 5 and completely logging off outside of your contracted hours. In essence, giving no more than is necessary. ‘Quiet quitting’ a friendship operates in a very similar way. Objectively I am aware that slowly removing your time, energy and affection from an unsuspecting ‘friend’ is cruel, particularly considering our current therapized landscape encourages communication at all obstacles. However, in this instance, I feel like communicating my feelings would be unnecessarily cruel. To detail to my ‘friend’ the intricacies of why I no longer want her in my life would feel like a character assassination and I desperately don’t want to hurt her. People are grey and although her comments stung, she was (and is still) someone I care for, therefore generating insecurities through pointing out my perceived ‘flaws’ in her personality would be, without a better word, mean. Our personalities may no longer be compatible, but I genuinely wish her the best. Therefore would it not be kinder to just allow my ‘friend’ to believe we simply drifted apart since graduation? Life and physical distance just getting in the way? Letting our relationship end without bitterness, so our good memories and messy nights out can be played back with fondness. Although this could be considered disingenuous, as I enter my twenties I’ve concluded that sometimes personal authenticity can be sacrificed to prevent harm. As after all, a little white lie never hurt anyone.
Perhaps this modern way of ending friendships is A-moral or an overly British approach of avoiding confrontation, however, in my mind, it remains the kinder path.