Ride or die friends are the backbone of modern-day relationships and friend circles, but what if the one that’s been down for you since day one, just drifts away?

At first you weren’t sure what happened, your conversations began to shorten, and even though you still had much in common, the responses felt distant and even somewhat cold. Have you offended them? Or said something that might have hurt them?

Remember when you got excited over something that you both enjoyed and they said that it’s not something they are interested in anymore, and that it’s dumb? But it was something that they introduced to you in the first place. You felt hurt, but that didn’t stop you from being excited. You brushed it off and were still happy. Maybe they just had a bad day.

Remember when you were telling them how your grades in school are sliding because you’ve been depressed and they told you to try harder and backhandedly mocked how low your GPA had gotten without saying that you’re a screw up? You never noticed this air of superiority about them but at this point the change started to seem concerning to you. Were they always like this?

Remember when they made fun of your weight in front of their significant other, which of course, you laughed off, but were so deep in mental shock that you didn’t want to be their friend anymore? It felt like the last straw because, truly, you have been together physically through thick and thin, and they knew how you felt about your body, so why would they hurt you like that? Was it to prove something about themselves to their significant other? Was it to feel better about themselves?

But then you’ve had an epiphany- you decided to get a life-changing surgery that would help you become a better and healthier you. As you went around telling your closest friends about the experience that will occur in your near future, everyone was excited and everyone sent you good luck vibes and prayers for a healthy recovery, but all they said was, oh. There was no excitement, there was no happiness, there was just an “Oh.”

At this point you were asking other common friends if they have always been like that, and your friends confirmed it. You were hurt and you felt your heart break. Somehow it felt worse than any other thing you’ve experienced, so you decided that it might be time to distance yourself as well. Maybe it was just time to move on.

A few months later, with your grades reaching an ultimate time high, your mental health on the right track, and your surgery drastically changing your physical health in the right way, maybe it was a good choice to break away. Sometimes we don’t realize that a friendship is toxic just because you’ve been friends for so long. That is common, and that is okay; sometimes it takes a long time to realize that something is not right, but when you do, it is okay to let go. Friendship is not about who you’ve known the longest, it is about who sticks up for you and who sticks with you. Time is an illusion. It’s the experiences that pull together a true friend.