I have walked this path before. One moment we are texting each other about how our days are going, and the next moment everything we had is gone. The friendship, the love, the respect is just gone. I sit at home and think for hours about where things went wrong, how this could have happened to us, why didn’t you want to make things right like I wanted to? But it is useless. As I move forward with my life without you by my side, it hurts. It is like a constant burning sensation within my chest, and it worsens whenever I hear your name or see your face or remember our past. The moment I lost this friendship, I lost a piece of myself.

I understand what it feels like to have my heart broken by a boy that I had loved as furiously and passionately as a young adult possibly can. I have felt the hurt and anger and sorrow that follows this heartbreak, and I have undergone the healing process that helps me get back on my feet and patch my heart back together so that somebody else can capture me back into that blessing of love. I remember the feelings so clearly, even as I love and am loved so happily with my current significant other. But those feelings are not so very different when losing a friend. The pain and bitterness and grief that follow the loss of a beloved friendship has this cruel tendency to linger with you for weeks, months, or sometimes years.

The way I look back on my ex-boyfriend and the way I look back on my ex-best friend provoke an odd melody of intensity, frustration, and indifference. Sometimes I look back on each of my exes and I cannot care less whether they are living happy, successful lives or whether they are miserable little scums. Sometimes they are a piece of my past that I can laugh at myself and think, “Gee, Amanda, what in the world were you thinking?” Yet, there are also many times when I become resentful, spiteful, and the growing urge to be passive aggressive – or aggressive in general – rises overwhelmingly within me. Sometimes these angry intensities are more prevalent towards my ex-friends than significant others because I find it difficult to grasp how a friend can simply stop caring about me and walk away from the years and years of trust we built together. When my boyfriends have come and passed, my friends were the one concrete thing I held onto.

I suppose the greatest hurt that comes from the loss of a friendship is the thought that it really did not need to be a loss. I am not implying that every relationship with a significant other is destined to be a loss, but there is a great percentage of people who undergo a broken heart at least once in their lives. But why must our friends, the people we depended on since we were first able to talk, leave us shattered and broken just as young lovers are expected to do?

I find it more difficult to accept the loss of a friend over the loss of a significant other. Because the reality is, significant others may come and go in life – lovers cannot be certain. But friends – and I am talking about true, solid, concrete, real, genuine friends – are supposed to be forever. They are not supposed to hold a grudge against you after a silly argument. They are not supposed to kick dust in your face as you are trying to explain yourself to them. They are not supposed to make you feel like a terrible person simply because you have flaws and made a mistake. They are not supposed to make you believe that the friendship has a chance at being renewed and then never call you again. They are not supposed to be the ones to break your heart like that boy back in high school did to you. At least, this is what I was brought up to believe.