RILEY RAINS / ARTS & CULTURE EDITOR

When my romantic relationships come to an end, I know what to do: blast Jeff Buckley, grab a tub of cookie dough, pull up “our movie” and cry wrapped up in a blanket that his mom gave me. It feels like utter and complete despair. But, believe it or not, after a few months my pain goes away. 

Those emotions stemmed from  a relationship coming to an end  my freshman year of college:  four  years on and off, out the window. I am now  thriving in my solitude and can see, in  hindsight, what I thought was the end of the world – a failed romantic relationship – was not. Quite  frankly,  my worst  breakup wasn’t that romantic at all.

With my vast experience of gut-wrenching breakups, I firmly believe that the worst heartbreak I have ever felt came from a girl who liked green fluffy slime more than my favorite butter yellow. Even at 12 years old, I could tell that friendship breakups would be more painful than romantic ones. 

After  I  had  joined  swimming in middle school, I started gravitating toward teammates instead of my childhood best friends. The life of a student-athlete got the best of me and I forgot to text the girls I grew up with. Very quickly, I lost relationships  because  of  my  own ignorance. Instead of getting my hands sticky with glue, I chose pruney, chlorine stained fingers – a choice I will always regret. 

When we are young, relationships are chosen for us — parents and siblings are givens of course. After children begin to think for themselves, around the age of four or five, friends enter the picture: they are the first relationship chosen freely. Whether it’s a girl on the gymnastics team or a boy in math class, childhood friends form on the basis of how people interact with peers.

In high school, friendships ebb and flow as students try to discover what qualities and characteristics they prefer the people around them to have. If you’re lucky, the friends made during those years stick around for a while. But, more often than not, however, it is in college where students find their group.

For the first time in many Toreros’ lives, they are living with friends: sharing a room with roommates, eating meals together  and  cramming for exams in the same study room. Living on or near campus means being around one another 24/7. That  sheer amount of time enables deeper connections to be built, making the fall hit even harder.

After a standard breakup, it’s easy to trash talk an ex, block them and wash away any trace of them from daily life. With friends, trying   to  do that is nearly impossible. In college especially, lives can become so entangled with living arrangements, class schedules and social groups. After months and maybe even years of this person being an integral part of  your routine, something  changes.

Whether you started to feel left  out, you found out something hard to forgive, or if they just start growing apart, the result is the same: a painful distance is created. It’s harder to ugly cry it  out  over ice cream; slowly, you lose a part of yourself. You are not just one romantic partner down, your entire world has changed.

In  my  experience,  “friendship breakups” are the result of people gradually growing apart — a process that doesn’t include a final conversation in middle school. I realized on a random Tuesday in November that someone I used to eat with everyday hasn’t said hi to me in the hallways. With two new friend groups, we had separated completely in the span of a few months. 

In  romantic breakups, you can   usually  point  to the day on the calendar where things crumbled – you might even discuss the parameters of a breakup.  Couples   usually  decide if  they’ll   remain   friends, become    amicable    acquaintances or cut ties completely. Platonic relationships, however, can lack this closure completely. The fade of the friendship prolongs the heartbreak, all while a void of communication makes the process unexpectedly difficult. 

My best remedy can usually be found over a cup of coffee, talking it out. If we are brave enough to face a conversation with a significant other, then what is the difference with a friend? In my opinion, platonic love can be just as strong and even more impactful than romantic love. 

I  am  a firm  believer in fighting for what you have – or giving   up  what you lost. Whatever it is, I would recommend that you approach a conversation with open communication so that no one is left staring at their Elmers glue and Borax, thinking “What happened?”

Friends tend to spend more time in your life than a significant other, making those breakups hurt more than a relationship coming to an end. Photo courtesy of  @Kelly Sikkema/Unsplash