How to break up with a friend – and why is it so hard to make new ones?

Unfollow. Cancel. Delete. If you want to know who (literally) doesn’t like you, just check your social media accounts.

Consider on again, off again BFFs Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez. They met as child actors, starred together in Disney teen movies but then, adulthood. A Buzzfeed story on messy celebrity breakups breaks it down: “The two spent the better part of a decade following and unfollowing each other on social media.”

Or Kim Kardashian and Larsa Pippen. Millions of reality television viewers watched their friendship grow and grow and … implode. Definitive proof it was over? When Kim unfollowed Larsa on Instagram.

Who are these people and why are they in this story? Think of the celebrity break-up as the public face of a private crisis. Around the world, friendships are decreasing, loneliness is increasing and none of this is good for any of us.

“There’s a lot of evidence that social relationships are associated with happiness, but also with life quality, length of life, health … it’s pretty unequivocal really,” Taylor-Miller says.

And then she frowns: “Every time we talk about the importance of friends, there are a chunk of people going ‘but I don’t have any’ and it makes them feel worse.”

Please keep reading. At the end of this story, psychologists will share their top tips for meeting new people and, potentially, turning them into friends. But first, some statistics.

One American study shows the number of men with 10 or more close friends dropped from 40% in 1990 to just 15% in 2021. For women, those figures went from 28% to 11%. In the United Kingdom, another study showed 9% of respondents aged over 40 had zero close friends.

Data from New Zealand’s General Social Surveys shows a steady (and significant) decline in face-to-face contact with friends. In 2016, almost 77% of respondents saw friends at least once a week. According to the most recent survey, that figure is now 69.6%.

Online message boards are chock-full of friends-free despair. The man in his 30s who says “it’s “****ing hard not having close friendships anymore”. The expat who has lived in Auckland for two years and made just two expat friends. The underlying theme of so many posts: Why don’t I have more friends?

Taylor-Miller says at least 25% of her clients share this concern.

“And they feel like there is really something wrong with them. There is not. They are amazing … and I sit and let them know that there are a whole lot of gorgeous, fabulous people who feel exactly the same way.”

There is no denying we live in fraught times. Donald Trump, vaccines, the Israeli-Palestine conflict, why you’d prefer to say “Aotearoa” instead of “New Zealand” – the opportunities for an irreconcilable difference with friends are endless.

And that was the starting point for this story. How do you extricate yourself from a relationship with someone who sits on the opposite side of any given fence? When is it time to call time on a friendship? I anticipated calling a few experts and compiling a step-by-step guide to, well, stepping away.

“I strongly belive in that quote ‘honesty without kindness is cruelty’,” says Taylor-Miller. “If you can’t say it kindly, I would find a different way to say it.”

Stand on your values, says Taylor-Miller.

“If you’re going to feel really sick to your stomach if you bump into them, then you’ve got a problem. You’re not doing something that’s okay.”

She outlines a possible strategy: Identify the issue. Remove the “you”. And then deploy phrases like “I find it really difficult when [insert issue here]” followed by statements like “And so, because of that, I’m just going to step back a bit”.

So far, so efficiently unfriended.

Actually, counters Taylor-Miller: “I don’t know how often there is a need to ‘break up’ with friends. “When are ‘views’ a problem in friendships? Because imagine if we made this a bit lighter for a second…”

In the scenario that follows, I am a horror film aficionado and Taylor-Miller prefers art house cinema. She thinks my movie preferences create serial killers; I think hers are a waste of time for pompous people. Could we still be friends?

Ummm … yes?

“We would! The problem comes when I try to convince you that art films are better than horror films. Having different views doesn’t have to end a friendship. The problem comes when we’re advocating for our view, because when we’re really arguing for something, we’re arguing against the other person and telling them they’re wrong.”

People are, most typically, drawn to those who share their values, says Taylor-Miller. Clashes are more common with “surface” friends. She offers the concept of “intellectual humility” as a possible solution. Basically, it means getting comfortable with the idea that you might be wrong.

“It’s the acknowledgment and awareness that we only know what we know. It’s being comfortable acknowledging that I might be wrong.”

In a nutshell, you can disagree with someone – but you don’t have to convince them they are wrong. It all sounds so reasonable and grown-up and, frankly, impossible. What, I ask, if I am determined to break up with a friend? Worse, how do I cope if I’m the one who has been dumped?

“The size of the part that we play in people’s lives changes over the course of their story,” explains Taylor-Miller.

“We might be an actor who wants a bigger role, but we’re not the director of this story – and they are not the director of ours. And if we can tolerate the idea that we’re just not a big part of this story right now, then that allows us to rejoin at a later time.”

Problems arise when we perceive we’ve been “fired” from someone’s story, says Taylor-Miller. We demand to know why. We go full personal grievance mode. And that, she says, can be hard to come back from.

“But if we’re forgiving of the fact that our roles change over time … that we can’t make ourselves part of someone else’s show, even if we really want to, even if we think they’re pretty cool.

“Don’t be knocking on the screen door asking for another test, because it’s not going to work. Build your own show with great characters. Let characters come and go. Be a bit gracious and a bit forgiving.”

In the old days (when telephones were still attached to the wall) friendships faded. Today’s cancel culture means break ups are fast and final.

“The fade allows you to come back in a future series, older and wiser. You didn’t kill off the main character,” observes Taylor-Miller.

Nobody should put up with being repeatedly treated badly. But, she suggests, a little tolerance can go a long way.

“Tolerance means flexibility, resilience and grace in a friendship and allowing for change over time. It means there are other options to putting all of our focus and energy into getting THEM to change. Instead, we can shift to focusing on how and what we do.

“The consequence for a person who, let’s say, bailed on a movie that I had tickets for, might be that I’m not going to invite them again. If it’s a good friend and they don’t come to something of mine because they’re ‘tired’ … they’ll play a smaller part in my show.”

Why do people want to break up with a friend? Reciprocity is a common theme, says Taylor-Miller.

“Over and over again, I will hear people say ‘Jenny never phones me, but when I phone her, we always catch up. So I’m not going to phone Jenny anymore’. To me, that sounds like you’re asking for each of you to do the same tasks in a friendship.”

If, for example, Jenny consistently remembers to ask after your sick dog or inquires how dinner with the in-laws went last Thursday, then that is a form of reciprocity.

“It doesn’t have to be tit for tat,” says Taylor-Miller. “Some people are just better at picking up the phone, remembering dates and going through their diaries.”

At the opposite end of the country, Dunedin-based registered counselling psychologist Diane Bellamy describes the friendship “contract”.

“What is the unspoken give and take in this friendship?”

If the contract changes – if someone drops the ball more than once and in hurtful ways – then, says Bellamy, it’s time to review the contract.

“Often it is a case of honest evaluation of the status of that friendship before the disappointment and drift. Were we really that close? What values did we really share?

“Friendships, like any relationship, can and do change over time … closer friends can be downgraded or reevaluated as acquaintances.”

Expecting all friendships to endure “is just setting yourself up for disappointment”. But when they end, says Bellamy, the pain is definitely real.

“It can trigger stuff – ‘I’m not lovable’… if you feel you’ve trusted someone, and you’ve given your heart and they let you down or say something or betray you, then you wonder ‘what does that say about me choosing you? Is my radar off? What the heck is going on?’ We’re confused. And social media adds layers of technological rejection to this mix.

“To be ignored and – horror – unfriended, unfollowed and blocked, can feel like the equivalent of a psychological and social slap in the face and heart.”

Bellamy thinks social media has contributed to falling friendship rates.

“It’s almost as if we’ve lost the art of simple banter and conversation. We agonise over correct emojis or how to word our messages, or we send drunken inappropriate messages! We curate ourselves … this can breed insecurity and missed cues and much misunderstanding.”

Her watchword: Dignity.

“How you communicate, even when angry or hurt – as with a friendship drifting or ending – is important. Take a breath, step back, do not react immediately. Wait and ponder. Re-read the message you want to send and ask yourself ‘does this come across as spiteful/clingy/jealous/angry?’”

Bellamy suggests operating from what she calls “the safe business sector model”. You can be puzzled and hurt, but keep the language formal and succinct: “Sincerely wishing you all the best.”

And if you’re determined to end a friendship? Bellamy offers two paths.

“The indirect method means replying less often or more briefly, noting that we’re busy, that the event or meeting doesn’t suit us, until the friendship drifts or fades to acquaintance-ship or dies a natural death.”

The direct method is more assertive. Sample wording: “I am unable to let that response of yours go. I suggest we don’t communicate for a while/at all. We have little in common, yet I truly wish you all the best.”

The thing is, says Bellamy, people evolve.

“Did you feel bad about leaving your first job? If you did it in a callous, brutal, mean and bad-mouthing way, well, you could probably learn from that. But the actual leaving is about change. And there’s probably a very good reason that you changed the job – or downgraded the friend or acquaintance.”

HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS: What we learned about making friends when we talked to psychologists about breaking up with friends