A friendship can end without a dramatic argument or a single moment that explains what went wrong. In an essay for Vogue, Chanté Joseph describes the particular sadness of losing close friends as their lives and relationships gradually change.
Joseph writes that the absence of former friends weighed on her 30th birthday, even as she celebrated with family and friends at a game-show-themed party in West London. Some people she once spoke to every day were no longer part of her life, and she found their absence especially difficult because there had been no clear break or obvious wrongdoing.
The essay connects this uncertainty with “frozen grief,” a term coined by psychologist Pauline Boss for a loss that is hard to process when its cause remains unclear. Joseph contrasts that experience with social media stories that frame friendship breakups as simple tales of betrayal, with one person cast as the victim and the other as the villain.
Drawing on Kat Vellos, author of “We Should Get Together,” Joseph describes friendship as depending on proximity, frequency, compatibility and commitment. When a friendship fades without a defining incident, she suggests, one or more of those elements may have fallen away.
Joseph recalls a friendship with Fi, whom she used to speak with daily. During a busy period, they arranged to meet, but Fi later said she had made other plans because she had not heard from Joseph. They did not return to their previous closeness. Joseph messaged Fi on her birthday, but Fi did not do the same on Joseph’s, and a later meeting felt markedly different from the friendship they had shared.
For Joseph, the loss was not only about missing a person. It also meant losing a support system and the future she had pictured sharing with her friends. She says friendships matter deeply to her, rather than serving as substitutes for romantic relationships.
Her birthday also brought gratitude for relationships that formed after older ones faded, along with new rituals and memories. Reflecting on the experience, Joseph cites Elizabeth Day’s “Friendaholic,” which suggests that letting go can reveal something important about oneself and may itself be a kind of love.
Sources: Vogue.