Losing a friend is always difficult, especially when you’ve shared years of memories together. I recently had a major breakup with a friend and while the loss was hard to overcome, it actually changed my dating life around for the better. I was single AF for nearly five years and soon after our fallout, I actually found love again. I don’t think it’s a coincidence for these reasons:
- Her feedback was always mostly negative. There’s nothing worse than feeling excited about a guy, only to be ripped from your cloud nine by a so-called friend. My ex-friend was good at making me question every situation. I overanalyzed everything to a destructive degree. Maybe it’s my own fault for allowing my fear to take over or maybe she could have been a better friend by being positive and hopeful for my potential happiness. I know that to a degree she was only trying to protect me, but being overprotective and constantly fearmongering actually held me back from feeling at complete ease.
- She made me question my character. I admittedly have the habit of spinning out when a new guy who seems wonderful comes into my life, and my ex-friend was good at pointing out my over-eagerness. I was told that I got attached too easily and it made me feel like crap. She never seemed to be on my side about anything and it made me question myself to the point that I would get caught up in the idea that I wasn’t good enough for anyone.
- She seemed more envious than happy when something was going well for me. She’s in a relationship and in hindsight, I think it became a big problem when it came to relating to one another. She had already lived through her high romance peak and I was reliving mine over and over again with new guys in my own attempt to find one who I could eventually share my life with. At times, she would act almost jealous when I was blissfully enjoying the new dating adventure while she was dealing with her own problems at home. It wasn’t healthy for either of us.
- I spent so much time focusing on my love for her and our friendship. I loved my friend beyond words. She was like a sister to me and I constantly expressed how much she meant to me over the years. Unfortunately, my focus and devotion to being there for her all the way took away from me focusing on myself and my own search for love. I became consumed with the friend love I had for her and I feel like it kept me from opening myself up completely to the love of a relationship.
- I couldn’t relate to her relationship struggles. While I was going through being ghosted for no reason, being led on constantly and getting my hopes up with guy after guy, she was complaining about tedious things that I couldn’t relate to. She had it all — the fancy home, the lavish lifestyle and the guy who was showering her with the finer things — but she still had complaints. It would really upset me at times that she didn’t see how lucky she was and my bitterness about it would spiral into other areas of my life.
- I let her treat me like an option rather than a priority. I admittedly spent a lot of my time worshiping my friendship with her and putting her ahead of everything else in my life on many occasions. In a sense, I look back and realize I was kind of treating her like the boyfriend I didn’t have while she was blowing me off constantly and wasn’t rising up the same way for me. It’s my own fault because I kept letting it happen. She was another version of the guys I kept getting played by and once I stopped playing, I started attracting guys who treated me like a priority.
- I stopped judging guys on superficial details. She was more about the finer things in life and having a guy who would take care of her, so her advice’s to me about certain guys would often distract me from the bigger picture. I would become leery of a guy I saw potential in based on her opinions before I finally realized without her that she valued a different kind of love story than I do. It was truly liberating to finally feel confident in what I was looking for again.
- I felt more confident about who I was again. For the first time in a long ass time, I felt truly amazing about who I was all around. I stopped obsessing over my preferences in guys or how I behaved if they treated me like crap. I stopped punishing myself with self-doubt and uncertainty and finally started living in the moments.
- I finally loved myself in a real way. Because I finally came back to my true self, it didn’t take long for that confidence and happiness to attract the love of my life because just two months after breaking up with my toxic friend, I found love again. I truly don’t think it’s a coincidence that after five years of being painfully single, I found love after cleansing my life of someone who was aiding in holding me back from it. Maybe she didn’t mean to and maybe she never realized how her friendship was putting a damper on my love life. Maybe it’s my fault too but I’m actually grateful for the fallout because even though I lost a friendship that meant a lot to me, it put me on my path of true love and I’ve never been happier. Sometimes you need to grow out of people to grow into new and more exciting chapters. My chapter is finally in love.
