For purposes of this poll, best friend excludes wife, husband, boyfriend, girfriend, and so forth. No significant others, in other words. That said, if your best friend is a sibling, parent, or other relative, that DOES qualify.
How badly hurt would you be if your best friend became so angry at you, for such a long period, that the relationship effectively ended?
Poll coming in a second. The results will be private, and multiple choices will be allowed in case anybody has more than one person who could legitimately be called their best friend and feel the responses would be different.
Being raised a ‘constantly moving’ military kid I can make friends with people quickly, but a “best friend” is a rare thing, I would be devastated with the loss.
I’ve been partners-in-crime with my best friend for over 25 years now. He is really more like a brother. No-one knows me better. If he never spoke to me again I would find it very hard to deal with, and I doubt I’d get over it any time soon. It would shake me to my core. In fact, it would probably break me.
When I was in my early 20’s my (I thought) BFF (but we didn’t use the term then) “broke up with me”. Exactly. She took me out for lunch a few hours before my march break was over, and told me we were over, listed why and everything (Most of the reasons had to do with her being in a suffocating relationship with a boyfriend, he wasn’t allowed other friends, she wasn’t allowed other friends. Eventually they collapsed because well, they couldn’t be everything to each other forever.)
I was devastated and I cried most of a 26 hour bus ride back to my university.
Now I have rid myself of some other friendships and my answer would more likely be “mildly upset and not for very long.”
I broke up with my best friend of many years and I was upset, but also happy to be rid of her. Our friendship had been failing for couple years at that point.
If something happened where my current best friend and I were to end badly, I think it would be very upsetting, just because it would take something terrible for us to no longer want to be friends.
I think it would depend too much on the context for me to come up with a single, easy answer.
I voted, ‘female and don’t have a best friend’. Actually, I really have only one friend but I don’t confide in her and the friendship can be a bit toxic at times. If I never saw her again, I’d be upset and wonder why but I don’t think I’d be devastated. Even more socially isolated than I am now, but not devastated.
I don’t put much time or effort into non romantic relationships unless there a promise of monetary gain attached. I have friends, some from my college days, some from previous employment, but none I couldn’t live without if it came to it. I’d be sad for a short while, meaning probably a few days, then move on with my life.
My BFF of 20-something years and I went through a rough patch about a year ago, where I thought the friendship was over for good. I was devastated. Other people, I can leave in a heartbeat- walk away, never look back, and never regret it. But not her- every time I thought about her, I would start crying. It was awful. We got through it and are still close, and I don’t take her for granted, that’s for sure.
I was only mildly upset, but for a very long time. She was devastated. I was the angry one who ended the friendship, though, so I’m not sure if it counts anyway per the OP.
My best friend and I “broke up” in January-ish. I wasn’t trying to force a break up, I figured it would be more mature and just plain normal to let things fade out. She had become involved in a romantic relationship that I simply could not stomach (partially because it was so very immature and toxic, partially because it was a reminder of a relationship I had been in myself that ended in physical altercation and divorce papers). I tried to be supportive, I tried to help when they broke up then got back together then broke up then got back together. I realized I was losing all respect for her. Finally she got back together with him again and I just tried to fade into the woodwork and I was sad but realized I did not respect her anymore and therefore, we just weren’t friends really anymore.
Then she pushed the issue - why aren’t you talking to me? I know you don’t think this is right but you of all people should understand because of what you went through… That kind of stuff.
I sent her the nastiest, most vitriolic email I’ve ever sent in my life. It not only ended the relationship, it napalmed it, then dropped the A bomb on it for good measure. It was built up months of my impressions of what kind of mother she had become. It was ugly. She responded with similar ugliness and threatened me.
We haven’t spoken since, and some of our friends chose sides even though they were not asked to (by either one of us). She has basically abandoned the group.
It hurt very bad for a short time. It hurt until I realized that anyone I could have such strong negative feelings for was not a best friend after all.
ETA - rereading I see it looks like I dumped a friend for being in an abusive relationship. It’s not that, it’s much more complicated. I did not leave a woman being beaten because she bugged me… just for the record.
I’m a woman, and I don’t tolerate moody/difficult friends or have bad breakups with people I am close to (I drift away when I’m done with someone, no hard feelings on either side). It’s impossible that any of my closest friends, all very easy-going people who I have never fought with, would ever be so angry at me that they’d end the friendship unless they went crazy, so my I think my reaction would be to write them off as ‘went crazy, don’t want to be involved with that anyway’ and I’d move on pretty quick.
I also consider it impossible that I’d do something justifying someone being that angry at me. My fault as a friend is that I’m very detached (though I do care, and love to listen to their problems and give advice). I never fight with my friends, much less betray them in any way.
The person I consider my very best friend, I’ve only seen/talked to a handful of times in the past year as we’ve both been busy/unmotivated. We’ve been close for 6 years now - our relationship goes through this cycle a lot*. She’s still my favorite and the only one I want to approach to help me problem-solve personal issues.
*ETA: All my friendships go through this cycle. I disappear a lot, sometimes for a very long time, and all my friends understand it doesn’t mean I don’t like them, and that I’ll be more social eventually.
I do consider myself an island. I don’t truly need anyone. But I enjoy many people!
I would be utterly devastated. I’ve known my best friend for 20 years and we raised our kids together. Our families got together for New Years eve every year for 14 years. I don’t see her much any more as she has an extremely dysfunctional life and is much busier than I am, but I talk to her almost every day. We can sit and talk for hours. She has truly been a gift from God. We have always counted on each other to be there for the good but especially the bad… We share the same birthday. Our husbands are both Virgos. We like the same foods. We have the same kind of mothers who have the same kind of old people problems. We both have absent or horrible brothers. There is really no one else I am so close to.
I “broke up with” a best friend nearly 20 years ago, and that sound you heard was me whooping with elation over sweet, sweet freedom. We’d known each other our entire childhoods, and while she’d never been the life of the party, she had become someone who could suck the joy out of a room in 3.2 seconds. She would say I abandoned her because she was depressed. I say I ran like hell from her tireless efforts to make *me *depressed.
My current best friend is pretty much my favorite person I didn’t give birth to. I adore her and her family, and I can’t even imagine not being friends with her, it would be like a whole different life.
Since it’s family, and my family has supported me through some of the worst crap ever, I have a hard time coming up with a scenario where this would happen. But, if I lost her in any way soon, I’d not only be devastated, but I’d be concerned that I might not ever not be devastated. I’m unsure how I’d deal with the inevitable.
Anyway, years ago my best friend and I were working together and he moved to another city. He never made an effort to keep in touch and after the third time I called him* I just figured he no longer had any interest in our friendship. It honestly didn’t bother me that much. My philosophy is to put no more into a friendship than the other person. So if they lose interest in the friendship, sure I’ll try to maintain it, but if that doesn’t work, oh well then, time to move on.
Anyway, fast forward to a couple months ago. He finds me on Facebook. We’re not best friends again, but we Facebook IM every now and again and occasionally post on each others walls. But the weird thing is, from what I can tell, he blames me for not keeping in touch, even though I put more effort into it than he did. Go figure.
*This was the early 90s, so hooking up to the Internet or getting E-mail usually required something like AOL or Prodigy which not all of us had.