I met Ann* in my first year of university. A little older, she was goofy, confident and great with boys – everything I wasn’t.
Before long, we were inseparable. We brought each other shots while we finished late-night essays, ate Pringles in badly decorated student rooms and laughed until we cried – I even promised her she’d be my bridesmaid. I’d not known friendship like it.
That was eight years ago and I haven’t heard from her since she broke up with me.
There’s a special place in our hearts for our best friends and when you lose them, the void in your chest lingers, deeper and more painful than any romantic partner.
I am all too familiar with the searing, blinding pain, the sense of betrayal that follows those break ups, but Ann filled that space.
She became my heart. She helped me recover, let me ruin her bedsheets with mascara-tinged tears, waited at the bar with doubles when I was low.
She wasn’t perfect. She was messy and lazy and like any healthy relationship, we had fights but we’d always end up crying, apologising profusely.
When we moved in together in our final year I looked past her sloppiness and relished cooking together, gossiping or hyping each other up for job interviews and essays.
This was our life now, we decided. We’d live together in the same city and ride out our 20s mere metres apart.
That summer, I secured my dream internship at a magazine. Ann was the person who told me to go for it. The problem? It was in my hometown – 150 miles away.
I cried as I drafted, and redrafted, a text telling her I was leaving. I was devastated and overwhelmed to finally dive into the career I’d spent two decades dreaming about.
She never replied.
At home Ann locked herself in her room. I cooked for her but the food grew mouldy in the fridge. When I left my bedroom, she retreated into hers. Coming home to a flat where you’re not loved is soul-destroying and that extreme loneliness was unbearable.
I called, texted, left her notes apologising for leaving – even though I know it was wrong to. I even considered turning down the internship.
My sadness soon turned to anger. If the roles had been reversed, I thought, I would be fiercely proud of her – I’d help pack her bags and send her a notebook for her first day.
Your best friend knows your deepest secrets, they’re like a soulmate or a sibling – your mirror image. When you lose them, you lose part of yourself.
One evening I bumped into her in our sitting room when I thought she was out. She looked me in the eye and told me I was selfish, that I had treated her badly and she never wanted to speak to me again.
I was too stunned to reply – all the speeches I’d prepared in my head vanished. It took hours to process what she’d said before I broke down in tears. The heartbreak felt familiar but it was far, far worse than I’d had with any man.
For years afterwards, I told myself I was a terrible friend. I apologised to other friends for ‘not being there’ and scrutinised everything I could possibly have done wrong.
But looking back, I wonder whether Ann had convinced herself that I wouldn’t get that job. Perhaps she wanted the ‘dream job’, but something stopped her from being proactive. I suspect she was jealous, and when the plans that she’d made for her life – our life – changed beyond her control, she blamed me for her flaws.
The next – and last – time I saw her was at our graduation and the period we haven’t spoken for is now longer than our friendship.
I blocked her on social media as I couldn’t bear to see her happy when she’d made me so miserable, but at times I check up on her.
I know we live in the same city and that she is in her dream job, too. I’m happy for her but I still couldn’t look her in the eye if I passed her on the street.
Once or twice I’ve considered reaching out for closure but always stopped myself. Part of me misses her – I want to tell her about all the good things that have happened to me, what I’ve achieved and learned, and that I miss how important our friendship was.
But in all honesty, I worry that she’d belittle me again and be selfish like before.
I’m married now and looking at the women who were my bridesmaids, who constantly surround me with pure love, made me realise that Ann never would’ve fitted in that group.
When you lose your best friend there’s no one to talk to about that bad day, bad haircut, bad shag – but it goes deeper than that.
Your best friend knows your deepest secrets, they’re like a soulmate or a sibling – your mirror image. When you lose them, you lose part of yourself.
My break-up with Ann has left a lifelong scar but it’s the relationship that’s taught me the most about love.
We need to change our perceptions of what true love is. Yes, it is sexual, it’s romantic, but it can also be platonic. I truly believe that you meet your equal in friendship terms and like any romantic relationship, to lose someone who you believed to be your soulmate is devastating.
I understand how important it is to keep my close friends even closer, to cherish them through their good times and bad, because true love to me is about support.
It’s about riding the rollercoaster until the very end, screaming together through the towering highs and crushing lows but still being there when it’s all over. Ann wasn’t.
Last week in Love, Or Something Like It: Falling for a polyamorous man changed what I thought love was
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Love, Or Something Like It is a new series for Metro.co.uk covering everything from mating and dating to lust and loss, exploring what true love is and how we find it in the present day.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/02/the-worst-heartbreak-ive-ever-known-came-from-losing-my-best-friend-10970529/
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