Outgrowing a friendship is hard and confusing, especially if you have been friends for the longest time.
They say that if you’re friends for more than seven years, then that friendship will last a lifetime.
But this is not always true. Outgrowing friendship is a natural part of life.
We outgrow ourselves and we’re no longer the way we used to be.
This journey is about becoming more and more ourselves, and when we evolve and slowly become more ourselves through the years, it’s natural to outgrow our habits, values, relationships and many times friendships.
Only those friendships, who are capable of seeing us changing and accepting us for who we have become, and only those whom we too want to grow with together stays.
It’s about the choices both friends make. And none of them are at fault.
But when you’re in the outgrowing phase, it’s not easy.
My Story of Outgrowing a Friendship
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It’s been more than 3 years now that I had a major friendship break up with my entire friends group. Not one, not two. But an entire set of 6 friends whom I grew up with.
We were friends since kindergarten and they had my whole heart. We were the girl gang every convent school has.
I could do anything for this friendship, especially my best friend from school through college. We were inseparable.
People would have guessed we were lesbians. Because we would talk to each other so much and we would always be on call with each other.
Nobody could have thought that many years down the line, we wouldn’t be the same.
But even when we were ‘still friends’, we had already outgrown this friendship. And we both knew it.
We can’t pinpoint when we slowly outgrow our friends. It happens so gradually.
You feel bad, you feel guilty, you wonder why you’re feeling what you’re feeling, but you eventually won’t be able to hide the lack of connection no matter how much you try to save it.
If you’re going through this phase, and asking yourself whether you’ve outgrown a friendship, here are 7 tellings signs that you are outgrowing it.
1. The connection starts to feel forced
When the connection starts to feel forced, when there is no natural flow of conversation, when you’re trying too hard to fit in just to secure the friendship, that means you have outgrown it.
But many of us tend to deny it. I denied it too for a long time.
You don’t break your friendship of years in one day.
It’s accumulated over the experiences, feelings and years.
The friends who are meant to be with us forever meet us with an open heart. No matter how long you have been apart, you meet with the same love, warmth and connection.
Do they make your heart light? or are you just forcing smiles and laughter?
Do you feel fulfilled after meeting them even if you did nothing?
Do they make you forget everything while you are with them?
When you don’t have the same connection, you know it deep inside. You can’t hide for long unless you are really good at suppressing your emotions.
There was a time when I used to feel a genuine connection between me and my friends. We would laugh and talk for hours. But slowly I stopped feeling it and the connection felt forced.
There wasn’t the same energy anymore.
Yet I denied it.
I never wanted to be away from them. I questioned why I was not feeling the same connection.
But it always ends up showing.
Every relationship requires effort, but I believe there should be no effort required in connection.
Connection should always be natural and free-flowing.
2. Your past is the only thing that’s holding your friendship
You have no common values and no common things with each other and you are holding on to this friendship only because of your shared past.
You have been friends for so long, and you know everything about each other, and that’s the only thing that’s holding your friendship.
But you feel that even though they know everything about you, yet they don’t know you.
They know you on the outside, but they no longer know you on the inside.
They don’t know your heart and who you are truly becoming.
If this is the case, it means you are outgrowing your friendship.
3. There is no genuine laughter
I think the easiest way to know if your friendship is strong is by the genuine laughter you have when together.
True friendships enjoy genuine laughter and you can’t stop finding funny things together.
You can enjoy each other’s company even when you do nothing. Nothing is forceful. Everything is easy.
You don’t need alcohol, you don’t need anything external things to have fun with each other.
There is no need to gossip and you still have so many things to talk and laugh about.
Real friendship is strong and secure. They make you laugh till your stomach hurts.
You feel you are about to get abs because of laughter.
If this is not the case and you are only forcing laughter and smiles, looking for things to talk about, and thinking of all the reasons you should remain friends, then you already know that you have outgrown that friendship.
P.S 7 Yung Pueblo Poems on Friendship
4. You don’t share things with them anymore
True friendship is where you can open your heart out fully to them because you know they will get you, understand you and accept you.
Our friends are our unpaid therapists many times helping us clear our hearts, giving us good advice and telling us the truth that sometimes we may not be ready to hear.
If you have stopped sharing things with them as you used to, if you have stopped calling them when you have something interesting to share or when you are in need, then it might be a telling sign that you might be slowly outgrowing that friendship.
If you have to hide things from your friends, if you don’t say you’re back home from somewhere because you don’t want to meet them, you think of excuses to get out of plans, or you don’t want them to know what plans you have for the future, what you are planning to do and you have to hide your growth, your thoughts and your goals, then you might be outgrowing that friendship.
Maybe you even try to share, but when you do, you always regret that you shared. And over time, you stop sharing your heart.
5. You don’t feel Supported
We often talk about friends who stay with us during our hard times.
But we don’t talk much about friends who stay with us when we are thriving, winning and becoming better every day.
Many of us fear that if we become successful, we will lose our friends, but that shouldn’t stop us from hiding our growth and development.
True friends support you in your bad times, but they equally support you even when you are winning and thriving, and there should be nothing to hide from them.
But with your friends whom you’re outgrowing, you don’t truly feel supported by them.
You find them criticizing you or passively trying to bring you down.
This too happens all so gradually that you can’t pinpoint at what time you stopped sharing your heart.
It’s easy to know when this happens in a relationship. You know when a relationship is not working. There is growing frustration and it comes out in fights and over expectations.
But with friendship, it’s different.
You don’t know what is wrong or when it is wrong.
Everything seems okay and you keep denying it until you start feeling that you’ve grown apart too much and you can never meet each other the same way you used to earlier.
6. You’re complaining about them.
When you’re outgrowing a friendship, you will talk about them a lot. And this happens on both sides.
You feel judged when you are with them and the fondness you had for each other as friends slowly starts to fade.
You don’t want to get annoyed by them, but you can’t help it.
You might even start questioning your feelings and find it hard to believe that you don’t enjoy each other’s company anymore.
As for me, I knew I was complaining about my friends because my frustration would come out in my morning pages when I wrote in my journal.
I remember during my outgrowing phase, I used to write so much about my friends and how I felt with them- how I used to feel earlier vs. how I felt with them now.
I guess it was because of journaling that I could sense the growing distance and the lack of connection and the little things that I noticed changing.
I think now that if it wasn’t for journaling, then I wouldn’t have known till now and maybe I would have suppressed all of my feelings.
But writing brings out the parts that we’re hiding and it brings out all the feelings that we keep avoiding and lets us know what is bothering us and where.
I once read somewhere that the ones you’re complaining most about are the ones you need to keep boundaries with.
I think it’s true.
If you feel bothered by a friend a lot these days and you no longer feel connected to them as a person, then it means that you are slowly outgrowing it.
7. You don’t feel the love and warmth
Just as it takes both persons in a relationship to end a relationship, it is also the same with friendship.
When genuine love, affection, trust and warmth are missing, it means that you are outgrowing that friendship.
My other friend once told me that if you don’t feel welcomed, it may be because they too don’t bring out that welcoming vibe.
That if you don’t feel loved, maybe it’s because they too don’t truly bring out that loving vibe for you.
And I think this makes so much sense.
Our hearts can sense real love and warmth and they always go to the places that match their vibrational energy.
So stop questioning why you’re not feeling the love and connection and just trust it.
If it were there, you would have felt it.
Vibes never lie. Trust it freely.
If you are sensing the mutual love, affection and warmth missing, then it’s a sign that you’re outgrowing a friendship.
So these are some of the signs that you may be outgrowing a friendship.
But even after you know you’ve outgrown a friendship, it doesn’t make it any less difficult and hurtful.
I remember I cried the entire day on the day of our major friendship breakup over why my friends could not understand my heart.
I cried over the loss of my friends, our good times that would never come back and why it was only with me with whom they lost the connection with.
I felt sad over why it was me who stopped feeling the connection with them, even though I felt like the connection was missing among all of my friends in the group generally.
Was I wrong in my feelings or were my other friends faking and hiding how they truly feel too?
I questioned if they were genuinely happy being friends and genuinely felt the connection. Because I didn’t feel it.
All of them are still friends and I can’t say about them, but I knew that I had lost the spark with them and it was about time.
A friendship requires spark as much as a relationship. Maybe even more.
I felt the loss of this spark and I grieved it.
They were no secondary friends of mine whom you meet for some time in college or workplace or somewhere new and lose touch with over time, but you don’t care enough to feel sad about it.
They were my major friends, the friends with whom I had grown up and had shared so much of my childhood with, who knew everything about me and my family, my struggles, and with whom I could be myself earlier, but not anymore.
I grieved over why I couldn’t be myself with them anymore, why I had stopped enjoying with them.
I asked myself if I didn’t understand them or if it was they who didn’t understand me. If I judged them, or if it was them who judged me. Now I reason it was both.
The loss was much bear and I remember crying many days with my boyfriend every time I saw a picture of them on social media.
But now I guess it is a natural part of life and so I feel free to write about it here.
Final Thoughts on Outgrowing a Friendship
You outgrow yourself and you outgrow relationships that no longer fit you and serve you.
Cherish the good times you had with them and allow yourself to let people come and go when it’s time.
Nothing ever happens by chance. Everything serves a reason.
Don’t question your feelings. There is no why.
Just allow yourself to evolve.
Be more and more you every day and the people who truly accept you as you become more you will always remain and you don’t have to question your feelings anymore.
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