When you’re friends with someone, you’re supposed to be there for them. You’re supposed to love them, to care about their feelings and listen to what they have to say. This is especially applicable to those that you consider to be your best friends; when you consider someone a best friend, you’re supposed to show the same amount of care as they would show to you. Naturally that love and care should be returned, and if it isn’t, are they really your friend?

I’m mainly speaking from personal experience here. I take my friendships very seriously, as I see my friends as family. I make the effort to give them my shoulder to lean on when they’re down and listen to what’s been bothering them lately. I make the effort to talk to them as much as I possibly can, because there’s no guarantee that I’ll have the ability to do so the next day. 

I care about their feelings and I know that they feel the same. But what do I do when one of them doesn’t? Do I just go along with it and watch our friendship crumble to dust, or do I say something? And if I do say something, should I be gentle or should I not mince words? Will my friend even listen? If you have to ask yourself these questions more than once, for so long that it goes on for years, then maybe that isn’t a good friendship for you. 

In a friendship, you shouldn’t be spending your time questioning every aspect of it; it should be an unspoken rule that friendship is built mainly on trust between each other. But if you’re doubting that trust so frequently that it actually starts to break, then maybe that friendship isn’t as good as it used to be. Sometimes these things can be mended, but in the cases that they can’t, it’s important to remember that in the end you’re your own person. A friendship shouldn’t feel like something that you have to fight for.

You’re not in the wrong for wanting to leave a friendship for your own sake. If it makes you feel drained or afraid, then you are even more validated if you decide to cut a person off. Some friendships don’t last forever, and it’s okay if they don’t. To believe in and continue to put effort in keeping a friendship that gets increasingly toxic as time goes by will only hurt you and the friend involved. 

It’s okay to just leave, even if it means totally ghosting them because it’s the safest way to get out. Everyone deserves to have good friends, those who make you feel safe and actually treat you as a friend, rather than some robot that they can rely on to take care of their issues.