Losing your best friend is by far one of the most unpleasant losses you’ll ever have to deal with.
In this article, I’m not going to speak about the death of someone you consider your best friend but about the moment that you and your best friend are not part of each other’s lives anymore.
One way to look at this is the way you would basically look at losing anyone else that’s part of your life: you may say that it happened because that person wasn’t the right person for how you wanted to live your life.
But when it happens with a best friend, everything seems different.
When losing your best friend, there’s no way you think that they weren’t the right person for you. The longer your best friend was part of your life, the more important they become. They knew everything about you – your secrets, what makes you happy, what makes you sad, what you like, what you dislike, who you are, and what you are. They knew you better than you know yourself.
And now that person who has all this valuable information about yourself is not part of your life.
Let’s look at this from an optimistic perspective.
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What does optimism mean when losing your best friend?
The best thing here is that your best friend is still alive and this is the first thing that really matters when losing your best friend.
We’ll discuss what optimism means when dealing with the death of someone close in another article. For now, let’s get back to our topic.
Now that we started with the idea that your best friend is still alive, we have to understand why you lost your best friend.
- Is it because they moved to the other side of the world and, little by little, enough distance was created between you two so the relationship got colder?
- Or is it because one of you did something bad?
But before answering these questions, here’s another one of more importance: do you still want your best friend in your life?
If you don’t, then you can skip the next few paragraphs and start reading from ‘How to find your next best friend?’.
If you still want your best friend in your life, let’s see what options you have.
In case life happened, how do you get your best friend back in your life?
In case life happened and your best friend (or you) moved to another country, then the only thing you can do is to accept the situation. The same goes for when you (or your best friend) start a family and invest your time into raising a child.
Your best friend is still your best friend and you shouldn’t consider them out of your life. Accepting it is hard and it may put pressure on both of you. And it is hard because you’ll have to accept that things may never be how they were before.
You won’t have the same time available to spend with each other. You’ll have different responsibilities which will make you prioritize other things more than you used to prioritize each other.
But accepting that things have changed will give you the opportunity to cherish the moments you’ve had and look forward to creating new memories whenever you’ll both be available.
If you still care about the relationship and you want to save it, then you don’t have to think in terms of getting your best friend back, but in terms of maintaining the relationship in ways that apply to what the relationship has become.
In case one of you did something bad, how do you get your best friend back in your life?
First of all, how bad is what you did?
More than that, what will it take for you to do in order for your best friend to forgive you?
The better you know your best friend, the better you will know if they are willing to let go of the bad thing you did and move on. As important as that, you’ll also know the effort you’ll have to put in so your best friend will forgive you. Are you willing to do it?
If you are on the other side of the rope, the same questions apply to the idea that you’re the one who has to let go and accept that what happened can’t be changed.
Therefore, are you willing to accept that your best friend did a mistake and move on?
How to find the next one after losing your best friend?
If you don’t have your ex-best friend back in your life, then maybe it’s time to shift your attention to something else.
I know it’s not pleasant at all to lose your best friend – I’ve been there. But if you believe they’re not the right person for you anymore, then maybe searching for another one is the best decision.
Therefore, there are a few things that I would pay attention to, like the needs that your best friend was meeting, how to find a replacement and understand why you need someone else to fulfill those needs, and maybe rethink your views on friendships in general.
If something went wrong with the relationship you had with your best friend, maybe there’s something you could learn from that so you can have better relationships in the future.
Let’s take them one by one and see what we can do about it.
What needs do you have?
The best way to find your needs when it comes to the relationship you want to have with a best friend is to think of your last best friend.
- Was that friend supportive?
- Was that friend encouraging?
- Was that friend challenging?
Whatever that friend was doing and however they were adding value to your life, write it down. This way, you’ll know what to look for when you’ll be searching for your next best friend.
Why can’t you fulfill your own needs?
Considering those needs that we just discussed, what makes them so tricky and complicated that you need someone else to fulfill them for you?
In case your best friend was encouraging you, why do you need to be encouraged by someone in order to advance your cause, do your tasks, or do whatever you were encouraged to do?
Basically, why can’t you do it yourself? What makes the difference when someone else is doing it?
I’m not saying that is wrong to have your needs fulfilled by someone else. All I’m saying is that you should be aware of the impact others have in your life and, next time you let someone have that impact, know why and how it happens.
What can you offer after losing your best friend?
Just as you had your needs fulfilled by someone else, for sure you were doing the same thing for that person.
Are you aware of it? Do you know why your best friend kept you in their lives just as long as you kept them? Why did they do it?
When you’ll know what you can offer, it will become easier for you to find your next best friend. After all, knowing what you’re searching for and what you can offer is key in having what you desire.
With love and optimism,
David