A Psychologist Explains How to Revive a Dead Friendship

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Some friendships are relationships you'll take for the rest of your life, only unless you're very, very lucky, those aren't the norm. Most often, friendship looks like something messier: People volition float in and out of your life as you alter, or they change, or circumstances change. In that location are moves. There are fallings-out. Schedules go busy. You're probably not still super tight with your seventh-grade best friend; in fact, as yous enter your 30s, y'all begin to shed a lot of the friends you made in your earlier years. In almost cases, that doesn't hateful you lot've banished those people from your life forever; it but means yous've gone in different directions. Maybe anytime you lot'll find your way back.

Merely reviving a friendship that'south died requires more simply hit the play button on something that'southward been paused, explains Irene Levine, a psychiatry professor at NYU and the author of Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup With Your Best Friend. It's not every bit simple as but picking upwardly the relationship yous had earlier. It's also more difficult than starting things from scratch with someone new. Here'south her advice for how to get things rolling with a new old friend.

Whether yous broke upward with some sense of finality or just let things fade out, there'due south a reason you ended things last time around — and whatever pushed you two apart may not take gone away. "Sometimes we romanticize our friendships, and maybe nosotros forget some of the reasons why we ended [the relationship]," Levine says. "You might be going back into the same morass that you left."

Earlier you try to reach out, and so, it might be wise to accept some time and do a friendship postmortem: Were you too busy to make much time for each other? If that was the case, has it really changed? Or, alternatively, if you couldn't stand the way she sucked at listening and made everything about her, what makes you recall you lot'd be okay with it now? "If you think it's going to be a completely unlike person than the person you broke up with, y'all're probably existence unrealistic," Levine warns. That'southward not to say that they oasis't gotten meliorate, or that it's not worth giving things a shot — just that you lot should be articulate-eyed almost what makes a friendship deal-breaker for yous, and be prepared to abort the mission if you need to.

Particularly if you've just moved, information technology tin can be tempting to contact everyone in your phone that lives in your new urban center — an one-time camp buddy, an elementary-schoolhouse classmate, actually anybody who's e'er been more than an associate. That's understandable! While making new friends can be a little awkward and daunting, the whole trip the light fantastic toe is a bit more comfortable with people you were once close to: "You do have a foundation of shared experiences," Levine says. "So it does give you lot a jump start in the friendship."

Still, that doesn't mean you should immediately presume the aforementioned level of intimacy you once had. "You might want to attempt to become acquaintances beginning, rather than friends," she says. You may exist starting slightly further alee than you would with someone brand-new, only you're all the same going to desire to allow things unfold at the same pace as you would afterward hitting it off with a stranger. Start with coffee, not a spill-your-guts vent session.

Because, in a way, they are. Even if yous have that easy, clicking, friendship-at-first-sight feeling once you meet them again, it takes more than a spark to make a relationship worthy of your time. "You really demand experience and fourth dimension to build trust with some other person, whether information technology'due south an onetime friend or a new friend," Levine says. Ease often complements things like trust, but it isn't a stand up-in.

Too, that sense of instant reconnection might exist one-sided — we tin often be blinded by our own want to make things work, whether out of loneliness or excitement over having this person back in our lives. And that optimism can arrive piece of cake to miss red flags, or signs that the other person isn't as into the reunion. "You might misperceive social cues, [or] she might non be listening when you recollect she is, or she might exist judgmental and you don't realize," Levine explains. If y'all run headlong into insta-friendship, you might non notice that information technology'south not a fit until after y'all've already invested time and emotional energy. Being cautious, on the other hand, keeps you from that's pouring yourself into a relationship that's a nonstarter; if things progress more slowly dorsum into genuine friendship, it'southward more likely to be a real, sustainable bail.

Another way to make sure you're both as invested in reviving your friendship: Don't pressure them into starting things right abroad. Email is meliorate for first contact than a telephone call or text, Levine says, because it'due south less immediate. "Information technology gives the other person a chance to remember about it," she explains. "Just because you're set to rekindle a friendship doesn't mean the other person'southward ready — you've given it a lot of idea, only the other person could be caught off guard." If they're into the idea, great! Make that java date.

If they blow you off, though, try to go along in mind — even though it's easier said than done — that it's probably more about them than most yous. "The other person may be fully engaged," Levine says. "They may accept a lot of friendships, they may be juggling work and personal matters, they may not have any more bandwidth to take one more friend." And that's the reality of friendships, for better or worse: They're all part connexion, role timing. It's the reason you lot can't hold on to all the friends you've ever had. Simply it'due south also the reason that you can know, if you do ever get back together, that there'south a existent shot at making it work again — because you're in the right place at the correct time. And if you lot're very, very lucky, you might get to a indicate where you forget yous ever striking intermission to begin with.

A Psychologist Explains How to Revive a Expressionless Friendship