Parting With People Is Easy
Unfortunately, though, they don’t teach you that at school.
I used to have my best friend. We stayed in touch for about seven years, with our communication being quite frequent and fruitful. We managed to launch our joint business along the way, buy flats in the same high-rise building and participate in 2 vs 2 dancing battles. Then he simply vanished. I have still not found out the reason for such an abrupt animosity. However, I’ve outlined three approaches that will help overcome parting with one’s significant other.
Meeting new people is one of our biggest phobias. Ask your friend to approach a pretty girl standing next to him and strike up a conversation. He will immediately turn into a shy guy, pretending he has not caught your words or is simply about to make an important phone call right now. We’ve all been in those situations, haven’t we? Well, I have for sure.
While people dream of getting rid of their fear and of learning how to nicely get acquainted with people, everyone seems to keep forgetting about the opposite side of the coin, which is a breakup. We aren’t taught to do that, nor are we ready for it. There are courses on pick-up techniques, though there is hardly anyone to teach you how to erase people from your life. No one would ever try to learn this skill before they actually start meeting other people.
Therefore, after a breakup people spend days crying themselves to sleep, going on a drinking binge or devouring loads of ice cream. When you run up against such problems, it is quite difficult to remain imperturbable. It is way easier to yield to emotions and fall prey to the circumstances.
It all sounds relatable and sickeningly familiar, but the secret lies in the following — parting with people is much easier than it seems.
Apply “the rule of 150”
150 is a magic number. According to sociologists, it is this very number that sets the limit to how many contacts we may maintain with other people. You won’t succeed in coping with more, try as you might.
Here what Yuval Noah Harari writes in his wonderful book “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”:
Sociological research has shown that the maximum ‘natural’ size of a group bonded by gossip is about 150 individuals. Most people can neither intimately know, nor gossip effectively about, more than 150 human beings. Even today, a critical threshold in human organisations falls somewhere around this magic number.
For the modern world this number may appear as too modest. However, it is very close to being true. Consider your Instagram account, for example. You might well have 1000 subscribers, but when you dig deeper, you will stumble on some amusing facts. We started mutually following half of them at various events. We have not met one another ever since. Some of them belong to the group “of our café-acquaintances”, whom we smile to while passing by. There are also our fellow students, friends of friends and others, whom we don’t want to insult by not following them. To sum up, 150 is the golden mean, with our “sizeable” contacts being significantly limited.
What might be the implications of it? One person’s “no” should be merely perceived as a free seat for another one to take it. Sooner or later it will be filled by someone who will remain in your life forever. Well, at least, much longer than usual.
Use logic instead of emotions
Let’s say there is a breakup. Your significant other does not behave in a way he or she used to. Your relationship is about to be terminated. Hard-hitting though the situation might look, let’s examine it from another perspective. I prefer a practical approach.
Getting upset by the fact that your acquaintance is leaving your social circle is the same as having the blues about strangers not belonging to it.
Can you follow me? Every passer-by is capable of changing your life for the better. They may become your friend, your better half. They can give you positive emotions, take you for a picnic or brew excellent coffee in the mornings. They can be polar opposites to those with whom things did not work out. However, if we don’t get acquainted with them, they won’t fill that void.
In case you don’t feel disconcerted about every “missed” chance in the form of a stranger, there is no need to worry about an obviously unwanted friend who is asking to be expelled from your friend list. Otherwise, we will feel compelled (should we stick to this principle) to literally sob as soon as yet another passer-by is out of sight, which means we will be wasting our emotions.
Don’t fall victim to your phantasy
I am going to say something nasty now: essentially, there is no such thing as friendship. A friendship is not an objective concept that does not require proof, much like gravity, the change of seasons or water’s property for evaporation. Nor can it fall into a category of the intersubjective, since your relationship to a person is known to a few dozens of people tops, not to the whole mankind.
What conclusions can we draw? A friendship can be regarded as an unofficial contract between you and another person. You let this person into your intimate circle and your mind consents to the notion that they are now your friends. The same process takes place in the mind of this person.
In case the contract is rescinded, i.e. the other party does not wish to continue communication, you become the only one who believes in a fictitious phenomenon. Normally, people end up in hospital after coming up with these ideas, and this happens under constraint.
Things did not work out well? It’s no big deal
To put this into practice at the first attempt and to exclude people from your life won’t be an easy thing to do. One needs more of a painful and poignant personal experience in breaking up.
I experienced that for the first time relatively late, at 20 or thereabouts. Back then I came to realize just how futile relationships are (the ones I was hoping for) thanks to my counterpart. I was told “no”, though I was longing for “yes”.
My next following days were very much like those of a protagonist of a cheap classical soap opera, with telephone calls ending in one of the interlocutors abruptly hanging up, terrible mood and attempts to take it out on others. My friend Rodion helped me to extricate myself out of the trap by sending me a voice message. His words still stand out in my mind.
The situation you’re in is no different from millions of others, however special it may seem to you. After all, in a couple of months you will be recalling your present state with laughter.
He was right, although his prophecy took a bit longer to fulfil. Remembering my anguish now I do wear a smile on my face.
You will have enough time for practicing
After a few years my ex-friend stopped hanging around with me. I’ve mentioned this at the beginning of the article. His decision to do so still remains a mystery to me.
Luckily, by that time I had learned how to keep my emotions at bay. On top of that, the above-mentioned methods work pretty well. After a couple of days I was as cool as cucumber again.
Then, after a few months, we happened to meet again. That encounter took place not far away from a subway station in the city center. It was winter. I saw my ex-best friend walking towards the entrance to the station at a distance of about 100 feet from me. I decided to say hello and started taking the glove off my right hand.
However, there was no need for that. On spotting me, he walked on by without caring for an inclination of the head and dropped out of sight down on the escalator. I felt neither animosity nor anger. I pulled back the glove on and kept walking.
One of the 150 seats became vacant.
