Friendships are built on mutual respect, trust, and effort. But what happens when you start feeling like you're being used? A few days ago, Reddit user Lookingtohide shared her story on r/AITAH about being uninvited from a baby shower she had volunteered to cook for. All the hours of preparation, careful planning, and money she spent on ingredients suddenly seemed wasted—or so she thought. It turned out the mom-to-be still expected the food.
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This woman put her life on pause to help her old friend have a memorable baby shower
Image credits: Airam Dato-on / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Only to be left out in the end
Image credits: Kateryna Hliznitsova / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Fellipe Ditadi / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Lookingtohide
The author of the post also shared the chat she'd had with the mom-to-be
Image credits: Lookingtohide
Image credits: Getty Images / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Lookingtohide
Losing friends is a normal part of life
Friendships feel like a priority to many of us, yet recent data suggests we have fewer than we once did.
In the United States, for example, the share of people saying they have no close friends at all went up from 3 per cent in 1990 to 12 per cent in 2021, according to surveys by Gallup and the Survey Center on American Life.
Similarly, the percentage of respondents saying they could count 10 people or more as their close friends went down from 33 per cent in 1990 to 13 per cent in 2021.
However, the share of people saying they had a smaller group of close friends (one to four) grew from 32 per cent to 48 per cent over the same period of time, so you could argue that we're pivoting more to the quality of our relationships rather than quantity.
As painful or infuriating as these experiences might be, growing apart with someone you've been close with isn't rare.
In fact, one study discovered that people, on average, lose about half of their friends every seven years.
According to Marisa Franco, author of Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make — And Keep — Friends, there can be a number of reasons why this happens.
"[Maybe] there's not enough reciprocity. And so someone gets upset over time," she said. "In friendship, we don't make the unsaid said. So small things can kind of accumulate. And because they're never directly addressed, people get to a point where they want to end the friendship before actually addressing the problem, whereas if they had intervened sooner, they might have been able to save the friendship."
And sometimes things just... fizzle out.
Image credits: Meg Aghamyan / unsplash (not the actual photo)
As the woman's story went viral, she joined the discussion in its comments
People pretty much unanimously said the woman did nothing wrong and supported her decision to refuse delivering the food
When navigating the complexities of friendships, it's important to recognize how misinterpretations or assumptions can escalate tensions, much like the situation where external judgments clouded the reality of a delicate moment.
For a thoughtful exploration on how jumping to conclusions can affect relationships and community dynamics, consider reading more about a mother's perspective that brought clarity amidst widespread misunderstanding in a similar social challenge.
Want to make sense of complicated human dynamics? Visit our Family Dynamics Hub for expert-backed guides on toxic behavior, setting boundaries, and emotional healing.