Best Friends Seem to Share Just About Everything

by Jamie Langbein ’13

Relationships are a tricky thing. That’s what makes them so exciting – they’re unpredictable. Over the past couple years, my long-distance best friend has been in three different relationships. When things turned south for her at the end of each of the relationships, she turned to me for support like I promised her she always could. But as this happened, her relationship troubles and pains started to become the source of my troubles and pains, too.

My friend’s ex-boyfriends cover the scale of crazy ex-boyfriends pretty well. There is a cheater, a bitter-hold-a-grudge-forever guy, and a straight-out psychopath. They weren’t all like that at the beginning of the relationships, but by the breakup some of their … shall we say “uglier” truths came to light.

When she told me what was going on and how much the boyfriend at the time had hurt her, I was upset. My best friend is like my rock. I look to her for strength. But when her strength to deal with all the pains that surrounded her started to wane, I began to feel troubled too. Of course, I tried to stay strong for her, but I can’t tell you if my attempts at comforting her were even any help. I can only tell you the pain I felt for her.

I’ve only ever been in one relationship, but I definitely can tell you that being in a romantic relationship affects relationships with other friends. As humans, we feel compassion for others. Depending on the strength of our bond with another person, how we feel can negatively or positively affect how they feel too. Most of the time we can’t even help it. Empathy is like a virus– it spreads quickly and easily. People catch emotions when we wish they wouldn’t. Emotions are an infectious disease, and we have no choice but to share them.

My friend’s relationships definitely affected me. The distance between us meant I was unable to comfort her except for over the phone. Our busy lives meant that we were not always on the same schedule, and sometimes we did not have time to talk to each other no matter how badly we needed to. None of this made any of the pain and happenings any easier, but we managed.

After this most recent period of our relationship, my friend is back to her beautiful self. She is confident and strong. I feel better because she feels better. We’re connected to each other, and we always will be.