Are you really a millennial if someone hasn’t ghosted you? Or maybe you have a friend that comes in and out of your life and you can’t figure out why they keep leaving and coming back so much?
There are different types of friend breaks depending on the relationship, which makes it important to have a mutual understanding rather than just leave the friendship hanging. A break can be useful just to step back and take some time for yourself or having more time to see friends you haven’t seen in a while!
It is completely normal to have friend breaks and I find that after talking to several people about this, it’s a hard conversation to initiate. It can be hard to tell someone you need some space, but it is for your benefit and who knows, maybe the other person may think it’s a good idea too! Although this is also true for friendships that have grown apart, this article is about friendships that need a break because you have been spending more time together than you wish to. Being with someone for days at a time and seeing them all the time can sometimes be exhausting. Rather than getting on each other’s nerves, simply taking some time apart can do you both good.
Having a polite conversation or letting the other person know that you need some time for yourself is much better than ignoring them and letting them guess what is going on. It might hurt for a while, but it is better than letting it simmer and then coming to all sorts of conclusions, which is almost always worse than the real reason. If you’re trying to think about it mental health wise, a friendship should not cause you to be anxious or annoyed. If a particular friendship is draining you, you need a change something to get back up and perhaps seeing other friends or starting different activities can be beneficial for your own mental health. It is better to take a step back and time off rather than to get frustrated to the point where there is an ugly breakup and the friendship becomes irreparable. Your social life needs a balance of different people and a different rhythm!
There’s no time limit or set time you should set a break, but just simply talking to your friends and having mutual understandings of time you want to yourself can make the friendship easier in the long run! Every friendship does not need to have set guidelines of when you are going to hang out with each other, but if the unspoken time you want to spend together happens to go overboard, taking a break could be a good idea!