A Psychologist Explains How to Revive a Dead Friendship

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Some friendships are relationships you'll have for the rest of your life, but unless y'all're very, very lucky, those aren't the norm. Most often, friendship looks similar something messier: People will float in and out of your life as you change, or they change, or circumstances change. There are moves. There are fallings-out. Schedules get busy. You're probably not still super tight with your seventh-grade all-time friend; in fact, as you enter your 30s, you begin to shed a lot of the friends you fabricated in your before years. In most cases, that doesn't mean you've banished those people from your life forever; information technology just means you've gone in different directions. Maybe someday yous'll find your way back.

But reviving a friendship that's died requires more than merely hitting the play push button on something that's been paused, explains Irene Levine, a psychiatry professor at NYU and the author of All-time Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup With Your All-time Friend. Information technology'due south not every bit simple equally just picking upwards the human relationship you had before. Information technology's also more difficult than starting things from scratch with someone new. Hither's her advice for how to become things rolling with a new old friend.

Whether you broke upwards with some sense of finality or just let things fade out, there'southward a reason y'all ended things final fourth dimension effectually — and whatever pushed you two apart may not take gone away. "Sometimes we romanticize our friendships, and possibly we forget some of the reasons why we ended [the human relationship]," Levine says. "You might be going back into the aforementioned morass that you left."

Earlier you lot attempt to reach out, then, it might be wise to take some time and do a friendship postmortem: Were you lot too decorated to brand much fourth dimension for each other? If that was the case, has it really changed? Or, alternatively, if you couldn't stand the style she sucked at listening and fabricated everything virtually her, what makes you think you'd be okay with it now? "If y'all call back it's going to be a completely different person than the person yous bankrupt up with, y'all're probably being unrealistic," Levine warns. That'southward not to say that they haven't gotten better, or that it'due south not worth giving things a shot — merely that you lot should be clear-eyed about what makes a friendship bargain-breaker for you, and exist prepared to abort the mission if y'all need to.

Specially if yous've only moved, it can exist tempting to contact everyone in your phone that lives in your new city — an old army camp buddy, an simple-schoolhouse classmate, really anybody who's always 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 lot do take a foundation of shared experiences," Levine says. "So it does give y'all a jump start in the friendship."

Still, that doesn't mean you should immediately assume the same level of intimacy y'all one time had. "You lot might want to try to get acquaintances first, rather than friends," she says. Yous may be starting slightly further ahead than you lot would with someone brand-new, just you're still going to want to permit things unfold at the aforementioned pace as you would later on hitting it off with a stranger. Start with coffee, not a spill-your-guts vent session.

Because, in a way, they are. Even if you accept that easy, clicking, friendship-at-starting time-sight feeling once you see them over again, it takes more than a spark to make a relationship worthy of your time. "You really need experience and time to build trust with another person, whether it'southward an onetime friend or a new friend," Levine says. Ease oft complements things like trust, merely it isn't a stand-in.

Likewise, that sense of instant reconnection might be one-sided — we can often exist blinded by our own desire to brand things work, whether out of loneliness or excitement over having this person back in our lives. And that optimism tin can make it easy to miss red flags, or signs that the other person isn't as into the reunion. "You might misperceive social cues, [or] she might not be listening when you think she is, or she might be judgmental and you don't realize," Levine explains. If you lot run headlong into insta-friendship, you might not observe that information technology'due south non a fit until after y'all've already invested time and emotional energy. Being cautious, on the other manus, keeps you from that's pouring yourself into a relationship that'south a nonstarter; if things progress more slowly back into 18-carat friendship, information technology's more likely to be a existent, sustainable bond.

Another way to make sure you're both as invested in reviving your friendship: Don't pressure them into starting things right away. Email is better for starting time contact than a telephone call or text, Levine says, considering it's less firsthand. "It gives the other person a chance to think nearly it," she explains. "Just because you're fix to rekindle a friendship doesn't mean the other person's fix — you've given it a lot of thought, but the other person could exist caught off guard." If they're into the thought, neat! Brand that coffee date.

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

A Psychologist Explains How to Revive a Dead Friendship