Old friendships, New problems

One of my roommates is my old friend Eva. We met in high school during a time when I didn’t have many friends, and she helped me feel understood, valued and seen. Research shows that having a friend with positive energy increases your own happiness by 15%, but Eva was such an awesome friend that it felt like her friendship was responsible for 70% of my happiness. However, as we both started university, our friendship dynamic has shifted. I started to make new friends and concentrate on my studies. 

Even though we are roommates, Eva and I do not hang out as often as we used to. While I think that this is a natural progression of our friendship, Eva let me know that she feels like I have been ignoring her. This was frustrating for me since I wanted her to understand that I simply do not have as much time as I did back then. She kept asking me to do stuff together even more frequently than before, even when I tried to explain to her that I want to use some of my free time for extra studying. I never saw this side of her before; it was odd to me that she was acting this way. It felt like she was being jealous of the new people in my life, and I also noticed her being very possessive over me. Eva ignores our other roommates when we are all together and actively ignores them. This makes the atmosphere in the apartment uncomfortable and makes me feel guilty because of her behaviour. 

Eva’s behaviour was creating an uncomfortable atmosphere that began affecting my friends and our roommates. I noticed a dynamic shift in her personality once we started university, which shows that the development of our friendships can change over time. The stages in high school focus more on sexuality and social exploration, compared to young adulthood, which focuses on intimacy versus isolation. Therefore, in university, I was seeking deeper, more interdependent relationships while maintaining the workload of my studies. Eva, on the other hand, seemed to be feeling that “isolation” side, as she would cling tighter to me for our friendship bond. This made me feel like she is not the person she used to be, and I really miss our old connection. As I continue to grow and learn about friendship, navigating this new stage of my young adulthood is tricky sometimes. I will always value the responsiveness Eva showed me throughout our friendship, but things have changed now. I realized that maintaining a healthy friendship with others as well as a social network entails finding a healthy balance between honouring old bonds and embracing the natural evolution of who we become.