In our society today, it feels like we have somehow been conditioned to think of heartbreak only as the end result of a romantic relationship — one that failed to work.

I understand that we live in a hierarchical society where one thing trumps another. However, we must not ignore those other events that, no matter how insignificant, still cause heartbreak among people.

One of these somewhat atypical, or dare I say, unconventional heartbreaks, is the friendship breakup. It seems to me, from my interaction with people around me and on social media, that friendship breakups — compared to romantic breakups — are often overlooked or treated with less importance. I feel they should, in fact, be given the same level of attention, if not more.

“Maintaining high-quality friendships is a key predictor of well-being during emerging adulthood, yet factors leading to friendship dissolution — defined here as actions that may decrease friendship quality or end the relationship completely — are poorly understood.” This direct quote from a research article conducted by Thomas Khullar, Miriam Kirmayer and Melanie Dirks in “Relationship dissolution in the friendships of emerging adults: How, when, and why?” supports the notion of friend breakups.

So, what is it about friendship breakups that make them seem not that big of a deal to us or make us not want to talk about them as much as we randomly talk about our latest crush?

From my experience with a significant friendship breakup in the summer of 2022, I realized friendship breakups can be complicated.  They’re full of ambiguous feelings and unresolved issues—whether due to betrayal, growing apart or physical distance. Or, in my case, discovering a close friend’s true character just did not sit right with me anymore.

Friendship breakups often resemble romantic ones but differ in the support we receive and provide. The support we get from those around us, plus the support we give when going through a friendship breakup differs from that of a romantic relationship breakup.

Grief is a feeling we all experience after the loss of something, and in this case, someone. Everyone grieves differently, it is true, but we all require a support system while we go through our different stages of grief.

In our society today, social media plays a big part in our expression of self. Usually, we share life experiences online with multiple strangers hoping to get some sort of relatability from them. The norm with romantic breakups as I have noticed online, is that you are either boldly thrashing your ex-partner or amicably sharing public statements of your mutual reason to go your separate ways. This was the case with Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas, whose news of their divorce was confirmed through a post made on Sophie Turner’s Instagram page.

Rarely do I see people publicly stating that they are no longer friends with that one person. Everyone would always see you together on your Instagram story. When that stops, the public is left to speculate and “investigate” using your past and most recent posts. This is all to say I have noticed that friendship breakups are just not shared much, and I think it is because the shock and, frankly, the embarrassment never leaves us.

In most cases, we get into romantic relationships having in the back of our minds that there is the possibility of it ending one day, but I don’t think we ever look that far ahead when we choose to become friends with someone. That is if the intention of friendship was ever clearly stated.

This is why we try our best to conceal the breakup by avoiding bringing it up in conversations or making the excuse that “oh, we were just friends so it’s not a big deal,” when it is, in fact, a big deal. It is a big deal because you have just experienced an emotional loss, someone who you have constantly shared a lot with is suddenly no longer in your life, and it is not because they died.

So, we need to talk about it and grieve properly from it because if we do not, how then are we supposed to heal from it, learn from it, and more importantly, how else do we get the information across that friendship breakups are normal? They are just as important as going through a breakup from a romantic relationship.

To further kick this stigma, the media need to step up their game in playing their part in making us more aware of friend breakups. There are countless books written, movies and television shows made about romantic relationship breakups and only a handful of friendship breakups.

The last two seasons of the HBO series titled, Insecure, which explored the dynamics of two female best friends and a buildup of issues that eventually led to them parting ways, is an example I can provide after seeing it in 2021.

Friendship breakups deserve more recognition, as the losses can be just as impactful. Portraying them in more books, films and television shows can help normalize the experience, offering us young adults who are very new to this a roadmap for navigating the complex feelings that come with them. This will help people better understand, process and find support for the emotional fallout that often accompanies these indeed significant endings