Disappearing Friends

Friendship break-ups can be as devastating as romantic splits, but they’re not given as much emotional airtime or talked about in the same way. Maybe we should start, says Deborah Shapiro, who recalls what happened when her closest friend left her for good

- 

Julie and I sat across from each other in an open office at an internet start-up, which makes it sound much glossier than the scrappy enterprise it actually was, in the very early days of online magazines. I swear we got work done, though I mostly just remember us giddily typing instant messages to each other and cackling at our desks. About what? I have no idea, but it was endlessly entertaining. We didn’t mind the death stares we got from our co-workers. They weren’t part of it. What began at work soon spilled into the rest of our lives, the way it often does when you’re in your early twenties, with few responsibilities other than paying your rent. We became fast friends. Julie had grown up in the city, whereas I was from the suburbs. She possessed a worldliness and self-assurance I found mysterious. She had little patience for bullshit or pretension and I somehow made the cut, which thrilled me. I trusted her judgement. She saw straight through people, with an emotional sophistication I was in awe of. I wanted to be more like that. And if she wanted to spend time with me, it meant there must be something about me that she admired, envied, loved.

We lived near each other, spending what felt like a never-ending series of weekend afternoons together that bled into evenings and drinks. Too many drinks. This was before the days of online dating and we were operating on an assumption that we might meet our next boyfriend at one of several dive bars. But who, really, did we think we would meet? We didn’t want to meet anyone. We were happy with each other. When we envisioned growing old together, in a