Is It Time To Makeup With An Ex-Friend?

From Maya Jama and Stormzy to Davide and Ekin-Su, there has been plenty of celeb couples giving love a second-chance this year. But these rekindled-romances aren’t the only reunions we’ve seen, as plenty of friendships have been getting a second lease of life as well. Most notably Kylie Jenner and Jordyn Woods. When the pair fell-out in 2019, it seemed like their seven-year friendship was over and the earth scorched in its wake.

But four years after the fallout, Kylie and Jordyn were spotted hanging-out together for the first time in July 2023, and then officially relaunched their friendship publicly in September, when Ky posted a TikTok of herself and Jordyn hanging out backstage at a photoshoot. Selena Gomez and Francia Rasia also put their fallout behind them this year.

The pair were incredibly close since their teen-starlet days, and in 2017, Francia even donated a kidney to Selena. But in 2022, rumours of a rift began to swirl. Luckily Sel and Francia managed to get their friendship back on track this year. Selena publicly put their drama to rest by posting a sweet 35th b-day tribute to Francia. Speaking about their fall out, Francia told AP: “I had to grow, and she had to grow, and some of the best relationships I know took some time apart and then came back together, and they were better than ever.”        

While the ups-and-downs of romantic relationships can be tough, friendships can be even more complicated and receive a lot less focus. Romances have much more defined stages, milestones, and even endings. But while friendships play just as an important role in our lives, they can be far less clear.

If an issue occurs in a romance, at some point it will have to be addressed and may lead to a clearly-defined breakup. Whereas problems in a friendship can go unresolved, leading to the relationship drifting into a grey-zone of awkward encounters and unsettled scores. Friendships are also more likely to drift apart over the years, whereas if a romantic pairing is drifting, a clean-cut end to the romance is much more likely.

Given the confusing nature of a dwindling friendship, the idea of reviving your platonic pairings can seem nearly impossible. However, Kylie and Jordyn are giving us hope and, let’s face it, now is the time of year to let bygones-be-bygones.

Christmas is all about reconnecting with people (whether you like it or not). Thousands of us will descend upon our hometowns for the occasion, and will hopefully run into some pals…and possibly some former friends. But while spending 12 pubs avoiding eye-contact and edging away from someone sounds like a riot, perhaps it’s time we learned to repair our fractured friendships.

Before jumping back in, it’s good to consider if your relationship is worth reviving. As Life Coach Erica McKinney explains: “It’s really asking yourself, what you got from that friendship? If you look back on the friendship, what did you like about it? What was important to you? What’s the meaning of that person in your life? Sometimes when people look back they’ll realise that they’ve outgrown that. But then other times they can realise that person, the history with them, the way they make me laugh, the way they supported me, that’s really important.”

If you decided that relationship is something you want to try and work on, then the first step is shifting your mind-set as you attempt reconciliation. “If you want something to work out as a friendship, try to really positively frame it, and I don’t mean washing over anything negative, but setting it in a frame of ‘you mean a lot to me, I do miss what we had’ and then bring it up the truth of whatever needs to be addressed.

“It’s really vulnerable to say ‘I miss you but I didn’t like that you did this’ or ‘I’m sorry I did that.’ So people often try and wash over that part, but then it can really linger, so it’s better to have a proper chat.” 

Of course, approaching a conversation with your former bestie might seem daunting, but Erica recommends Marshall Rosenberg’s method of non-violent communication which could make things smoother.

“The idea is to focus it on ‘I’ statements rather than ‘you’ statements – you did this, when you do that, when you caused this and you made me feel.  If you go in for blame, it’ll get a reaction, it will cause defensiveness,” she explains. 

“So when you’re talking about a difficult thing, instead of starting from ‘you’ statements, try some ‘I’ statements. There’s a framework of four statements that will really help. 

“Firstly, ‘what I observed or what I noticed’, the idea is if you’re bringing up a problem with somebody else, it should be quite specific. Secondly, ‘what I felt about what I noticed.’ Next is ‘what I need’ so you might need them to recognise that they hurt you or to say sorry. Then there’s the final one, which is ‘what I request.’ So it might be, ‘I’d really like us to kind of spend some time together and kind of begin to build up that trust again, or maybe just to check in every few months.’”

There is no clear-and-fast way to resolve issues or repair friendships, and your relationship might not be the same as before, so it’s important to be honest about how your platonic-situationship is developing. And if more conversations are needed about your boundaries, then honest and open communication is the best policy. 

“Gently see how the friendship proceeds and be willing to speak up if something isn’t right. That doesn’t mean you have to be catching every little thing, that’s not helpful either. But if there’s big things, try and just speak them out,” Erica shares.

If things aren’t working out a second time round, then it’s okay to acknowledge that you’re not compatible, while remaining respectful. As Erica says: “There is different levels of friendship, we all naturally have some people who are more acquaintance-type friends, and some people are deep friends.

“So it’s like moving that person to a different category. And being okay with that for yourself, trying to remind yourself that ‘we were good friends at one point, but now, we’re in a different place. I wish that person well. If I meet them, I will be respectful to them as another human being.’”

This article originally appeared in the December 2023 issue of STELLAR magazine. 

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