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I hate you
My bottom lip trembles as I try to finish my Thai meal - my friend and I have argued. She glares at me over her wine glass. I feel like crying and hurrying out of the restaurant. It's much like arguing with a partner. Correction: it's far worse than that.
Friendship fall-outs are traumatic. We just don't expect conflict with friends. We love them dearly but don't sleep with them - surely, the perfect recipe for lifelong, tiff-free relationships. And we need these people. Our families are scattered all over the place; in a survey by Red magazine, eight out of ten women admitted that friends are, at least, as important as family. 'People are concerned with keeping up connections,' says Rachel Claire, Senior Consultant at The Henley Centre. 'We lead much more fragmented lives than our parents did. We move around geographically and switch jobs more often - and it's stressful.'
Which may be why we dread falling out with our friends. Back to disastrous night out with best friend: I felt she was picking fault with my thrown-together outfit, making patronising remarks about my non-too-perfect relationship. She implied I was a soft touch. I bit back, immediately on the defensive, tearing chunks out of her relationship too. We left the restaurant, said cool goodbyes - and I hurried home feeling strangely distraught.
In this instance, the friendship survived. I called the following day to tell her how angry I was; she apologised, filling me in on the various factors that had put her in a stinking mood. Sometimes you ask yourself: do I want to remain friends with this person? In this instance, I did (she wasn't usually like this; blame it on men, weather, hormones, British Rail - the usual suspects). But sometimes, a friend is destined for the ex-pile.
Natasha, 33, recalls the day when her friend was promoted over her. 'We had both gone for a more senior position and she'd got it - but that wasn't the reason we fell out. On her first day in her new job, she called me into her office and announced that despite our 10-year friendship, she was boss, I was not, and that things were going to change between us. I felt utterly betrayed and, although I managed to cope on a professional level, our friendship died that day.'
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