What Happens When A Friend Dumps You For A New Relationship
From the fashion, the music, and the boyfriend drama, Everything I Know About Love is a deeply relatable show. And there’s one experience that the series truly nails: the specific pain of feeling abandoned by a friend in a new relationship.
In the seven-part Stan series, protagonist Maggie starts her post-uni life living in a sharehouse with her childhood bestie, Birdy, and two other friends. In the first episode, they are out partying to the early morning and experimenting with some elicit drugs, culminating with the young and free friendship crew rolling down a hill as the sun rises.
It’s peak early 20s, when all your friends are single and nights out are full of potential and possibilities.
However, Birdy quickly started her first relationship with Nathan, the housemate of Street, a toxic man Maggie was hooking up with at the time. While Maggie and Street didn’t make it through the ‘I love you’ phase, Birdy and Nathan fell fast in love, and the nights previously reserved for Maggie, Birdy now spent with her new boyfriend.
Best friends forever? #EverythingIKnowAboutLove pic.twitter.com/tiyJRAVjQb
— Working Title (@Working_Title) June 27, 2022
Maggie was left spiralling over how her friendship had drastically changed, filling the hole she felt from Birdy’s absence with partying, one-night stands, and channeling all her energy into a new job. Eventually, Birdy attempted to make more time for Maggie but their friendship was never quite the same, especially after Birdy decided to move out and in with Nathan.
The series’ final scene has Maggie sitting on the floor of Birdy’s empty room looking devastated, summing up a form of heartbreak rarely represented on TV: when you feel dumped by a friend.
This is a feeling that’s all too common. Whether you’re a friend who has been ditched, or are the friend who has done the ditching, getting caught up in a new relationship can alter, fracture, and even end friendships.
As this is such a shared experience, we asked people to recall the times they’ve felt their friend dropped them for a partner.
Here are a few stories of people who have felt dumped by a friend in a new relationship:
“I had a friend who I would have considered one of my best friends at the time. A few months into a new relationship, her boyfriend became her world, and she couldn’t go anywhere without him. She was offended by the idea of not having him there during dinners and other social outings with close friends. She soon stopped wanting to attend any social outings without him, under the pretence that we were discriminating against him by him not being by her side at all times.
“It was frustrating because I could see her melding her personal identity with his, to the point where they were supposed to be considered as almost a single entity — which was not the friend I knew. Soon she drifted away from any social interactions that didn’t directly involve him, and started saying that my friendship group didn’t like him, which wasn’t the case at all. This perceived prejudice absolutely killed the friendship, to the point at which today I don’t speak to her at all. Which is very sad but unfortunately not uncommon from my understanding.”
– Davey
“I am definitely a friend who gets dumped when a friend starts dating someone. As a perpetually single girl navigating the dating field, when my friends are single we go through all the motions of Hot Girl/Boy Summers, chaotic nights out, whatever it may be, because I guess I’m a reliable Good Time Gal — up until they find someone to romantically fill the void.
“Back in my early 20s, it used to get to me and I’d allow myself to wallow in victim mode about it, or my ego would feel a little bruised and used. In my 30s, I’m not that concerned — it’s hard enough to juggle work, social lives, and relationships as it is, and I can almost guarantee most mates will pop their head back out again when the initial honeymoon phase is over. It can change your friendships and, sure, they may not be as keen to go out dancing and meeting people but as long as they’re still putting in an effort, that’s all that matters.”
– Tahlia
“Basically, a friend (who I later realised I unwittingly had a crush on) got with some guy who was in his 20s. We were in Year 10 at the time, but she met him at one of her parents’ house parties. Allegedly, he sold my friend’s older brother some weed and then he and my friend hit it off (this is the story she told anyway). She started missing heaps of school and when she did turn up, she’d lost heaps of weight and claimed she’d been sick.
“I was very teenage hormonally upset, worried, and a bit jealous. So, I confronted her about it, told her that I was worried her new BF was turning her into a junkie. I remember VIVIDLY her saying that if I wasn’t so immature, I would’ve seen she was just in love. Anyway, she told me she was going to drop out of school to do TAFE with said boyfriend and to get away from ‘stuffy boring bitches’ like me. She did and I never really saw her again and to this day, she has me blocked on Facebook, even though I didn’t join FB until two years after this happened.”
– Anon
“When I was at uni, one of my best friends was a guy I talked to almost every day. About a year into our friendship, he told me that he’d started dating a mutual friend from our course. I remember him being overly dramatic when he told me this — it was only later that I realised that for some reason, their relationship meant that our friendship was over. I’ll never get over how heartbreaking it was. We’ve been out of touch ever since.”
– Reena
“My friend is a high-maintenance person when she’s not in a relationship: she wants to do activities, watch movies, go clubbing, pretty much spend every waking hour together. It’s intense but it does keep things fun and I’m never bored ‘cos I always have a sidekick! But as soon as she falls for a guy, she shifts all that energy into him and drops me like a hot potato.
“Before her most recent relationship, she had been single for a few years so I had grown accustomed to spending all my time with this one person. When that was stripped away — as she now spent all her time with her boyfriend — I was left with a feeling of loss. That feeling of loss turned into resentment and anger which was often misdirected at the boyfriend rather than at my friend. Over time, I adapted to my new normal and eventually the friend struck more of balance between seeing her friends and partner, but those first few months still hurt.”
– Taylor
And here’s the other side of the story: when you’re the person who dumped a friend for a relationship.
“I was the friend that ditched another friend, although it happened in high school and it wasn’t an intentional direction I took. When I got together with my high school GF at 16, me and my best friend started to drift apart. The girlfriend at the time didn’t really like my best buddy, and I think because I had never had anything romantic like that at that point in my life, I subconsciously just put some space between my friend and I.
“It wasn’t a massive issue until this one drunk night when my buddy basically laid out how he felt in front of me and then I knew he really resented me for it and felt a bit lonely. We got over it in time and the friendship still goes strong, as opposed to the first relationship, which went on for way too long and just became rather toxic. She and I are on fine terms but it’s not like I go out of my way to hang out with her, unlike with my buddy!”
– Anon