Why I Broke Up With My Best Friend

I grew busier and busier in my professional life, and while helping Kate work through her problems had felt at first like a privilege, it increasingly came to feel like a burden. I thought her needy; she thought me selfish.

We fell apart. Without going into too many personal details, I will say that this happened both gradually, then suddenly. A break was much needed—our lives were too interconnected, and we were too dependent on each other. To this day, it remains the most painful break I've ever endured from another person. I had lost my best friend.

I spent the first year of our breakup dutifully avoiding Kate; the thought of bumping into her in public terrified me. We lived half a mile away from each other, on an island. The first time I saw her at a school function, we ignored each other. Our once unbreakable bond had been broken, and in its place was a cold silence.

There was a way in which my friendship with Kate had allowed me to fend off loneliness, and giving up that kind of relationship was a scary thought.