7 Strategies People Use to End Friendships

Research on how people end friendships identifies seven major strategies and 43 specific actions taken, shaped by personality, age, and gender.

Friendships are key to satisfaction, rivaling relationships with family and romantic partners to provide often life-long support unencumbered by the demands of genetic influence or, typically, sexual entanglement.

Friendship, defined by Apostolou, in a recent research paper in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (2023), is “a long-term relationship of mutual affection and support between genetically unrelated individuals”, serves important functions of support and assistance favored by evolutionary forces of survival.

Friendships provide family- and partner-like support during times of stress and fullness, going beyond practical interdependence to create an intimate bond based in close attachment, forming the basis of a tight-night community. In addition to support, friendship also serves to stave off loneliness (shown to be detrimental to well-being), as a way to promote the search for a mate, and to advance personal goals through collaborative effort. On that last point, nowadays more than ever, the critical role of relationship in business development has become ever…