Megan Gaen discovers the painful phenomena of quiet quitting friendships
Defined as being mentally and emotionally checked out of a job without notifying anyone, quiet quitting is taking over the HR world and LinkedIn. However, it is not just jobs you can quit quietly; this new phenomenon can be applied to friendship groups too.
Journalist and author of BFF? The Truth About Female Friendship, Claire Cohen explained that quiet quitting a friendship group involves ‘a slow retreat, whether that’s not replying to their messages, making excuses not to meet up, ‘forgetting’ their birthday. It’s the slow drip, drip, drip of poison into a friendship as you make less and less effort.’
She said: “To me, quiet quitting a friendship isn’t the same as pulling the plug and suddenly cutting all contact – something many women I’ve interviewed have experienced and found heartbreakingly brutal and hard to recover from when you don’t know why the other person has dumped you. ‘Quiet quitting’ a friendship is arguably no less hurtful.”
If your friends start distancing themselves from you, this can be extremely painful and personal, especially when you have no answers as to why this has happened. Sadly, many women are experiencing this. Plus-size content creator and founder of CurvyAu, an exclusive community for Aussie curvy women, CurvySam has spoken about this on her TikTok account.
She explained the experience of her ‘friends’ excluding her to Disgraceful Magazine: “Whilst I’ve had many friendship changes over the years the one that hit the hardest was from a group of curve friends – people I’ve had constant contact with throughout my career. We’ve stayed at each other’s homes, had trips away and spent years hanging out. Until one day that wasn’t the case; I wasn’t included. No one would tell me anything. They started befriending others I had a falling out with a long time ago.
“I felt for a long time that something was up. During the early days I questioned if I had done something to upset them and was reassured life was just busy. But the hardest part was, the quiet quitting played out publicly on social media. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone to see your ‘friends’ go on the girls weekend you’d all planned posted across social media reaching more than 500,000 people.”
CurvySam’s social media, which is a huge part of her career, became a place of stress and anxiety. “The online curve community [were] questioning every day, ‘why weren’t you at her baby shower?’ ‘Why were you not invited to her wedding?’ ‘Why were you not at the girls’ weekend away?’ ‘Why are they not inviting you anymore?’,” she said. “It got to the point where I stopped opening my DMs. Because I didn’t know what to say, I had no idea why all of this happened. And having strangers constantly asking me was hard.”
Taking a proactive approach was the only way CurvySam could get through, she had to set boundaries with her online community, asking them to stop asking her about it. “Every time someone asked it reopened wounds I’d worked so hard to heal,” she said.
But protecting yourself from the outset is difficult to do though, explained Claire. “It’s hard to protect yourself from the feelings that come with a friend quiet quitting,” she said. “Needless to say, if you walk around thinking that all your friends hate you and are trying to come up with exit plans, you won’t be a very good (or relaxed) friend. And it probably isn’t true.”
What she would recommend you do if you feel neglected by a friend is to talk to them. “I know, it seems impossible and anti-protecting your feelings, but it’s the best thing you can do for your own peace of mind,” she said. “One woman I interviewed on this topic, told me about a friend who she’d been trying to drift from but who called her out on it. They ended up having an incredibly emotional conversation about it, in which she was able to admit that she just couldn’t give her friend as much time and energy as she needed. They did part ways in the end, but on really good terms – all because the friend who felt she was being quitted on had the courage to ask why.”
Claire noted though that some people may not feel able to do this, and suggested they can ‘try and take control of the situation in other ways’. She said: “Perhaps write your friend a letter, expressing some of your feelings and concerns. You don’t even have to send it, sometimes just seeing your emotional response to someone else’s behaviour in black and white can be quite eye-opening and help you mentally prepare for the fact that the friendship may not be as stable as you’d imagined.”
These measures, though, will always be taken after some level of drifting has already happened; there has to be a reason why you’re questioning a friendship or friend.
For those who are quiet quitting a friendship and not addressing issues directly, both Claire and CurvySam have messages for you:
“If you’re backing away from a friend in this way, you’re presumably still not telling them there’s a problem and confronting the issue. Can you imagine how paranoid you’d feel if the shoe was on the other foot and you were constantly worried that your friend was cooling things off?” asked Claire.
CurvySam added: “Drifting apart when life is busy is one thing, but quiet quitting especially in a public way is CRUEL and inhumane.”
Instead, they both suggest that having a respectful conversation to ‘end things’ – almost like a breakup – is the best course of action. “Tell your friend why you’re stepping away, but pay attention to how you deliver the news,” advised CurvySam. “Be kind and mature, especially if your friend didn’t see it coming and feels hurt or confused by your decision.”
Claire echoed this sentiment: “It’s fine to end a friendship if that’s what you really want, of course, but try to remember what that person meant to you before. Presumably you loved, liked, and respected them at one time… so channel those feelings into ending it in the right way. For you both.”
CurvySam concluded: “If someone has been a part of your life then give them a moment of your day. You both deserve to move on in peace. Because if you quiet quit, I can guarantee you it will haunt you forever.”
Disgraceful Magazine 