To clarify, it isn't my buddy break-up, but one close enough to be painful, encompassing and not a little disheartening.

Also, I've only had the opportunity to cursorily and distractedly click through in the last several days. So much heartache in so many different areas for everyone, but I've missed you all so.

Bunny hugs and snugs.

I can sympathize, Fris. There's a few people who I fisrt encountered online, but who I've met (and in one case hung out quite often with) in real life, who were tight with me but who I can now not even stand to be virtually around, let alone have a drink with them. The feeling of a that is bad, not the same as a romance ending, but it sucks in a new and exciting way, cause romance is romance but your buddies are supposed to be your anchors, and when they let you down..man, it's rough.

I choose my friends more carefully now than when I was younger, and I studiously avoid people who bring so much drama to a group that it necessitates a messy breakup. But when I was an adolescent/teen, up until junior year in college really, friendships were very agonizing for me. I have no real filter between what I think and what I say, which has a tendency to inflame nasty situations. I feel for you, Fris, and the best thing for those on the sidelines to do is to offer mutual support and to STAY OUT OF IT - something I wish I'd known when I was younger.

jmc and muddgirl, thanks so much for your posts. I've gone through it before, though it was always so closely tied to larger events such as identity shifts (adolescence) and locale changes (adolescence and adulthood) that the more delicate dynamics of friendship were subsumed by the grander context at work.

It would seem that this isn't nearly as common of an experience as I initially thought that it might be and I'm sure that's a good, good thing.