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Known as "The Friendship Doctor," Dr. Irene Levine recently published a book called "Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup With Your Best Friend" about the most effective ways to evaluate the different friendships in your life.
"We're brought up with this romanticized myth that you're supposed to keep your best friends forever... We hear things in the media that we should try to stay friends, which makes it very uncomfortable. We only have a finite period of time and we have to focus our time and intention on the friendships that are rewarding," said Levine, a professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine.
Many students experience losing high school friends as they start college - you make new friends, you don't have as much time to pick up the phone, you basically create a new life for yourself that may or may not include your once 'long lost sister.' While friendships are sometimes destroyed by unavoidable forces such as distance, they can also end because of relationship problems brought on by one or both of the friends.
Freshman Lara Drazin said that a best friend breakup can be just as emotional as one with a boyfriend because of the withdrawals and feelings people go through.
Two years ago, Drazin's best friend went away to college and the two lost contact, she said.
"It felt like a breakup. It was almost like I was in a relationship with her even though I wasn't. It was a friendship but it was like a breakup when she went away," Drazin said.
