RESEARCH_FILE
Melanie A. Dirks
McGill University
Known for:Research on how friendships dissolve from childhood through emerging adulthood
SEE THE PRACTICE
Turn a thought this research explains into one clear move.
THE THOUGHT
“If we drifted apart, it was never real”
YOUR RECORDED RESPONSE
“It was real while we were in it, even if it did not last.”
ONE PRIVATE MOVE
Spend under ten minutes moving one old photo, message screenshot, or keepsake from a visible spot into a folder, envelope, or notes file, and add one sentence labeling what it meant at the time.
Key findings
- 2021
In emerging adults' accounts of ended friendships, dissolution was overwhelmingly gradual — declining contact and closeness rather than a discrete breakup event — and frequently unannounced, so the ending itself often had to be inferred from silence. Relationship dissolution in the friendships of emerging adults: How, when, and why? ↗
- 2025
With Santucci and Lydon, she reviewed friendship dissolution from childhood through young adulthood, integrating the scattered literature on why friendships end and how people experience those endings across development. With or without you: Understanding friendship dissolution from childhood through young adulthood ↗