Friendships are unique in that when they end, the people involved can walk away without any explanation whatsoever. This means that sometimes we're left wondering what happened, especially if the breakup took us by surprise. You might be asking yourself one of these questions:

What Did I Do Wrong?

This is by far the most common thing we wonder when a friend suddenly stops talking to us or when they just tell us out of the blue that they're not interested in being friends anymore.

Since we didn't get the closure we wanted (in the form of a final discussion where we can fully absorb that the relationship has come to an end) we have a tendency to go over everything we said or did that might have caused offense over the last couple of years.

While it's good to self-reflect so we can do better with other friendships (if indeed we did something that was thoughtless and offensive), the truth is that the end of a friendship cannot always be attributed to one thing. Rather than beat yourself up mentally with the analysis behind "Why did I do wrong?" appreciate the gifts that the friendship brought you and try your best to meet new people (if you're in need of more friends) and move on.

Should I Have Tried Harder to Work Things Out?

If you and a friend had a major blow up that ended your friendship, you might sit back and wonder if you could have done more to prevent it all from getting so bad. You might go over the way you responded, what you said, when you said things, and even what you weren't able to forgive.

Very often, friends aren't able to forgive after a big argument until they end their friendship and get some distance from each other. When they're with their friend, still seeing them and trying to work it out, it can become too much emotionally to embrace a forgiveness mindset.

But when the friendship is over, you have the time to look back on things. Your view of the situation might be softer, and as a result you'll feel that you can forgive. Ironically, this is also the time that some go over the things they did and said with an obsessive-like focus, all in an effort to see if they could have done something in the past to change the present.

If you've regretted ending your friendship, you can try to approach your friend again, but be cautious here. If things weren't good, there was a reason for it. Just because you feel you will be "different" with the friendship going forward, it doesn't mean your friend will be. It takes two to be in a friendship. (You can't do it alone.)

You also can't change the past. You can only embrace the present, and whatever lessons you've learned from it, and move on.

Will I Ever Find Another Friend Like Them?

You'll have a variety of different friends throughout your life, so you cannot focus on one or two qualities that you liked in a certain friend and then hope to get them in every friend.

If you hold a mental checklist up to potential new friends, you'll be idealizing your past friendship. You'll create a standard for friends that you think is based on your old pal, but will really be based on what you wish you had in a friend. Instead of attaching a "face" to this ideal (the face of the friend you lost), be open to whatever the new people coming into your life will bring.

Will We Be Friends Again Down the Line?

It's one thing to be open to being friends again later on if the timing is right, and another to hold on to hope. You have to be willing to let the relationship go in order to step back and learn from it. Only then will you be able to make a wise choice about whether you wanted to go ahead and try to be friends again.

You also need to give the breakup some time before you even try to attempt a reconciliation. You can say something like, "Hi. I just wanted to let you know I'm open to being friends again. If you'd like to talk about it, please let me know" in an email or text message, and leave the ball in your friend's court. But don't hound them and don't repeatedly send them messages. One message is enough to let them know you're open to possibly reviving the friendship.

Why Does This Hurt So Much?

Breakups hurt for a lot of reasons. Your friend was a confidant to you, so you probably missed sharing details of your life. With a breakup, you're missing a piece of your support network as well as someone you cared about very much. As you move on and make your way in life, you'll think of your friend again (like when you two went to lunch or how you could call up anytime and talk about things) and each time you do there will be a part of you that feels their absence. It hurts.

It also hurts when you're confused about the friendship. If they betrayed you or just walked away, you might wonder what type of friend they were. If they told you the reasons why they don't want to be friends, you might have heard some hurtful things about yourself.

For all these reasons, breakups hurt. One good way to look at the situation is that you were blessed to have a good friend in your life, even for a while. Some folks never have that. Hold on to the things that were positive about your friendship.