Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
If you were close, you wouldn't have lost touch.
Most friendships have a shelf life.
That’s a bit harsh. People change, lives change, circumstances become different. Sometimes we put off what we think to do until it’s too late. You sometimes don’t realize how things can change, sometimes in the blink of an eye.
I was just reflecting yesterday that I have currently have plenty of friendships that I haven't had enough time for and plenty of things I need/want to do for myself. If I can't even find enough time to devote to the friends that I currently have, then why do I want to take on yet another old friend who randomly pops up in my life? My thought is that I want to give whatever free time I have, to my current friendships, the people who I'm most comfortable with. Not someone from the past who I don't have anything in common with. I don't understand someone's motivation to suddenly pop into someone else's life expecting them to suddenly be available.
I keep in touch with those that reciprocate. In other words, there are those that never call me or send a birthday card, which ends up being a one sided relationship. So I stopped contacting those that are one-sided.
Also when I pass, there is to be no notifications, no obituary, only family because if you couldn't call or visit when I was alive, don't bother now.
I am not a bitter person, I have many friends and am active in the community but have stopped repeatedly trying to keep useless relationships going.
I was just reflecting yesterday that I have currently have plenty of friendships that I haven't had enough time for and plenty of things I need/want to do for myself. If I can't even find enough time to devote to the friends that I currently have, then why do I want to take on yet another old friend who randomly pops up in my life? My thought is that I want to give whatever free time I have, to my current friendships, the people who I'm most comfortable with. Not someone from the past who I don't have anything in common with. I don't understand someone's motivation to suddenly pop into someone else's life expecting them to suddenly be available.
Why would you have to be "available"? Can't you just say Hey hello! great to hear you're still alive. Me too!
And leave it at that? That's what one of my long lost friends did when I found her again.
I had a friend in my 20s that I adored. We were living the big Houston TX boom of the 80s. She initiated the friendship so I just assumed she felt the same way. We had a lot of fun together in the way of twenty-somethings not thinking about the future yet. When I moved across the country back to my home state it was she who stayed in touch more than I did. I wrote sporadic letters, but she called. Not often, but at least 4 or 5 times a year, the first few years. When I went back to visit my sister who still lived there, I always made a point of seeing her too, until she also left Houston. That went on for another 6 years
Then she left Houston too, moved back to her home state, married settled down. I married too. Oddly enough we both married men with young children, so we were both step moms (neither of us were able to have kids ourselves) She invited me to visit her in her home state. I did. This was now about 10 years later and things between us felt as close as ever while I was there.
After that though we lost touch. I didn't know why and I've never stopped thinking of her and missing her. I think (in retrospect) it was Bad Marriage Syndrome on both our parts. From shortly after the last time I saw her when I visited in 1994, I didn't hear from her again.
When my sister died in 2020 I tried again to find her, because I knew she would want to know. It took some doing but I did find her through someone else, and I gave the someone else my e mail and asked them to give it to her.
She did write and we exchanged a couple of messages. I was thrilled to hear from her, but careful not to gush. She basically said she was "Living in (state), divorced and happy." I said Me too! But that was all.
So, I am content to know now I can contact her if I feel like it, because I still feel just as close to her as ever, whether she feels the same or not. I don't need to hear from her every day or even every year. I am just glad to know where she is, that she's alive and happy.
If you were close, you wouldn't have lost touch.
Most friendships have a shelf life.
There's an old saying that says that people are put into one another's lives for "a reason, a season, or life." What I've found in my forty-odd years on this planet is that people who you think are in your life for one of the three often end up being there for another. Some of my dearest friends were ones who I thought were just passing through my life, while others who I thought were going to be lifelong friends simply moved on when they did--either because they moved on to a different life stage than I or quite literally moved to another area.
Unless someone has proven themselves to be toxic and/or a user (which has been exceedingly rare), my figurative and literal door(s) are always open to my friends be they new or old.
It's been my experience that maintaining that open door policy has made for some interesting re-entries and guest appearances by people who I've known over the years. I rather enjoy those special "guest appearances" in this never dull show called my life.
There are also a special few friends with whom, when we've lost temporarily lost touch due to life getting in the way as it so often does, the threads of friendship are easily picked up like time has not passed as much as it has between contacts.
In short, once I've called a given person a friend, they're a friend of mine whether we're in regular or rare contact unless they give me a legitimate reason to no longer perceive them as such.
There's an old saying that says that people are put into one another's lives for "a reason, a season, or life." What I've found in my forty-odd years on this planet is that people who you think are in your life for one of the three often end up being there for another. Some of my dearest friends were ones who I thought were just passing through my life, while others who I thought were going to be lifelong friends simply moved on when they did--either because they moved on to a different life stage than I or quite literally moved to another area.
Unless someone has proven themselves to be toxic and/or a user (which has been exceedingly rare), my figurative and literal door(s) are always open to my friends be they new or old.
It's been my experience that maintaining that open door policy has made for some interesting re-entries and guest appearances by people who I've known over the years. I rather enjoy those special "guest appearances" in this never dull show called my life.
There are also a special few friends with whom, when we've lost temporarily lost touch due to life getting in the way as it so often does, the threads of friendship are easily picked up like time has not passed as much as it has between contacts.
In short, once I've called a given person a friend, they're a friend of mine whether we're in regular or rare contact unless they give me a legitimate reason to no longer perceive them as such.
A friend of mine will turn 81 this year. She has 4 friends from college who have gotten together every few years since then. My friend was the only one of the five who did not have a high powered career, so my friend has always felt inferior to the others.
Anyway they are trying to meet this year in DC, and my friend is thinking of skipping it. She can easily use the excuse of not being physically up to it. She asked what I would do, and I told her I’d try to go, because chances are that one of them will surely be gone by the next time....if there is a next time. I also told her they aren’t high powered career women anymore...they are just retired old ladies like her.
As for me, I have old friends, spread far and wide. We stay in touch by email, but when we do get together, it is as if we just picked up where we left off.
Most of us built houses in the same neighborhood in the early 1970s. We had babies together, divorces, lost our parents...the milestones of life.
Five of my best friends from high school are gone, but the boy next door and I reconnected before he died. My husband and I met he and his wife in FL and had a nice reunion.
Most recently, I reconnected with a coworker from 40 years ago. She and I message every day, and she and her husband (a different one from then) visited us here in GA. She filled in for me when I had my last baby, who is now 39. Honestly, on a day to day basis, I would find her a strain, but maybe she would feel the same, but at a distance I enjoy her.
It takes a long time to make an old friend, and I cherish mine.
Nineteen or twenty years ago, I had lost touch with a good high school friend. We both had busy lives with wives and new jobs and kids in my case. But I often thought of him and imagined the fun we woukd have reconnecting and updating one another of all the changes in our lives. Then I got a call from a mutual friend who had also lost touch with Jack. Jack had been killed in a wreck with a logging truck. We both went to his funeral and the feeling I felt never left me.
A year or two ago, I started thinking about another friend I had lost touch with. We were actually Facebook friends, but I was not getting updates from him anymore. We reconnected, first through Messenger and then on phone and talked and laughed about old times. That was on a Monday. On the next Saturday, he died of a heart attack.
Still, there is another good friend I also lost touch with. I've tried to keep in touch with but seem to be doing all the work. I worry that one of us will die before we get together again.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
