I’m starting to believe against the idea. Movies, Shows and even Anime would have you believe that friendships still are friendships despite how long its been since the last time you hung with them. Real cases also support this. But then there’s other cases where it’s just not always the case.
I don’t like the idea of wasting time in that fashion, when it comes to friendships. There are things that happen to us to where it can’t help but to happen. Things like being in the military, getting involved in illegal activities, having terminal illnesses, being in prison/jail, being dead or similar scenarios. These are things that just happen in life and we have to come to accept that.
I lived with an ex-roommate who has told me that he has friends he considered friends, even if they haven’t talked in years. That concept is just weird to me and it always will be. How can you call yourselves friends when so much time has passed without so much of a peep? I’ve found from my experience that, things like this tends to make me feel a lot more lonelier and isolated.
I can’t help but think of all of the years that have gone by me, where nobody has asked me to play a game with them, nobody has had deep-welled discussions with me, nobody has arranged plans with me .etc And I’m supposed to accept this kind of practice?
And trying to compile all of the events when you do reconnect with someone, is just exhausting in of itself. Yeah, lets say you get back with someone after 10 years and all that they tell you after asking them as to what’s been going on, they respond with “Nothing much”. Nothing much? In 10 years, nothing much? I call bullshit.
I’m not trying to pitch the idea that people should contact eachother every second of every day. It’s bad enough we have people who believe that going no-contact in a week = friendship over and woe is me, I’ve been ghosted. I try being lenient to friends that I have. Just talk to me within the entire year. That’s it.
And if I still end up removing that friend, then it was probably evaluated based on whom outgrew the friendship more than whom.
I get people operate differently when it comes to friendships. But, I just can’t accept the practice of going so long without upkeep of friendship. That’s just simply pissing so much time away and pissing away any potential to make a friendship meaningful beyond surface level stuff or where the friendship was last meaningful, like in high school.
I can meet up with an old friend after years and years but pick up right where we left off.
Sure we aren’t as close as we were in high school, when we would spend almost every weekend hanging out together, but we’re definitely still friends. They certainly aren’t strangers.
Growing up means having your friends move away, start families or go down different paths. You see people less often and plans are harder to arrange. But you still share fond memories of the time you spent together.
Edit: Also, as someone in my 30s, I would also say from experience that adult friendships take more effort in general. Unlike in our school days, scheduling becomes difficult because everyone has a different work and home life. It’s extremely easy to get caught up in the daily routine of going to work and coming home and chilling out with family or roommates.
I haven’t always been the best at this personally, but if you feel lonely or like you aren’t seeing your friends enough, I recommend being taking the initiative and being proactive about setting up things to do with people.
Same, I can catch a good friend I have not seen in 10 years and we pick up right as if it was 1 day. Same inside jokes and all.
Yep I’ve got several mates I can meet up with after a year or three and it’s like no time has passed.
Hell I recently bumped into someone at a wedding I’d not spoken to in about 15 years, we did acknowledge the gap in that instance, but now are chatting again pretty casually
On the flip side there are people that if I go a couple of months without seeing them it’s a bit awkward until the cadence is up again. Nothing really wrong with it, just some friendships differ from person to person at the end of the day, would be silly to expect uniformity
Absolutely this. I tried keeping in touch with people, but social media made that actually harder to maintain, then evolved into the shit pile it is. I jumped ship in 2015-2016 and went back to my core group of friends
My “friends” are the people I’d bend over backwards for whether they’d do the same or not (don’t need them to reciprocate), but I’m sure they’d do that for me if needed. With all of us having kids 1-10 years, and living up to an hour apart, and working different schedules, we still make efforts around breaks or holidays to hang out or visit-however brief.