A long time ago, we used to be friends

[superbadgirl]

Have you ever had someone in your life, someone you considered a very close friend...but life and circumstances just made you drift apart? My friend A. and I used to be tight, and then she moved to Milwaukee and I moved to Seattle. Obviously, things shifted and changed and our communication started coming less frequently. She got married. I haven't even met her husband.

But I knew we were no longer really friends long before all that. One year, exchanging holiday and birthday gifts, I presented her with a well thought-out gift, something that fit her tastes and personality and she gave me...an animated, musical cookie jar shaped like Scooby Doo. At that point, I remember an overwhelming urge to burst into tears right there, and a horrible thought that we might have never really been friends at all, because she honestly thought that was the perfect gift for me.

Anyway. Last night, I got one solitary piece of mail. It was from A. Inside the envelope was a birth announcement for her second baby.

I didn't even know she was pregnant again.

I'm pretty sure it's just me - I know lots of people have friends they stay in touch with since high school and/or college. I just can't seem to. I'm a fairly solitary creature, so that might be it. It depresses me, though. Even with good friends, I'll respond to emails and calls and such and get nothing in return.

We Used To Be Friends

Comments

[librarianstales.livejournal.com]

I've had it happen to me. I had a two close friends in high school and both just can't be bothered now. Over the years they sorta drifted away, stopped responding to calls and emails. Finally I just gave up and let them go. It's sad and part of me wonders if it something I did or something about me that they decided not to keep in touch, but I'm happy and have other friends, so I guess it just happens and isn't worth getting upset about. That isn't to say I don't sometimes.

[superbadgirl]

Life changes definitely make a big impact. I'm still single and have no family, whereas she's changed that aspect a lot. I think it would help if we were closer in physical proximity, but not that much.

Eh. It is no wonder that I find it so hard to get to know people, though.

[darksylvia.livejournal.com]

That's sad. I have a few friends like that. I think there has to be a lack of effort on both people's parts to make it drift apart. I've had friendships where either I'm the one making the effort or they're the one making the effort, but those ones fizzle eventually, too.

[superbadgirl]

I just wish things could be different, but yeah. It takes two to tango. :)

[strangevisitor7.livejournal.com]

I also had a formerly close girlfreind send me a birth announcement for her second child when I didn't even know she was pregnant. Recently I heard she had a third child - didn't even get an announcement this time. I too am sad when I think about it. But it doesn't mean that the time we spent together wasn't everything I thought is was. We were close for many years when she lived around the corner and i cherish that.
Bottom line you are not alone. Long distance is a great big barrier for alot of people. The people who actively email me are the long distance relationships I keep up with. I am not a phone person - never was.

[superbadgirl]

*hugs*

Thanks. I really was over the top mopey yesterday morning for some reason. It just makes me sad, sometimes, to think of all the people who were once so vital in my life and now aren't.

Also, love your icon. ;)

[strangevisitor7.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

*hugs back* We all get down. Just glad i could help

[meg-tdj.livejournal.com]

This describes just about every friendship I've ever had, heh. I have one friend from school days that I still communicate with occasionally, but we really don't know each other very well at all, and I'm betting as soon as she gets married she'll stop trying to keep in touch even that little bit. And the saddest part is, none of us moved anywhere... I just left school to be home-taught, and didn't get married and start having babies when the others did.

I honestly think it's more rare for people to continue being friends after they leave school than it is for those relationships to fizzle out as people's lives move in different directions. It still sucks, though. :(

[superbadgirl]

Yeah, time and circumstance are two things very difficult to work with.

[khek.livejournal.com]

I never seem to stay in touch with people after they (or I) move away. Sometimes it's them, but sometimes it's me. If the immediacy of meeting up with someone is gone, it seems difficult to keep in contact. (Of course, it doesn't help that most of my friends who've moved have had life changes like marriage or babies to deal with, and some of them think that staying single and childless somehow makes a person less important in life.)

My mom is a great source of info though, about everyone I (or my sisters) have ever known. They all seem to still keep in contact with her, even when they don't keep in contact with me. It's very strange.

She's currently sharing an office with the girl who was my best friend from the age of 18 months until we were in junior high. Talk about weird.

[superbadgirl]

Oh, man, I haven't seen extended family in forever. My sister's wedding a couple of years ago, I suppose, and then it was like trying to talk to strangers.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

I'm going through this a bit right now. One of my best friends moved away to go for her doctorate and I've noticed that we've slowly been drifting. Though, at least on my part, I know part of it is my fault.

[superbadgirl]

Oh, it's almost always a two-way street. Lives get busy (or, like mine, too damned dull and depressing to want to share), etc. And usually I'm okay with it, but sometimes I'll get this very strong pang of melancholy.

[moonshayde.livejournal.com]

Lives get busy (or, like mine, too damned dull and depressing to want to share), etc.

This I understand. Some of my RL friends wonder why I don't keep in touch as often, but when I call I have nothing to say. Honestly, I have nothing interesting happening right now and the last thing I want to do is call and complain.

The meloncoly is understandable.

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

I still think of people as friends who were my friends a long time ago--sort of like cousins I don't really see, but I still think of them fondly and if I saw them again I'd be happy.

OTOH, I don't really keep in touch with any friends from anywhere, really. My closest friend all through my teen years... Well, we really did drift apart quite a bit. Every few years we try to get in touch again, but the last time, it seemed like everything I said offended her. It had never been like that between us before, but I got the impression that she'd become quite...er...conservative or something. I'm not really sure.

We have some "family" friends that we are close to--really three other families that we've been stationed with a few times and that we consider like family to us. Even our friends who live in Michigan--I see and talk to them more often than I talk to my own cousins.

I haven't talked to my cousins on my mother's side since around the time I got married--so over 25 years ago. I haven't talked to my other cousins since my sister's funeral which was...uh...maybe 15 years ago? It's nothing bad. I just live far away.

When we first moved away, I used to send letters and things to everyone (pre-internet), but it was never reciprocated and once I had kids of my own I was too busy to send everyone letters and cards and things. They never sent any to me in the five or so years that I was doing that. I used to have my kids make cards and small presents for everyone, too, when they were little, but that was never reciprocated either. Now we don't even send Christmas presents to anyone but my parents.

I'm evil, I guess, but it's a lot of effort to keep up with people and when you're the one who left, everyone expects it to be 150% all your effort. Why didn't I go visit them when I was there? Because...uh...I was only there for a few days and I didn't have time to run around visiting everyone and their grandmother. I was busy taking care of my own kids and trying to make sure they had everything they needed while staying at someone else's house. Family...friends... It's all the same. *g* If I go visit my mom, I'll see my mom, my dad, my sister, and probably all of her kids will come and see us at my mom's house. So that's probably all that I'll see.

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

P.S. I've lost my homeschool mom friends over the last few years, too. We are all still friendly, but we went from emailing each other 20 or more times a day everyday on our little email loop to almost nothing nowadays. Everyone sends update once or twice a year now, and that's about it. I was closer to these friends than to any other adult friends I've ever had.

Currently, I don't have any friends except my LJ friends and that's it. I'm friendly with the other moms in the teen group, but we're not really friends in that way, really.

I'm friendly with people everywhere I go, but I don't really want people intruding in my life in that way--at least not people I know. *g* I mean, if all my LJ friends ever got together at a convention or something, that would be really cool, but I don't know anyone in my proximity that I'd want to be coming over my house all the time, borrowing all my stuff, and getting in my way when I have things to do.

[superbadgirl]

I'm evil, I guess, but it's a lot of effort to keep up with people and when you're the one who left, everyone expects it to be 150% all your effort. Why didn't I go visit them when I was there?

This is how I've been feeling lately. I know it's much easier and more practical for me to cart my sorry butt to MN for the holidays than it is for anyone to ever come visit me, yet I have this niggle of discontent about it. Like I'll get guilt-tripped for not going back there this year, if I decide not to go, but not one of them feels a bit bad about never coming to visit me in the 5 years I've been away.

It makes me feel like a very ungrateful lout, but there it is.

And the lost friendships thing I'm usually okay with, and then I get a picture of a baby in the mail and it all springs back.

[seanchaidh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I feel the same way. A lot of friends who have faded away over time.

[superbadgirl]

I'm much better with my fandom and LJ friends, but somehow it all feels less tangible. Does that make sense?

[seanchaidh.livejournal.com]

I think fandom, especially for those of us who actually LIKE each other in RL, is a different nature because we are already long-distance. The only drifting happens when RL becomes too much and we have to focus on that.

[betacandy.livejournal.com]

This happens to me, too. In my case, I think it's self-sufficiency. Some people don't really know what to think of self-sufficient people. They seem to think friendship is supposed to be... I don't know, involving some level of need I just don't feel. When they realize I don't need them (in some cases, it's been clear they do need me), they distance themselves.

I never have this problem with people who are as self-sufficient as I am.