The patterns of friendship

[mizarchivist]

If incidents are drops of water and my brain the bucket, I've finally reached the spilling over point where I feel a need to figure this one out or at least come to grips with it... more the latter, really.

I remember when I was young and the world seemed to be filled with a lot more absolutes, that friendship was supposed to last forever and ever and ever. Theoretically with little variation in the chemistry between the friends.
Obviously, that is not remotely true, and I've known that for a while. However, I have noticed that it seems like a significant number of people have fallen by the wayside for me in the past few years. At least most of them are for different reasons.
If a break-up is the cause, it seems to be the most obvious and dramatic- Despite one's best intentions, one rebuilds the walls when you do the healing process, and somehow the footprint of that wall rarely stays the same shape. The hardest is when the ripple effect of that wall-building effects other people.

Distance seems to be a less personalized cause for drifting apart, especially if you had formerly been closer together and had more natural opportunities to see each other. Sad if permanent, but not necessarily irreperable. When I went back home and failed to connect with some of my grade-school and high school friends who were likely only a few miles away, this sort of damage becomes pretty obvious.

Loss of commonality I have particularly noticed this with a friend of mine from high school and college that lives in DC. She and I used to talk about all sorts of things and fairly regularly. I chose not to share a whole lot regarding some of my preferences for social activities, but there was still plenty left to chat about. I could write a book about this particular friend and her foibles, though.

Certainly combinations of these things just exasurbate it all. And after writing all of this, I figure there really isn't anything to be done about it, as such. I'm not a horrible person because I don't talk to Suzie Creamcheese as much as I did n-years ago. Especially when I do contact him/her, s/he doesn't really bother to respond.

Another entirely other factor is reaching capacity on people one sees/talks to. There are, afterall, only so many hours in the day.

Oh well. I've lost my steam on this. It's just a thing: one that won't ever really go away. Hopefully the control freak part of me will be able to accept it more in the future

Comments

[mizarchivist]

If I thought someone would nto take it personally....
I do know what you mean and interesting. I'd not thought of it. Thanks for the thought.