Have you ever lost touch with a friend/loved one?

This happens when your young. I had a true, great friend while I was in high school. We were inseparable. We were constant in each other’s lives all the way through our early 20s; we even went to the same college for awhile. It seemed like we just drifted apart. Our lives went in different directions, and we lost touch. Aside from my wife, who is truly my best friend, I don’t think I’ll ever have another friendship like the one I had with her.

We got in touch with each other about a year ago. I was so nervous, I thought it would be awkward; we had not seen or spoken to each other in 9 years. But you know what? It was like we we’re in high school again; we just clicked. We have spoken a few times since then, but we really don’t have a close, constant relationship. Seeing her after all that time made me realize that she is a person who, no matter what the circumstance, will always be my friend, and someone I can trust.

It is sad to lose something so dear, but if you don’t hold on too tight, you might find that what remains can evolve into something even better.

I had the same thing happen to me, TheHaight. I cried so much. My parents kept asking me if my boyfriend had broken up with me or something. I am probably not the person to be giving advise. We drifted apart for a good while without meaning to. And then we had a really big fight (she didn’t approve of my lifestyle choices basically) and then after not talking for a year or so, I made a half-hearted attempt to revive the friendship by explaining my side of the story to a mutual friend hoping that he would talk to her about it, which he did, and she e-mailed me later, and we became friends again, but we’re not super-close still. We’re friendly, and we see each other once or twice a year. When I do see her, I try to ask her a lot of questions about herself and the topics that are important to her, so that she’ll feel comfortable, and I try to not compare our lives, goals, values, because they have diverged so much since the 5th grade. I don’t think there’s a magic formula, the only thing I can tell you is to try to have fun, and don’t dwell too much on things that happened in the past, like “remember when we camped out in the back yard? remember when you had a crush on Tommy?” because it always made me feel further from my friend than when we just talked about the present, even though we live in different cities now. I wish you the best of luck, and have fun tomorrow!

You definitely have to lay the pride aside and be willing to go the extra mile in some cases, meaning that you have to honestly and sincerely show them that you value their friendship. So often we think only about what we can get from our friends, but it is essential that we think about what we can give to them, how we can serve them. I think implementing that philosophy into your friendship can make it a bit more lasting.

All your answers are…beautiful. I guess being in a (3 1/2+)relationship with my boyfriend I have lost track of my friends, and she has always been the one worth keeping in touch with. But lately I have noticed that she has made so many others and is always going out. Yes, we made plans tomorrow- but she then later on told me that she is going out of town with friends so we might not hang out as long as I thought. I almost envy this in a way and when I do, I just feel this extreme loneliness. I just don’t like being jealous of her independence and the fact that she doesn’t need me as much anymore- and maybe a part of me misses being single. Aaronou,- I guess I do have to lay my pride aside and admit some things to her and how I feel….

@The Haight – I am always needing someone to tell me to lay my pride aside, so I thought maybe someone else could use that advice too.

I lose and regain my friends repeatedly. We live in different countries – have done for nearly a decade now – and I’m really not great at keeping regular contact. I often feel like you, I have friends, but easily feel lonely. Problem for me is that when things are going well, I’m too busy enjoying my immediate surroundings to reach out to friends back home, yet when things are not so good, I don’t want to reach out to them either, because I don’t want to waste the occasional contact I have with them on whining…...
But, still, we’ve been friends for 20 years and even if we lose contact for months, sometimes nearly a year, we still mend fences every time. The key is to not to hold grudges or have any hard feelings if you lose contact. Appreciate it when you are together or just talking. Don’t ask for explanations or apologies for the time missed.

Having friends who have known you since you were a kid is priceless. You don’t have to be around them or talk to them every day, but knowing there’s someone who’s been a part of your life for that long is worth holding on to.
I guess what I’m saying is, stay on good terms, accept that you may drift, but you’ll never ‘break-up’ your friendship. Even if you don’t hear from each other for a while – you will again sometime.

I’m currently not in very close contact with my friends – one reason being that come October, they will all have kids – and I don’t. So we don’t have that much to discuss because we’re going through very different things right now.

I have two friends like this at the moment. One of them develops these maddening obsessions and she can’t let them go and they’re sort of like Toad in Wind in the Willows. Her latest and most destructive was her obsession with Daughtry. She went 16k into debt following their tour and nearly destroyed one of the band member’s marriages. She had the time of her life, but financially, it was completely kamikaze. We’ve been friends for I think 12 years now, and even though when she goes on her “benders” we barely speak at all… she makes new friends who share her obsession and spends all her time with them, and then when the obsession is over, she turns to me again. I know how screwed up that sounds and most people wouldn’t stand for it, but I don’t mind anymore. She’s still one of my best friends and probably always will be… even through all this… when we hang out, it’s as if no time has passed.

The other one, um, how do I put this? I guess you could say he had a lick of fame during his several-month-contract on a soap, and while he doesn’t seem to realize it or think there’s a problem, we’ve drifted very far apart. We used to talk daily and hang out a few times a week, and now if I talk to him once a month I consider myself lucky. He’s back to doing stage work now, so it’s not as though he has the schedule he did when he was on TV, so I know that’s not it. I sort of work for him, and when he did the soap, it was basically my job to control the fans’ access to him at every avenue except for them physically showing up at the studio/theatre whatever. When I was there physically, I acted as a bodyguard. It’s always been this way, but always on a much smaller scale before the soap. The soap fans were too much for him, and he had some really private lines crossed… so every time I spoke to him it was drama with this “stalker” or drama with that “crazy” and I think even though he appreciated what I was doing and needed it, it sort of drove a wedge between us anyway. I still love him, and it hurts so much that we barely talk anymore. Yet again, when we do, it’s as if nothing ever happened.

So… good luck with your situation. Not like I helped any, lol, and I hope you don’t mind that I used your post to vent.

It has been really cleansing reading this thread and knowing that others have struggled with friendship and status of friendship changes too.

I had a woman who was my best friend when we were in our 20s. We stayed friends through many years and life changes. When she talked to me one day about deep problems in her marriage, but then later made the decision to stay with him, it was like I by knowing those things had to be discarded in order for her to keep the denial to stay married to him. (Mind you, I am recounting this after literally years of analyzing what the heck went wrong.) She would never talk to me about anything in depth again after that day. When I brought up the state of our friendship, she would say nothing was wrong. Yet we no longer did anything together or talked.

Finally, I wrote to her and told her my feelings about how painful it was to me to lose the relationship. She wrote back and said that she wanted to hear from me and know how I was, but not get together. After a couple years of that, which were absolute torture for me, I just cut off contact with her. (I had previously told her that just being acquaintances was too painful for me.) Doing that at last gave me some peace.

Friendships grow and change. Many others of mine have evolved through the years to different statuses with no problem. When the transition is not smooth, it can be very painful though.

@TheHaight I hope that yours can grow and evolve. Maybe you could try couples socializing too when she is dating someone. I hope things work out for you.

I just got home and we had a wonderful time! You guys are right- it was as if time didn’t even pass. I told her that we can’t to this long not seeing eachother again!

I really appreciate all your answers because they all truely helped me out! ♥

glad everything worked out! I hope it goes as well in the future!

Hi all…
‘TheHaight’,
I’ve never been one to surround myself with people. I rather enjoy being alone or with one perhaps two people at a time.
I recently experienced a rather prolific ‘slap-in-the-face’ from every friend associated with my husband and myself….when we split up several years ago, they all walked away from me..These were people I’d known for a very long time. I haven’t heard from any of them in three years! I learned to stop blaming myself for what I ‘may’ have done and came to the realization that it was out of my control. If they feel that way, what can I possibly do about it? And why the hell would I anyway after being subject to such crap.

I can count on one hand, the friends whom I refer to as pure and true. One in particular has been in my life since I was in Gr. 1. We absolutely adore each other. We’ve gone several years (life circumstances) without communication and not once did either of us assume the worst. When we’d reconnect it was akin to what you experienced with your friend. It’s a wonderful feeling. You know, as I know, that these are the people you will keep with you all of your life.

Thanks mee_ouch. I think it’s better to have a few really close friends then several friends you truely don’t know. And what you’ve experienced, those friends that ditched you weren’t really friends at all. So I’ll hold my close friends to my heart, just like it seems like you will. That’s wonderful that you’ve known your friend since GR. 1, and really rare. Thanks for your feedback.

I thank you for your comment. It is very much appreciated.

I’m late in answering this, I’m new here, but this one strikes home. I’ll start out with saying that I have a great husband, wonderful friends and some great kids, too; however, I realized 2 yeara ago, my best girl friend and I were growing apart. It was really hard, she was just finishing treatment for cancer and I just was diagnosed. It’s hard, she needed to be away from cancer – it still scared her. I needed my best (girl) friend! Understand that my husband comes first – but she was like a sister to me. I started chemo, she sent a card. I finished the 5th cycle, and I hadn’t really heard from her. Her husband would call, he’s great friends with my husband. The kids would stop by, but not my friend. I’d get emails, but even responses were sparse.

I found out the chemo didn’t work, in fact, I found out it was worse than they thought, so it was like starting the treatments all over. 14 months (and still going) into treatment, I finally had enough. I needed to know why she was an absentee friend, at best. She didn’t even know (because I refused to let her husband tell her) that I had been diagnosed with leukemia. I called her, asked her to come over and she did. Like I originally thought, she was afraid of cancer, but she had her life back and just went on. She missed me, but didn’t know how to deal with this. I asked her if she missed our friendship, she said we were still friends, I asked her how? She didn’t return calls, she didn’t ever come by, she never accepted dinner invitations. She avoided anything to do with me. I told her that she was like my sister. I truly couldn’t imagine not having her in my life, but I needed her to know that she needed to put work into the friendship, too.

It took a few months, she called. She had been angry, then ashamed. I told her it was time to stop feeling that way and time to come over and teach me how to knit a hat…my head was cold!

We’re friends, it’s a work in progress. If a friendship is worth saving, please, put pride or fear aside and call her. Explain how you are feeling and let her know you miss her. I hope she feels the same. She’s lucky to have someone that concerned over the drifting apart of a friendship. True friends, are worth fighting for.

Best wishes…and sorry so long winded! :)

A lovely, heart-rendering response to what friendship is truly all about. Bravo.

*I’m sorry for your illness. Friends are so important during these times….
You will find many here!

@mee ouch:

Thank you! Fluther seems to be a pretty nice place to be! :)

Cak: such a beautiful story. You got me all teary eyed! I’m so glad you guys are friends now. I’m sorry for your illness.. You seem like such a wonderful, and strong willed women. I appreciate you sharing this with me, and will take your advice to heart.

Thank you and best of luck! :)

You’re it!......lol
I really like the way this site works. So easy to follow up on the posts. I guess we’re all learning something about friends here. That’s a good thing.

glad it worked out hannah
A true friend won’t change regardless of time.
keep them close to you. Those are hard to come by in this cruel world.

thanks! Yes, I agree.. I don’t think anyone could survive without a friend or two. I know I’d to crazy in this cruel world.

@meeouch; it is a good thing! I’m glad my thread did that. ;$

As am I…..^