One or two have ended in sex or in not having sex. None of these choices seems quite right in retrospect. This one was ruined through honesty, that one through lack of it. But the feeling of failure is constant in these situations no matter what the variables or circumstances. The friend doesn't so much disappear as enter a gray danger zone of ambivalent feeling.
Former friends occupy a bigger psychic space than most acquaintances.
They loom larger and make the world a smaller, more uncomfortable place. I have lost friends even after vowing never again to lose a friend. And I expect that by the time I'm counting fingers on my deathbed, I'll have lost a few more. Maybe I'll still be staging imaginary reconciliations. Or maybe the sense of failure will have grown into one of peaceful resignation, marred only by the occasional heated argument rehashed in my head.