Are Friends Still Friends If You Never See Them?
By: Ian Cahill
Tags: Honesty, Friendship, Change, Personal Growth, Past

Are Friends Still Friends If You Never See Them?

No calls, no hangs, but you still like them, in theory.

Photo by Kylo on Unsplash

We used to know everything about each other. We shared everything, our fears, our crushes, our lunch. Our Mom’s couldn’t even tell us apart on the phone. We were inseparable.

Then life started moving, one of us went to college here and the other there. We didn’t hang out as much. You met a girl, I worked crazy hours. This is not an uncommon story.

Fast forward several years and I still consider you my friend. We keep up on social media, though rarely like each other’s posts. I still get a Christmas card from you. You would too if I actually sent them.

But are we friends? You aren’t the first person I would call if I locked my keys out of my car or found myself with a free night to go grab a drink. Your kids don’t know my name and I sure as heck don’t go to their birthday parties.

Friends are there for each other. Starting a friendship is pretty cut and dry. You meet, find something in common and talk about it. Sold.

But falling out of a friendship isn’t always as clear. I don’t hate you, you’ve never done anything to cause ill will, we just stopped running in the same circles.

Who knows how that happens, usually its a new relationship. You adopt new friends and new plans and new places to hang out. And they don’t always line up.

Maybe you try for a little while, but then kids and work narrow your availability and you make hard choices.

But we’re still friends right? What makes a friend. Do you have to actually talk every week and spend time with each other? I don’t know anymore.

The internet has clouded it, facebook has muddled it. I have online friends I have never met. I have friended people I went to high school with, but never really hung out with back then or today.

If all I need to be your friend is to like you, then I can extend that logic to Paul Rudd or Patrick Mahomes. One-sided admiration.

It’s really bothering me that you don’t easily fall into a category anymore. I don’t miss you, I don’t invite you to anything and we never talk. But that is no one’s fault. So I’m just supposed to cut you off?

I think I still know your phone number. Maybe I will text you on your birthday, make promises I won’t keep. Tell your our kids should play together.

I won’t do it. I won’t resolve to spend more time with you. It won’t happen, I won’t change my routine or what’s normal for me now. And when I don’t, I will just feel worse about our friendship. You are not my New Year’s resolution.

So where does that leave us? I guess we just go back to knowing we know each other. knowing we don’t hang out as much. Feeling a twinge in our hearts when we see pictures of each other doing something fun with other old friends that “made the cut.”

It sucks. I have a friend that has no place anymore, but I’ll be damned if I’ll turn my back on them. Maybe I’m the problem. I’m too weak to keep the friendship alive. But you don’t call or make an effort either. This is just the way these things work.

It’s not our fault and sure I miss you, but there just isn’t enough time in the day. Life is full of hard truths and sadly our friendship or lack thereof is one of them.

Maybe we’ll get back on track someday, maybe something big in our lives will pull us back together. But for now, you can stay where you are, at a distant on my facebook page living your life while I live mine. Thanks for being there and I’ll see you when I see you, friend.