Remember that friend you had that you somehow lost touch with? Remember, you met at Starbucks five years ago when you both reached for the half-and-half at the same time, joking that she was your better “half”. You two were inseparable for about a year and a half, going everywhere and doing everything together. Then it all gradually shifted until before too long you were no longer calling and texting every day. It happened so gradually, the phasing out, that you still don’t know why it happened.
I have come up with a hypothesis to explain the plethora of reasons why this happens, why present friends become former friends, and why you can’t hold onto them once they’ve decided it’s over. And I don’t mean those fake reasons they would give you if you asked them about it some years in the future when you bump into them at Target one day.
1. You did something to offend him, but instead of talking it out, he decided to phase you out. This happens more often than you think, even for very good friends. You would think he would feel comfortable enough with you to tell you the truth, but it works just the opposite way. Because you’re such good friends, he thinks he can overlook it, but it eats at him from the inside out, until he feels it’s too much, and by then he can’t just bring it up out of the blue. So he gets away from it the only way he thinks he can, by getting away from you. Before you know it, he’s got a new friend to do those things with that he used to do with you, and you’re left holding the phone, wondering why it doesn’t ring.
2. She found a replacement who is a better you than you. In this case, you didn’t need 
those people in the first place. She’s the one who is addicted to new friendships. She has a type (let’s say: funny) and you fit the type, but so did her last “great” friend, and so will her next “great” friend, and so on, and so forth. This means that she’ll always be looking, even when it doesn’t seem like she is. The entire time you were friends, she was looking for the bigger, better deal (the BBD — it’s not just a rap group from the ’90s). Once she found someone else who did you better than you she jumped ship, and you were left holding the phone.
3. She made a huge life change and you just don’t fit anymore. This is the time conundrum. She wants to remain friends, but not enough to fit you into her newly revised schedule. Things can add up and become too much to manage, but instead of relying on her friends to help her through it, she instead neglects and ditches friends in order to do more, more, more. This isn’t an active ditching, though, and she probably doesn’t even know it’s happening because her time is still filled, but she wasn’t the friend you really could rely on in the first place anyway. Her removal from your life will show you just how much you didn’t need her anyway. Once she reverts back to her former lifestyle (do these huge life changes ever stick?), she will probably look you up again, but by then your number will have changed, and you know you already unfriended her on Facebook.
“Some friends shy away from friends who have become part of a couple…”
4.You made a huge life change, and he doesn’t feel like you have common ground anymore. Two of the biggest life changes are getting married or becoming a parent. While you may do what you can to make time for your friends, maybe he’s just not comfortable with it. Some friends shy away from friends who have become part of a couple because they have preconceived notions of what that means. Or some friends don’t want to hear you talk about the kids 24/7 (because, let’s face it, some parents lose their own identities when they have kids). These friends who disappear aren’t totally gone. They are actually the ones who call you up every little bit to see if you want to go bowling, or watch the Super Bowl, or go to the big mall, with them. But you’re not their “go-to” friend anymore, which is rather sad, but understandable. Well, maybe.
The friend hypothesis presupposes that you weren’t friends, or even acquaintances, before the moment in time when you became great friends at Starbucks. Because if you had bonds that were somewhat deeper, like from childhood, it becomes a lot harder for them to ditch you once you’ve “found each other” again. The same is true if a big event bonded you in the first place. Perhaps you both lost people you loved in a car accident, or they came and helped out when your house burned down, or both of your mothers survived cancer. These big events tend to bond people even closer than other ties, and create connections that we fight hard to maintain.
So, now that I’ve outlined what I feel are the reasons friends drift apart, do you agree or disagree? Or do you have other reasons to add to the list? While it would be nice to keep all of our friends, it is sometimes impractical, eh?
Sam
Sam's Online Journal 