This idea that any kind of relationship should be effortless and easy is, frankly, incredibly absurd. Good relationships (of which friendships are) take real effort and work. If you don’t want to put that work in to it then you need a pet rock, not a friend.
People drift apart. Actually making the effort to communicate and meet up occasionally is important for maintaining those relationships. If you’re not in the place where you’re can stay aware of major life changes (marriage, divorce, kids, major career changes, moves between cities, major illness or injury, deaths in family, etc.), were you really “friends for life”?
Even making brunch plans in my 40s requires consulting a calendar. That naturally shrinks the number of close friends in the mix. I’m closer with my friends who live close than the ones who live far, simply out of inertia, that maintaining those relationships takes less effort.
Yeah, active relationships take effort. However, the true friends I made growing up, I can hit them up or they can hit me up, after any number of years, and we pick up right where we left off… It hits different.
This idea that any kind of relationship should be effortless and easy is, frankly, incredibly absurd. Good relationships (of which friendships are) take real effort and work. If you don’t want to put that work in to it then you need a pet rock, not a friend.
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People drift apart. Actually making the effort to communicate and meet up occasionally is important for maintaining those relationships. If you’re not in the place where you’re can stay aware of major life changes (marriage, divorce, kids, major career changes, moves between cities, major illness or injury, deaths in family, etc.), were you really “friends for life”?
Even making brunch plans in my 40s requires consulting a calendar. That naturally shrinks the number of close friends in the mix. I’m closer with my friends who live close than the ones who live far, simply out of inertia, that maintaining those relationships takes less effort.
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You described a lot of effort on your end to keep that relationship going. That’s what I mean. Relationships require maintenance.
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Yeah, active relationships take effort. However, the true friends I made growing up, I can hit them up or they can hit me up, after any number of years, and we pick up right where we left off… It hits different.