To the friends I’ve lost along the way

It’s really interesting to realize that as life goes on, it tends to get a little more lonely.  You lose touch, and eventually lose friends. The most important fact is to realize that loss of friends is natural.

The first time I started to realize this fact was college. Everyone from high school goes off, to their own corner of the world. And out of your group of friends, you only really keep touch with 1 or 2, and lose the rest of the group.

The second drop happens after college. It’s much like what I mentioned before- except, instead of moving for college, people are moving for jobs.

The third major dip happens when you’re in your late 20’s. The people that you have managed to keep in touch with are in relationships, and the dynamic changes.

I had realized that things were going south with one of my best friends for a while. You can’t quantify it (but can try), but it’s just a feeling at first. The invitations to hang out have been steadily declining.

I invited said friend over to help me with my video marriage proposal, and the friend declined. That was the minute I realized that our relationship has changed forever.

I didn’t take the time to reflect, and was filled with a feeling of abandonment- shouldn’t your friend want to be there!? But herein lies the problem- everyone has different priorities and those change over time.
Being a data and science nerd, I went back through my old text messages with the friend, and tried to look at trends. Ever since we graduated, we have spent less time together. This makes sense, because we stopped living together. But the most alarming statistic I discovered was: out of the last 15 times we tried to hang out, I initiated 11 of those times. He initiated only 4 times.

I believe the sad realization that sets in is the moment when you realize that the only real tangible item you share with someone is the memories of the past, when you really were great friends. This realization will hopefully stay with me to reflect on the people that are still around and appreciate them more.

In the words of (old-school) Blink-182, “Well I guess this is growing up…”