“We Lost Touch”
Before there was being “ghosted”, the phrase we used was “lost touch”.
As a Girl Scout we used to sing, “Make new friends, but the keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.” https://youtu.be/sMAxP-95yn4
Maybe that’s why I’ve always felt a little guilty about not being able to “keep” all of my friends. It would have been hard though. By the time I was 30 years old, long before social media and cell phones, I had changed colleges twice, moved at least a dozen times, lived in another country, and switched careers. I went from managing restaurants to being headhunter and then went back to school full-time to become a Registered Dietitian…I’m sure there were letters and calls that never caught up with me.
“Best By” dates
As an adult I realize how impractical and hard it would have been to keep all of those friends I’ve made along the way— and not everyone wants to stay in touch. Like food, some friends have a “best by date”, a time or season when that friendship works and is at its best, but then begins to fade or even sour a bit.
Sue and I were best friends and inseparable for the first few years of high school. We would talk on the phone most every night and kept a special notebook that we would pass back and forth with our thoughts about teachers, our classes our siblings, and boys. Later in high school she decided she wasn’t interested in going to college. While I struggled through AP classes and chemistry; she did more vocational and secretarial classes. We soon had little in common and less to talk about. She started dating a guy who was a year or two ahead of us and ended up marrying soon after high school while I went on to college
Make New Friends….
Sometimes friends are situational. You were lab partners for a class or worked in the same office and shared experiences, but only during that space and time. When that class end ends or you change jobs, you realize your friendship wasn’t big or stable enough to move beyond the situation and that you have little to talk about.
Sometimes we become friends with people because we are in the same place in our lives and share the same circumstances. Moms of young children bond during play dates or at the playground drinking coffee and discussing the best pediatrician or development milestones. Or you connect because your kids are on the same soccer team. You end up commiserating about the heat or the cold while watching practices or games from the sidelines. But when your child moves on to a different team or drops the sport entirely, seeing that person requires intention and more than just a schedule necessity. As our lives and priorities change and we lose those shared experiences, those friendships often drift quietly away.
…and the other “GOLD”
There are friends I’ve lost touch with and others I’ve been “ghosted” by — or that I’ve “ghosted”. People that I realize we’ve lost what we once had in common. Looking through old photo albums and seeing our wide smiles and remembering the laughter can be somewhat painful; but I realize that was just a chapter in my life.
Then there are those relationships that weather difficult times and survive the happy and sad milestones in our lives. We’re friends no matter where we live or who we live with or where we work. Those truly are the “gold” friends.