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People Who Disappear From Your Life


Camber 2019

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I find that most, if not all, of my friends and acquaintances have disappeared from my life. Some because I moved away, some because we simply lost contact. I understand this happens, but it really bothers me that people whom I was so close to for so many years decided to simply fade away. :upset:

 

I know... people get busy with their lives, people grow, people move on... I've heard it all. But what really bothers me are two things:

 

1) I have always been the one to reach out, invite, and keep in touch. When I stop, I hear nothing but crickets :eek:

 

2) Even though I try as I might to move on with my own life, I find that I am thinking about this every single day. "I wonder if I'll hear from so and so today. Maybe a text, a call, an e-mail...." But, nothing, just crickets

 

Any insight on this?

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It happens when people move off to the baby farm to raise families.

 

When that is over, some reconnect.

 

Very interesting perspective!

 

Perhaps it is because I only have 1 child, and I only have him 1/2 time.. that probably leaves me with far more time than someone with a full time family with many children!

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Ya life does get busy when you get married and start having a brood. My sis inlaw spends all her time with the kids, and invites family over...that's it. I don't think they see too much of their friends anymore. I find the older you get the more you just want curl up on the couch and watch movies...have a couple of beers, fall asleep lol

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My situation is a bit different but I’ve lost most of my friends back home once I moved away. I tried to keep in touch but most of them are married/about to get married/have babies, so they have a very different lifestyle. I do think about them sometimes, but I am more focused on my life and my new friends. Do you think you could make new friends?:smug:

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OP I've felt the same as you. I've had some special people in my life who have moved on, as I have. A couple of them I really miss and since everyone has lives to lead and things to do, we drift apart. I have one special friend who lives a few hours from me in Ontario, Canada and I only see him in Mexico in the winter! Seems odd to have to travel 4000 miles so see someone who lives about 3 hours away, but that's how it's been working out.

 

Everyone grows and changes, life takes us all in many directions. Like smackie I am often content on the couch watching tv.

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Do you think you could make new friends?:smug:

 

Well, as Smackie says "I find the older you get the more you just want curl up on the couch and watch movies...have a couple of beers, fall asleep lol"

 

My wife has many friends, so I usually do things with them and get on well with their husbands...

 

I guess I think too much about why my old friends don't keep in touch...

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I have always been the one to reach out, invite, and keep in touch. When I stop, I hear nothing but crickets :eek:

 

Perhaps they have gotten so used to you keeping in touch that when you don't, they think you don't want to or you're too busy or something. Or they were your friends exactly because you kept reaching out. I used to be like you and it took me years to realize that friendship is a two way street. These days I reach out a couple of times and then wait for the other person. If they don't reciprocate, I move on.

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I think the best friendships though know when to cut some slack and are easygoing. I know if I call or text any of my friends I'd get a response and we'd make a date/time to meet. I would do the same for them. It's just not very frequent. If there's something wrong, I'd reorganize everything to be there if needed. Pretty low key and I'm ok with that. Also ok with people fading out or not responding. Leaves room for other things.

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I don't know if it's because of my age, or my life circumstances or what... I am sort of pragmatic about friendships that come and go, because I have noticed that as my life changes I attract different people into it.

 

For example...

 

- When I was a mom with a baby, I hung out with other moms that had babies or little kids.

- When my daughter was older, and I was a single mom, I gravitated towards single moms with kids that were a similar age.

- When I got married, we hung out with other married couples for the most part.

- When I joined CrossFit I made some friends that shared a mutual goal of health and fitness.

- When I separated from my ex, I found a crew of single ladies that I could go out and have fun with and commiserate about being single and dating with.

- When I got a BF, I noticed that most of those single ladies drifted away and I spent more time with ladies that were in good relationships.

 

For many people, including myself, when we are busy with life, who we connect with is almost a matter of convenience in some ways. The people I connect with now are people I see on a regular basis because we do regular activities together. I still have a couple of very long time friends in my life but even those have shifted over time.

 

It's not personal that you don't hear from them, it's just how life is and how relationships shift based on priority. Keep making new friends and doing activities you enjoy so you can meet people that are like minded and that you can connect with regularly.

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It’s a thread I resonate with.

 

It bothers me when I reach out to people and get no reply...or in this wonderous age of communication they recognise my thought out msg with a throwaway ‘FB thumb’. God I hate that thing :-@

 

I used to be in a fairly well known band and live in a 3 storey mansion on the river. Parties often and jam sessions in the basement. My wife was gorgeous and there were around 250 people at our wedding on the beach. The high life indeed...and then it all imploded.

 

The band ran its course, the crowds moved on, I lost the mansion and my now xwife pulled the rug from under me, took her kids that I’d raised as my own, hit Tinder and went on her merry way.

 

My thread here is pretty old now so I’m not sure if it reflected just how bad it got for me. Can’t remember if I talked about the numerous suicide attempts in there but yes there were a few as I spiralled into the depths...

 

Anyway, a big part of all that was I basically lost about 90-95% of my friends, family and community. It took me a long time to come to grips with it and I still struggle a bit. Friends I’d known for 20/30 years were suddenly ‘unreachable’....

 

So my story may be a little different and I’m sure people fade away for their own various reasons...

 

Melanie Tonia Evans has a good take on it which helped me a bit. She calls those people ‘Angels In Disguise’ because what they do by turning away is to force you to go on that inner journey...to be with yourself*

 

It’s a difficult yet quite rewarding journey that not everyone gets to go on*

 

I’ve found that if I reach out to somebody 3 or 4 times and don’t get any response well I just think ok then, and leave them in the past. I’m learning to take it less personally.

 

I mean, it does take a whole 30 seconds at least to type a reply! Even a ‘Thanks’ :-/ (sarc).

 

I must say, in an age where we have so many more ways of communication and faster too, people seem to have gotten worse at communicating, not better.

 

Now I don’t want to sound too over dramatic. I still do have a handful of great people who have stuck by me including some great people here on ENA. And in return I will always be there for them.

 

I also continue to meet new people as I go along.

 

The rest, well, I hope they’re all doing well wherever and whatever they’re doing.

 

As we get older we don’t lose friends. We just find out who the real ones are*

 

Thanks for posting Camber. It was nice to write that out and know that once again, we are never alone*

 

Carus*

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I'd rather someone didn't respond than respond and not mean it.

Yeh for sure...

 

But if you bother to take the time to remember someone’s birthday say and send them a message, surely you’d like to at least get a ‘Thanks’...at least...no?

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Well, as Smackie says "I find the older you get the more you just want curl up on the couch and watch movies...have a couple of beers, fall asleep lol"

 

My wife has many friends, so I usually do things with them and get on well with their husbands...

 

I guess I think too much about why my old friends don't keep in touch...

 

I’m not sure what age group we’re talking about, some of my older friends are very active and love being outdoors. My parents rarely stay at home watching tv, but I agree with Wiseman, people spend too much time watching Netflix, regardless of age.

 

I don’t know if it helps, but I stopped reaching out to friends who rarely texted first or were always busy.

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Yeh for sure...

 

But if you bother to take the time to remember someone’s birthday say and send them a message, surely you’d like to at least get a ‘Thanks’...at least...no?

 

If I'm spending that much time thinking about it, I'd probably be retired and on a lawn chair looking at my garden grow most of the day.

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I’m not sure what age group we’re talking about, some of my older friends are very active and love being outdoors. My parents rarely stay at home watching tv, but I agree with Wiseman, people spend too much time watching Netflix, regardless of age.

 

I don’t know if it helps, but I stopped reaching out to friends who rarely texted first or were always busy.

 

Oh, to clarify... My Wife, Son , and I LOVE to be outdoors. We hike on our trails, sail, backpack, ski.... the sofa thing is just at night! LoL.

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My dad always says, "you are very fortunate in life to have one best friend." SO true.

 

I have made so many best friends that will last for a decade or two, and there's not some crazy falling out; people move, or I move, or people's priorities change. I've had two I've been traveling with the family to see theirs, and haven't seen one in 22 years, and the other in 15 years (give or take), and there was a falling out, but they made amends, and it really was like no time passed meeting up with them. The love was and is still there.

 

I don't have a best friend close by, and it sucks. You really do miss the just letting it all hang out and breaking bread together whenever or wherever. I have some really great mom friends now, but that took really getting out there with events, and play dates, etc.

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I find that most, if not all, of my friends and acquaintances have disappeared from my life. Some because I moved away, some because we simply lost contact. I understand this happens, but it really bothers me that people whom I was so close to for so many years decided to simply fade away. :upset:

 

I know... people get busy with their lives, people grow, people move on... I've heard it all. But what really bothers me are two things:

 

1) I have always been the one to reach out, invite, and keep in touch. When I stop, I hear nothing but crickets :eek:

 

2) Even though I try as I might to move on with my own life, I find that I am thinking about this every single day. "I wonder if I'll hear from so and so today. Maybe a text, a call, an e-mail...." But, nothing, just crickets

 

Any insight on this?

 

I can relate because I am very good at reliably being in touch and after I moved away 10 years ago from the city I grew up in and lived for 43 years I was able to keep in touch for longer because we still lived there every summer for the first 6 years. But -in the last 3 years I've had two close friends do this to me. They do not know each other at all but ironically they have a lot in common (just mentioning that). In one case I can speculate as to what might have happened -I know I did nothing wrong and I can see where she might have had issues with the last time we saw each other (no personal issues/disagreements at all -an unfortunate situation that was not my fault but I apologized). The other -no clue at all. And I do wonder about them.

 

Then I have a fade in and out "friend" - we reconnected after many years, and became close again (childhood friends). Quite close. Then I actually put distance because the relationship became toxic too much of the time. I didn't go MIA at all just kept boundaries. But we were still in fairly regular touch -every couple of weeks by text at that point. She then went 5 months without contacting me then did "I haven't been in touch because work got busy and I didn't have time to text people." I call BS. Yes, I responded, yes we chit chatted over a couple of days but I'm letting it fade again and not getting overinvested.

 

I don't buy the whole "well I got married/you got married/I had a child/you moved to the burbs" -close friendships should have little to do with marital or parenting status. I don't want "mom friends" as a way to find close friends - unless we have a lot in common other than being moms. I cannot stand when people drop friends "because I got married" or "I had a baby". I am a fan of being up front and saying "I can't really go out at night anymore/I am too exhausted at night to talk much now that I have this promotion" etc - then you make alternative plans. You show the effort or you say "I might not be in touch as much while I'm planning the wedding but please know I am thinking of you and can't wait to be back in touch".

 

I think the absolute best thing to do -refocus on the people who are there for you, who are true friends, who are reliable. It's so much easier to go down the negative path and focus on who is not in touch then counting blessings. It helps me some.

 

I'm sorry you've experienced this. I wrote this without reading the other responses.

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