Especially now with facebook and stuff like that, it’s impossible to stay in close correspondence with everyone who considers you their friend. I’m guessing what’s going on in here a combination of that fact and a dash of irresponsibility/immaturity on their part. Not responding to e-mails or IMs is one thing, something I find annoying but completely excusable. Not showing up to parties that you’ve RSVPed in the positive to, that’s asshole territory. Your word is your bond, so act that way fuckheads (addressed to peoplel who’ve done this in the past to me.)
Seconding this - this happens very often amongst my female friends.
Those people are not your friends. WE are your friends. The SDMB is always there for you, at any time. We’ll never just disappear.
Got any of that keg left, btw?
That rule doesn’t work for everyone. I often end up with more guests than directly invited. But that’s really neither here nor there. If you say you’re going to be there, and then decide not to come, that’s anywhere from a little thoughtless to outright rude depending on the nature of the party and the nature of the friendship. For a casual get-together with drinks, snacks, and perhaps games, not so big deal. Dinner party? Very rude.
Anyhow, for the OP: Friend #1 I probably wouldn’t consider a friend, unless there’s some real mitigating circumstance to explain their absence. At least they’d be demoted to “acquaintance” status in my head. Friend #2 is either dead or has no purpose for keeping in touch with you. I would also probably not consider them friends in any sense of the word that I keep. Friends #3-#10 might just be thoughtless, but it’s still annoying.
Now, good friends can just go drifting in and out of each other’s lives, and I have had it happen to me where our lives just diverge for several years, and when they converge again, we just pick up right where we left off, no hard feelings. But none of these ebb-and-flow friendships would excuse the behavior of Friend #1, and while a few unanswered and unreturned phone calls is no big deal, were I in the situation with Friend #2 leaving voicemails and Facebook messages for a year and half, then only conclusion I could come to is that person does not want me to contact them, for whatever reason, and I would have come to that conclusion much sooner. It’s perfectly possible that they’re just wrapped up in their own lives and families, and that’s fine, but I’d just leave it be. The friend knows where you are and will contact you should they wish. Right now, you’re just not important in their scheme of things.
Very true. It really depends on what your social circle(s) are like when you’re throwing the party. Nowadays, most of my friends that live in Santa Fe are in the same social circle, so they’d be inter-inviting (cross-inviting?) within the same group of people I originally invited. Had the party been when I was in college, there would be people showing up I didn’t even know.
I think this is the crux. If I were invited to a party at a friends house that was advertised as a “kegger”, I would most likely say that I’d show up, regardless of my intentions. A kegger isn’t anything special, to me; I buy one every week as social chair of our rugby club. I’d figure a bunch of people were headed over, and my presence may or may not be noticed. I assume the party in the OP was advertised as a “kegger”; if they told us, certainly they told the people that were invited to the party.
Sounds like the nature of the party wasn’t communicated, and the nature of the friendship isn’t what the OP thinks it is.
Whoa. I just had a Kramer moment.
One of the best books ever.
I admit I’m one of those people who falls off the radar with people from time to time. I’m shy and I have trust issues.
I doubt that is the case with these people though. If you are expecting them to show and don’t without even calling, that is inconsiderate.
Heh, I usually get the other side of this conversation.
“For crying out loud, she rings and I don’t return her calls, she messages me on Facebook and I don’t respond, for all she knows I’m dead and yet she STILL doesn’t get the message!”
I hope your friends don’t dislike you as much as my friend dislikes this person who persists in thinking they are friends despite a complete lack of reciprocation on the other person’s behalf.
They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more.
See, that’s the wierd thing. I can’t possibly imagine what could have caused a divide between us. It was fun last time we hung out. Totally normal. I hadn’t seen her for a while before that so it couldn’t be some burning grudge.
It doesn’t have to be something you did. There doesn’t have to be some huge fight or faux pas for someone to drop you as a friend. Seriously, work on your self esteem! It’s not you, it’s them. Along with the whole friend radar, there is this whole concept of degree of friendship. The inner circle friends are few and ping all the time. The next circle out are basically situational friends and the furthest circle out are casual acquaintances. It is VERY awkward when you have a friend you consider to be an inner circle friend, but you are their casual acquaintance. Basically, don’t try to be friends with assholes. Screw them and move on.
Another thing to consider . . . . would this friend happen to be a reasonably attractive young woman?
I’m just asking because western culture happens to be obsessed with attractive young women. Everyone wants to spend time with them and as a result, they have a tendency to become a bit flaky. Think about it.
Amazingly enough, this is where the English speaking world needs more words. We use the word “friend” to cover too many degrees of relationships.
Eh, she’s probabaly got a new boyfriend. If that’s all it is, her brain will come back in a bit and all will be ok again. Boys can make girls stupid sometimes.
Well the back story is that we dated for about 8 months. First loves and all that. She ended up cheating on me when I went to Basic Training and things broke up from there. But that was 6 years ago now. Since then, we’d hung out plenty of times. Summer '07, she invited my girl and I on a weekend-long party. A good time was had by all. Then she went back to school. Winter break, '07, we hung out once. Then she fell of the face of the planet.
Yeah, dude. Get over her. Admit to yourself you want to be more than just friends with her, realize it’s never going to work, and move on. I have an almost identical story, with almost identical time frames. The only way you’re ever going to really get over her is if you stop calling and sending facebook messages every few months.
Probably because like most women, when push comes to shove, she would rather spend her time trying to find a potential boyfriend than maintain friendships with guys she already dated (and thus ruled out).
Here is what I’ve noticed in my 36 years on the planet. People become friends for different reasons. Companionship, shared interests, a connection to their past, amusement, simple proximity, whatever. Very few become life long friends. And even with life long friends, if your only contact with them is a Christmas card, a few emails a year and maybe a visit once every five years, how satisfying is that relationship on a daily basis. On the other extreme, you might have a circle of drinking buddies from work or football or wherever who will “bros for life” and “sup dogg” and half-hug or “pound fist” with you to death in phoney shows of male bromantic comaraderie. But when push comes to shove, they will pretty much drift in and out of your life blowing people off in favor of the “bigger better deal”. But for the time being they are fine because they are amusing and fun to hang out with. And you know what? A lot of times when some of these friends become more than just casual acquintances, you find out they really can’t stand half of the other guys for one reason or another.
The way I look at it, it doesn’t hurt to have as many friends as possible. Even if they are flaky or don’t always reciprocate. I, unfortunately, have a finite amount of time and energy to spend on them, however. So I will focus that energy on the friends who most demonstrate their friendship to me.
Chessic Sense, I am unfortunately one of those friends that disappear. Its not that I don’t want to be friends anymore, I just don’t really like talking on the phone or trying in vain to keep up a long distance friendship. I really appreciate the time we spent together, and I will always consider you a friend. The thing is, I’ve got new friends now. I also LOVE to visit my old friends, although I notice they rarely to never return the favor. There is a huge difference between being friends in person, and being remote friends. At any rate, I will always be on chat if you want to say hello, and my couch is always available.
I disappear out of my friend’s lives all the time. Not all of them, of course, I have a couple of very close friends that are really more like family now and I would do anything for them. Most people though, it’s not worth the effort. I make friends easily and don’t get very attached to them. Their desire to remain friends with me nearly always far outstrips my desire to stay friends with them.
Those few long-term friends are pretty much all ex-girlfriends of mine, so they were always in a different category from regular, casual friendships. My whole social circle generally gets completely replaced every couple years or so.
I’m kind of the same way. I’m just not into exchanging quarterly status reports and reminiscing about the old times on my life via phone. I look for friends I can pal around with on the weekends or shoot the shit over a beer after work.
And why is it for some reason, everyone you ever knew from high school or college thinks you should be friends for life?