This has happened too often. You develop friendships. Maybe even bonded with these friends. That is to say that at one time in your life you were very close to these people. Shared incredible times. And then they don’t want to continue the relationship. For example, my oldest friend that I have stayed in contact with (for over 50 years) hasn’t written in a while. So, I write an email…asking how ya doin? bla, bla, bla. He hits the reply key, and doesn’t write one word. Well, at least he replied. Others don’t even reply. It is not like you have to buy a stamp and an envelope. with the internet it is so easy. So, I don’t get it. People don’t care about maintaining long relationships? They just move on? Or am I the weird one here for wanting to stay in touch?
Not knowing your friend, and probably a bit presumptuous on my part, but seeing you both have over 50 years of friendship behind you, is it possible he is slipping mentally and ‘forgot’ how to work email?
I could also render a wild guess that he in some way decided to move on from the past?
How long is ‘a while’ since you last spoke/wrote to one another?
I certainly wouldn’t consider it weird to want to stay in touch with old friends, considering I’ve been friends with the same two people for over 25 years now.
Also, are you sure there wasn’t an attachment? Some people write out letters in word or something and then just attach it to an email rather than writing it all out in email.
Thanks for the reply, FitR. We Skyped last summer. And I see that he is online with Skype. But I told him, I wouldn’t call him, because he is a video game addict and I don’t want to interrupt his gaming. And I told him that he is always welcome to call me. But the point is…he isn’t the only example of people “moving on”. There are people that I worked with for over 20 years, and I felt that we had shared some pretty amazing experiences, but they move on. And don’t want to maintain the relationship. It is not that I am asking for money. Just send an email, let me know wassup? Apparently keeping in touch is not important to this people. Or maybe I am a clinger?
Faruiza has a good point, may want to re-check that email.
It’s possible he just wants to move on, or he is more interested in gaming than friendship. Maybe try playing the game and see if his interest changes?
Unfortunately we all live a lifetime of friends who come and go, some long term, some short term. Without assuming something odd or questionable in the past, it may just simply be time has past for the friendships.
Way down deep in the vault of one’s heart, many people are surprisingly shallow. If that is what is the issue, then it is the old “out of sight …” situation.
In my estimation, it’s possible that you’re a clinger if you’re already questioning it, but then, take what I say with a huge grain of salt since I’m on the opposite side of the spectrum. I’m horrible with keeping in touch with people. Hell, corresponding at all with people I don’t have occasion to see very often is WORK, even if I’d give them the shirt off my back if they needed it. It’s the introvert in me, I guess. Catching up in written correspondence is supposed to be full of things about one’s life that I find difficult to get on to paper when it would be far more natural in person. I hate talking on the phone, too.
I’ve had remarkable, long friendships that one day just sort of faded away as our lives changed and moved on. I have very fond memories of those times and would love to see some of them however briefly, but I don’t have the giddy-up to find them and email them with a wish to have a written exchange about life. Mine’s not that interesting!
FWIW, I have never encountered a person I worked with that I wanted to maintain a friendship with after leaving the job. I realize people do it, I just can’t get there from here.
I guess that is where I have the problem. I enjoy talking about…remember when we did that, etc.
So, are you folks saying that you have never had long term friends that have “moved on”? And no longer want to maintain contact. Or, that if you did it doesn’t matter? You don’t feel a loss with this? It is like they were a part of me and now they are gone. To me, it hurts. Maybe I just need to move on. And get over it.
Well when I have had people move on from friendships, or people move on from me it has usually been at points where either one of us just decided that the friendship wasn’t worth it anymore. It didn’t usually come from a big fight, but for instance, when I realized that I was a mom with a child and a house and a job the people who were more involved with the bar scene on weekends weren’t my type. No harm, no foul, just no longer any interest, so I stopped responding to invites, they stopped calling, occasionally we cross paths and nothing wrong, we just don’t move in the same circles.
On the other end of the spectrum, I also had a friend “formally” take me for lunch and tell me she wasn’t my friend anymore (it seems ridiculous now, 20 years later) because my “immoral behaviour made her sick”. She had just started hanging out with Jehovah’s Witnesses and I was a pretty normal university student with a boyfriend and a healthy social life. That hurt for a while, she was my best friend as a teenager but in the long run it doesn’t matter, we HAD become different people.
So, there can be a lack of interest, an actual break, various things that cause this. If you look back and see that most of the people “move on” from you rather than you moving on from them about equally, you might want to examine what you bring to friendships. It may or may not be something you are doing.
Much like Faruiza, i am also horrible at communicating with friends and family members. I loathe talking on the phone and often go weeks or months without talking on the phone with my parents. It’s not that I don’t care about them, I just prefer to interact with people face-to-face, which is hard when they’re on the other side of the country.
I also haven’t made any friends since I moved cross country, but I live with my girlfriend and I’d rather spend what little free time I have enjoying myself, by myself.
My girlfriend on the other hand tries to make new friends at work constantly and is much more social than I am.
As already touched on, some people just don’t see much of a point of maintaining long distance relationships of any type. If you’re coming into town, gimme a call, and I’ll do likewise. Otherwise, I never was much interested in having a penpal.
I have moved on from several friendships actually. Maybe not all necessarily by direct choice, some just faded away over time. It happens. A few were nearly a decade or more long, and through moving, job change, or whatnot, they ended or faded away.
I occasionally think back on a friendship or two, make an attempt to locate them, and not having success in a short time, give up. Like Faruiza, I’ve got some of an introvert in me, so I accept it as what it is, and move on. I’m also in the camp of being horrible in keeping in touch over long distance or time.
I won’t deny a sense of loss over some of these past friends, but like anything else, sometimes people just move on.
My assumption would be that something went wrong in the email process. I’d reply to the blank reply with a “What???”
He’s just not that into you.
There’s a number of reasons why that sort of behavior may occur in a long term friendship. It’s difficult or impossible to say which of these it may be without knowing a lot more about you two, so I’ll just give you my thoughts and let you see if any of them feel like they fit.
The most innocent and likely possibility is just that there is a natural ebb and flow to relationships. I know with almost all of my relationships, friends, family, or girlfriends, there are times where I feel particularly close to them and times when I’m not feeling particularly close to them and my interest in communicating and spending time with them will reflect that. It’s not that I care about them any less, I’m just not in the place where I have as much room or need for them and, presumably, neither are they or they’d make more effort to reach me as well. That said, if and when they do, I’m there for them. In fact, one of the people I am closest to and have been most of my life I haven’t heard from in maybe six months, and much less than we used to over the last couple of years, sent me a message just a few days ago and I responded as soon as I saw it. The thing that really describes this sort of thing, though, is that even after some periods of almost no communication, when we do get back in touch, it doesn’t feel like any of that intimacy has been lost at all.
Another possibility is that the relationship is just growing apart. Friends become friends because we have a lot in common and travel with eachother through life. But sometimes we reach points where our lives diverge. Often, it’s not even because we don’t care about eachother, but just that it friendship just isn’t serving us anymore. At other times, the divergence is kind of sudden. It’s not unlike physically moving away from someone, sometimes you can make that effort to stay close and it will stick, other times all those calls and emails without face time make it more difficult and it slowly fades. I’ve seen this happen recently with my mom’s best friend of 35-40 years. They were nigh unseparable for most of my life, but in the last couple of years they spent less and less time together and I don’t think they’ve even talked in 6-9 months. I can see how their paths in life have just led them apart to the point where it just wasn’t serving either of them as much anymore, even though I suspect that if either of them were to call the other with an emergency, they’d still be there in a heartbeat. I think this is particularly prone to happen in super long term relationships, like the one mentioned in the OP because how long can two people really be on close enough paths for THAT long.
It’s also possible that there’s something just wrong. Maybe your friend is upset with you and it will pass. Maybe your friend is going through something and doesn’t have the time or energy. Maybe they just messed up the response. Maybe they’ve decided to just end the friendship and just don’t know how to tell you so they say nothing. If this is the case, give them some time and try again later.
Thank you Blaster for your reply. As I mentioned this isn’t an isolated incident. But I see your point. I now live in a foreign country and maybe they just think our lives will never cross again and they chose to move on. I have also come to the realization that not all people think as I do. It was a shock, but I accept it. They just don’t value the relationship enough to lick a stamp (send an email). And I am going to get over it. Thank you for all your replies.
You’re welcome. Keep in touch.
It sounds like you’re making these people into the bad guys who just aren’t as good and kind as you are. I don’t think that’s an accurate way to look at it (from my perspective as another person who is terrible at keeping in touch). People do grow apart, and it doesn’t make them bad people because they aren’t making a lot of effort to keep in touch with you. It just makes them different from you.
Are there any people in your life who do make an effort to keep in touch with you? I’d say focus on those people and don’t take it too personally when others don’t make as much effort.
I have a few college friends that pretty regularly bug me to get together with them (and by bug me I mean try to make me feel guilty that we haven’t gotten together: “why don’t I see you anymore??” “it’s been 15 years- we need to get together!!!1”), but I literally have no interest anymore. They’ve moved on, had kids, changed careers, had innumerable experiences in their lives that have had nothing to do with me, and I can’t for the life of me figure out what we would begin to talk about. The last 15 years of each of our lives condensed into a 1 hour lunch? If we didn’t talk about that job promotion or their mother’s death when it happened, what’s the importance of going over it now? I tried back then to keep in touch with them, but even then it was clear that our lives were diverging completely. Getting through a lunch was painful. It was like a job interview for how awesome we were. I gave up.
Even with the advent of Facebook, this seems to be true. Connecting one time is novel, finding out an old art school classmate is now an airline pilot in Zimbabwe- ok, that is pretty interesting, but beyond that I have little memory of who he was then, I surely don’t know who he is now, and I’m OK with that.
I think some people find value in reconnecting. I just don’t think I’m one of them.
I love reunions. I have found that the people I liked then I still like. Those I did not like, I still don’t like but I am not so ridged about it. Maybe I learned to be civil.
All the rest are still the rest. Fun to catch up but we are not going to be buddies & we both seem to understand that without actually discussing it.
I hear a picture is worth a thousand words.
I send pictures in this day & age. Top line says, “Here is a 4000 word letter.” Then I paste in 4 pictures. Works good.
As I get older, 69, I have more time to be interested in more people.