Sobering moment about past friendships

Here is a story. I’ve tweaked some of the details so it’s not entirely non-fiction. But it’s a story re-created from the recent past. An old friend reached out to me the other day. This old friend asked if I wanted to hang out and catch up. And that she had thought about me recently. I haven’t heard from this person in years.

In some cases, I’d jump at the thought that I could reunite with an old friend and catch up on our lives, and how much has changed since we last saw each other, how grown up each of us had become. In this case, and some others, I don’t get excited about that. Part of me feels cruel and cold for not taking an interest in lives of people I used to know. I was honest and told her that I don’t speak to many friends that I haven’t spoken to in years, not because I don’t like people, but because I have to focus my energy on priorities right now and I have to be picky with my time. I also shared that it’s tough to catch up with people in person when I probably don’t have much in common with them anymore, let alone haven’t kept in touch with them for years. But the flexibility of Facebook allowed me to have a brief chat about what was new in our lives and then the conversation ended.

I probably should have just said, “sorry, I don’t have time right now. I’ll let you know when I’m more free. Great to hear from you.” It was nice to hear from her. I didn’t think I would honestly ever make the time to prioritize a one off meeting I wasn’t interested in making.

I felt compelled to share my honesty with her so she didn’t feel like I was faking how I felt. In retrospect, it was pretty selfish of me to feel the need to be insensitive to another person’s feelings and was only thinking of how I felt, and how I would have responded if someone has shared their honest feedback about our friendship with me.

I must have been channeling this chef that I saw on Netflix’s Chef’s Table the other night. He is this badass, vagabonding, gypsy-like chef that literally gives zero f*cks and lives his life to the fullest, literally on an island in the middle of a lake in Patagonia. He shared a scenario where an old friend that asked him something along the lines of, “why don’t you like me anymore?” and he responded that it wasn’t that he didn’t like his old friend, but that he and his friend had grown apart, their interests had changed, and he honestly didn’t think that they would enjoy each other’s company. I remember thinking, damn, that was cold, but somewhat beautiful and genuine. And now I’ve done that too, but I feel like a jerk.

There have been a few scenarios where old friends and I have grown apart and we don’t talk anymore. There isn’t any animosity or hard feelings. To me, there is an unspoken understanding that people grow up, people change, people’s interests change, friendships change, friendships come, friendships go, friendships come again, and some friendships stay, grow and stand the test of time. I’ve certainly been on the receiving end a couple of times where I’ve tried to maintain a friendship that was fizzling out because we didn’t have much in common anymore, and I remember feeling bummed because I was hearing from them less and less… until eventually I was “ghosted.” I’m guilty of ignoring messages from people, too, because I don’t have anything to say at the moment and it isn’t a priority to me. But I felt genuine with this particular friend, like I was doing the right thing. But, somehow, it also feels like I did quite the opposite.