Has My Oldest Friendship Run its Course?

[BaronChairman]

We met through the fence in the backyard when I was four years old and he was three. The age difference is exactly one year, because we share the same birthday. Typical things happened along the way: We beat each other up, competed against each other, looked after each other, and were inseparable all the while.

 

We got older and typical things still happened: There was college, when he went away and ultimately returned. There was career, in which I moved away but ultimately returned. He got married and had kids.

 

I do understand that friendships have this habit of growing and changing as we get older. I know kids have changed the dynamic on his end, and distance has done the same on my end - I moved out of our hometown a second time. Unfortunately, even though he came through as best as he could when my mother died, well, there's no occasional phone call. Hell, there's no phone at all anymore. I make efforts to stay in touch via email, but he lets months pass at a time before responding. He's not on any social media platforms. And now, with my mother dead and my father having made the decision to follow my sister to her adopted home city, there's no reason for me to set foot in the hometown.

 

Basically, we've become isolated from each others' lives, and he makes so little effort to stay in touch that I'm wondering if it's worth the effort at all to try. If not, well, it was 33 years since that day we met, so I think we've fulfilled our obligations to each other as friends.

[preraph]

Assuming you're also male, it just sounds like the typical thing that happens when one marries and has kids. I don't like it, being a single woman with no kids, but it's a fact of life. Instantly kids and their wife put you waaaay down on the list of priorities. It's sad some people don't have the capacity to at least make some effort to keep in touch and see you occasionally, but that seems to the be case. I had one best friend who absolutely abandoned me once she had kids -- and tried to gaslight me and make it my fault, when nothing had changed on my end. She didn't want it to be her, you know, when it obviously was.

 

I am old, so only have a few good friends. One of my best running buddies the last 15 or so years abandoned me when she decided to be with a guy who had been wanting to be with her for a long time. I guess she was just finally ready for another man -- and poof, she's gone except at birthday time, which honestly, I don't see the point of that.

 

But my best friend now has two kids and is married and I rarely see her because she also is a teacher and works a lot, but like a month before school let out, she made plans with me to have an outing. I know she has me on her list of people to see when she can, and that's all you can expect out of a mother with kids who is working full time.

 

I would say unless your friend just acts like you're in imposition, keep in touch at least a couple times a year and see if he reciprocates, but if you get the vibe he's annoyed by you keeping up, then do radio silence on him. Good luck. Hope it doesn't come to that.

[Mysterio]

Everybody has a hiarchy. My childhood friend TD lives in another city. He moved. We are close, but he does not really call me. I have another friend that lives down the street from. I notice he does not really call me. but makes up with it.

 

Do you and your friend really click. Its hard to say. We have E-mail/Facebook. I don't see how hard it is.

 

Call twice a year and leave it at that. Now if he does not get back to you. Leave and concentrate on people that appreciate you.