If you are over 30 and you have not lost friends, have you even made progress?
I recently had a fight with my closest friend. We were able to patch things up since it has been such a long standing relationship, but I started thinking about it and it got me to realize, I have lost out on so many friends over the years, who I thought would never leave my side.
Now I don’t know who’s mistake it was, or if we simply lost touch or various other reasons we will explore on the way, but I do find myself missing them at times when memories come flooding by.
Let me explore what the reasons could be:
- It’s as simple as one of us or none of us putting in the effort to stay in touch with each other. Work, stress, relationships and long distance could have taken a toll on that and while
- Letting things like work, family, other relationships come in the way
- A possible feeling of superiority or inferiority at what the other person does at work, or in life
- Letting go of the past that could have hurt or traumatized us in a lot of ways
But you know what the actual reasons might be like?
- You put in the effort or the other person did but the response wasn’t great or not there at all. Slowly over time things fell through the cracks
- You stopped relating to the person entirely, I was an outgoing person earlier and loved to pain the town red with my friends. I don’t, anymore. I love going out for drinks with friends once in a while, but that’s all. I don’t want to or can’t party the night anymore. A good TV series or a book at home comforts me the most
- The level of progress they have made in accepting themselves as compared to what we have done can be a HUGE factor. Like I said earlier, it’s okay if your friends don’t party anymore but you still like it. What’s not okay is making them feel guilty or convincing them to move out of their comfort zone because we/they can’t accept that people move on and change and it is only natural that priorities will change.
- Availability and boundaries — Sometimes us and sometimes our friends, we have often not considered the life stages and mental bandwidth a person might be at. This often leads to overstepping boundaries or over expectations.
- The last reason that I can think of is because we want to let go of the hurt, the trauma that we went through because of things people did or said. You might not realize things then or patch up but such conversations often leave an indelible mark on your mind. That opens up only when you have had time to process them!
I have been on both sides of most of these situations and when I think about it, I would have loved to have all my school and college friends with me, by my side but sometimes we need to move on?! It’s for our own good and for our peace of mind. With our progress, we will shed or let go of people, things and situations. And that’s completely okay!
