February 1, 2020
Why Friends Disappear (and why It’s not a Bad Thing)
Why friends disappear might sound like a social topic. And yet, as you can see, I’ve chosen “Experiencing” as the post category. The reason is that this post is, like every other, entirely selfish.
Don’t get me wrong; if you can find answers to your questions, I’m happy. But first and foremost, this post is a stream-of-consciousness-like effort (not unlike recalling almond trees or Greek coffee) to find answers to my own questions.
Yes, my friends have disappeared. Others have reappeared. Then they, too, disappeared. Years pass, friends come, friends go. I’m definitely not a good example for friendships lasting a lifetime.
You might be tempted to think that I’m the common denominator, hence, I must be part of the reason. You wouldn’t be wrong to think that, but not for the reasons you might expect.
Yes, my friends have disappeared, and I’m the focal point of my friends that disappear. But so is something else: space-time. Blame my academic research interests, but it’s hard for me not to put everything in a space-time box. Humans are temporal beings.
The One with the Friends who Disappear
Ridiculous, mindless entertainment usually takes place in a temporal vacuum. That is, there is little if any temporal evolution. Each episode of a TV series, each comic book of a superheroFor more on this, take a look at Umberto Eco’s thesis on the myth of Superman, found on my post on dream experiences., takes place in an eternal now. It’s easy in (mindless) fiction for friends to be best friends forever, because nothing ever changes.
Apart from some meaningless, distracting events (relationships starting or ending, then starting again), most characters in such mindless entertainment go through life unchanged. Their thought patterns don’t evolve, their ethical codes don’t change, and their perspectives on life are fossilized.
Nonetheless, in reality, things do change. People change (or at least they ought to). Life goes on. Why friends disappear is a result of several things changing.
From Childhood to Something Else
My two best childhood friends were my friends for most of my school years. We played basketball together, we played board games together, we played computer games together.
I fondly remember those winter evenings, after school, when we would visit the humble home of one of those friends, then spend hours playing Clue while his mother brought us orange juice.
Or those afternoons in March, when spring is just around the corner and the sunlight is a little bit different, more hopeful, when I’d visit the home of my other friend, and we’d watch our favorite basketball team on TV.
And then, one day, we were 18, and everything changed.
The Ties that no longer Bind
After I finished high school, I realized life had changed – almost overnight, in a way. I was expected to plan for my future. I spent some months studying Italian, then I went to Italy to study Pharmacy (don’t ask).
It feels it was only for a second that I took my eyes away from my childhood interests, my illusory innocence, and my friends. When you do that, friends disappear. One goes this way, another goes that way.
And I went my own way. Living in another country, with interests and concerns much different from playing basketball or board games.
The New Friends (that Disappear)
I did make new friends there. I spent a couple of fun years. And then life changed again, and I left Italy. All the friends were left behind.
Somewhere along the way things like Facebook popped up – another dimension of friendship. I naively thought it was a great chance to rediscover my lost friends.
And that’s how I realized the importance of space-time.
How Space-time Fools You into Complacency
There are three elements explaining why friends disappear: personal change, space, and time.
With apologies to Einstein (and Bakhtin), I will treat space and time a little bit differently. Though, to be sure, they are interconnected even in this metaphor.
The way space affects a friendship should be fairly obvious. “Out of sight, out of mind”. When you don’t see your friends, when you don’t exist in the same space (be it school, college, or neighborhood), you are not forced to upkeep the friendship.
In other words, spatial distance inspires you to reconsider your friendship. Are you still enjoying that person’s company? Are you still enjoying the things you’re doing with that person?
Of course, if the change is transitory (enter time), it doesn’t matter. Even if an x amount of time (which is subjective) passes, you could still reconnect with your friends.
However, beyond that ghostly, fuzzy point in time, things begin to break up. I realized that my old friends were simply a digital avatar on a Facebook page. They were my friends’ doubles, in a way. More still, so much time has passed since those lazy afternoons of my childhood, that neither I nor they were the same person.
Enter personal change.
You Are not the Same Person – and That’s Great
My old childhood friends no longer cared about Monopoly or basketball, and neither did I. Our interaction was limited to “remember whens”, which quickly ran out.
The same pattern followed with friends that came later. Indeed, with one of them we even met again face-to-face after ten years. We were both (and, perhaps, especially I) very much changed. Although the “remember when” period was fun, it lasted for very little. He soon went back to his life, I went back to mine, and that was it. One day he stopped replying to my messages.
I don’t miss any of my friends who disappear. I sometimes miss the associations they bring – that’s how nostalgia operates; it’s not about space or time.
When Friends Disappear, it Means Someone Has Evolved
Once you break out of the space-time framework – that is, once you are bound to your friends by neither spatial constraints nor temporal proximity – you reflect on the person. You reflect on yourself, too. And you discover someone has evolved.
In most cases that includes both you and your friends, but this isn’t set in stone. Some people never grow up. At the very least, people mature at a different pace.
“Joe hasn’t joined us in our pub crawls after he got married”. Of course not, you dimwit; and try to think why.
If a “friendship” is predicated on getting plastered (in this example), then Joe might realize that, once this element is removed, there isn’t much sense in that friendship anymore.
Are there friendships that began at childhood and “last forever”? Probably so. But at least I’m very suspicious about the circumstances involved. Hypocrisy and conformity are both very powerful facilitators; worse still, they’re insidious facilitators.
Stuck in the same place? Stuck in the same mindset?
Quite often these two go hand-in-hand, by the way.
Ultimately, it’s a matter of identity. I might fondly remember those sunny summer afternoons when I played basketball with my childhood friends, but the recollection is barely more real than a fleeting dream, a song, a poem. It’s not a recollection of myself, but rather of a chunk of experiencing available to me subjectively.
8 Comments
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“once you are bound to your friends by neither spatial constraints nor temporal proximity – you reflect on the person. You reflect on yourself, too. And you discover someone has evolved.”
This comment made me see a Bell curve with shining dots on it and realized that I and all my friends (past and present) were on it as one of the dots. And the dots were moving. Some slowly, some faster, some stayed rigidly on the same position. This isn’t an IQ Bell curve but much more – maturity, social and political awareness, empathy and compassion, sense of humour, playfulness, levels of accomplishments in arts, science, etc, etc. When we were born, we were at the beginning of this Bell curve and very close with our friends for a long time. Then we started to move, each of us with different speed and not always in the same direction. It would be a miracle if we didn’t grow apart. Unless two of these dots decided to team up and stay together forever. It takes some effort to resist the currents in space-time that nudges you in different direction, but if the rewards of staying together outweighs the opposing forces, it can work. It worked for me when I married my best friend 40 years ago.
I just realized Chris, that I said the same thing as you did in the quote, only with a lot more words. Not necessarily a good thing.
I can relate to that latter comment, as a fellow writer. 🙂
Still, the concept of a Bell curve is a very intriguing one in this context. As I said in the text, I’m a bit suspicious when it comes to “friends forever”, but the lovely counter-example you mentioned is definitely one such case.
So much of friendship is propinquity – if you don’t spend time together doing things you both want, most friendships fade. You’re still friends in some sense – you don’t usually actively wish them ill or gone – but you have little in common and don’t provide any mutuality. Not surprising, when you think of the number of people you will come in contact with during a lifetime.
I’m that friend that disappears for months on end…no text, no call but the ones I disappear from also don’t text or call so….am I really disappearing? One of them is not a texter and super busy but she would be upset at my disappearing acts, she even ended the friendship once over it because we didn’t talk for 6 months. We came back to being friends though, her head was not in the right space and we both apologized. We are texting again and calling (well I am, she responds and calls if I wanna talk). I don’t need to constantly need to be in peoples lives 24/7.
You’re offering an interesting detail: It takes two to…disappear. A bit like the act of seeing (where you need to see to know you’re being seen), not contacting a friend is also a matter of shared responsibility.
Of course, the difference is that it can become lopsided. If only one of the persons involved is the one to constantly call, trying to upkeep the friendship, there’s less responsibility involved for them if the contact stops.
Thanks for your comment!
It is mistaken to think that when a friend you love disappears that the fault is with you. Being abandoned hurts inside but they did not mean to leave you that way. When you have child-like innocence, you don’t take much notice of people coming and going in the same way as when you are older, even though you feel attached to them. The problem might be to do with the way we communicate now. Constant social media, thinking we can keep things alive through those avenues with the lost ones. that will only breed dissatisfaction IRL.
Going through something similar right now. Had a close friend whom I’ve known for nearly 25 years and in the 6 months he has all but vanished from my life since I saw him last September. I hadn’t seen him in almost 3 years since he moved to another province with his girlfriend some 5 years previous, but we still spoke almost every week via text or phone call. In September he just STOPPED! He wouldn’t return texts or phone calls as I reached out to him a number of times over a 4 month period. I caught him during Christmas and we had a brief text to which he said he’s been really busy, but thats never stopped him before, he just stopped putting in effort; there was no conversation or communication about anything. I always seemed to put more more effort in them him, he is an attachment avoident. Anyways ; ) I think we are just growing apart.
It’s a part of life. Some would call it “sad”, but I suppose it just is; a natural consequences of lives acquiring different directions. Since I wrote this post, I’ve gone through the process a couple of times myself. It’s easier for some people, harder for others.
Thanks for your comment!