Some things are unavoidable. It’s highly likely that, as you have grown up, your friend list has shifted and changed. If you have already made the transition from college to work life, then this change might feel even more pronounced for you.
College is one of those rare places where you get to meet a lot of your friends on a daily basis. Once most of you get jobs across the country, though, it’s hard to keep up that kind of contact. Another big change that changes friendships is when you move cities (or move abroad). I haven’t kept up with as many of my friends after moving to New York, and even that small number has thinned in the last few months.
When you are working hard or focusing on the next stage of your life, it’s sometimes difficult to invest as much energy into your social relationships. Investing in friendships in these time periods is crucial, because you get to separate the wheat from the chaff and discover bonds that last the tests of time. However, these are times when you can easily lose meaningful friendships too, either because of fights or because one or both parties in that friendship had changed in a significant way.
Losing a good friend does sting, especially when you stumble upon their activities months after the fact on your social feed, and you become acutely aware of the fact that you have been shut out from participating in these activities. But loss is unavoidable in life, and with friendship, as with other things, we have to learn to move on, sooner or later.
Why Losing Friendships Can be a Good Thing
Losing friendships can be a blessing in disguise, especially if said friendships were toxic in the first place. You can invest more time on yourself, focusing on your self development and hobbies. You also get to invest more time in deeper friendships: often people try to hold onto their main circle of friends instead of expanding their horizons in these situations. Of course, you have moved somewhere else, you need to venture out of your comfort zone and try to make friends in the new place.
Making new friends is very important, even when you don’t feel like getting out of your bed.
They provide new perspectives, and you discover new dynamics that sheds more light on your own personality. Finding new people and bonding with them on different things is part and parcel of your evolution as you grow older. You can’t always go to the same bar with the same group of people: sometimes, you have got to change things up.
Sometimes, clinging on to old friends can feel like sticking to the past. This reminds me of how, when I used to get together with some of my school friends, we all reverted to how we used to be back in high school, making jokes that were years past the buy date. You have to learn to let go of old, familiar things and embrace the magic of discovering new things.
Of course, some friendships survive all changes, and grow even stronger over time. Cherish those friendships, and make sure to nurture them.
Don’t be afraid to meet up even if you haven’t seen each other for years. Reward the people who have proven to be the bedrocks of your life.
If you find that you keep changing friends every few years, don’t panic: that’s a sign that you are constantly evolving, and that your priorities have changed over time. (Of course, there’s the chance that you are an unlikable asshole, but let’s just assume you aren’t.) Just make sure that you are a good sport to the friends who do stick around, and that when hard times come knocking, they can depend on you to be there for them.
As for the regret that comes from losing friendships, sometimes that’s unavoidable. Count your losses and move forward: it’s likely that your former friends aren’t wasting their time thinking about you, so why should you waste your time thinking about them?