You know that knowledge you suddenly have that the person you’ve known and been friends with for a long time and have been chatting with online, or emailing, would never again talk to you if you didn’t initiate contact? Yeah…that feeling. You search your last few contacts for an offense you’ve given, convinced automatically that its you. After all its always you. You check your sense that it’s always you who has to call. Check, it’s always me for some time now. You tell yourself, it’s probably not that they don’t like you. It’s more likely they’ve just moved on, and you’re more invested in your mutual past than they are. It never feels good to be the one who is over-invested, who cares more, in a lop-sided relationship. And, after all they may be busier, they may have been sick, or traveling, or…or…or. You make excuses for them because that’s who you are…the one who tries to not “take it personal.” The one who avoids the accusation that you’re just being insecure, or worse yet “paranoid.”
You “test” your intuition by withholding contact, and, sure enough the days turn into weeks turn into months and maybe into years…nothing. And, then one day your hear a chat ding, or receive an email, and there they are…as though no time has passed at all, and no acknowledgement of the time which has passed except for maybe a vague “…its been awhile since…”. And, what do you do? Do you play the game, and pretend there was no lapse, or that the lapse was just inevitable, or mutual? Do you not respond, wait them out? I’ve done all of those responses at some time during my life, but I’m always left to wonder “What did I do (or not do) to make myself dispensable?”
A person I had worked with almost 10-years in the 1980’s, and remained active face-to-face friends with another 25 years, just suddenly stopped calling, or contacting. If someone had asked who my best non-family friend was, I would have immediately said his name. Whenever I called or messaged him with an invitation to lunch on a particular future date, he was “busy that day” and said he would call me back when his scheduled settled down. He didn’t. And, I would call or message again. We met for lunch a few more times. He almost broached the unspoken subject of “Why?” a couple times, but then backed off when I asked what had changed. “I don’t know…its me, not you.” In 2015 I moved out of state, adding the complication of distance and even less opportunities for access. When you go back to visit where you came from, it seems like all your friends and family who remain there want a piece of your calendar. He didn’t. I let him know when we’d be there, and where, and it was never workable to my now retired friend.
About a year ago he suddenly died of a heart attack during a bout with pneumonia. We had chatted online about a year prior to that as he was approaching his October 2021 birthday. Almost a year after that last chat had passed, when one day his wife messaged me that he had died suddenly from a brief illness the day before. My friend was dead, and I would never know why our long friendship became distant, not only in miles, but in interest and contact.
What is the lesson here? Is there a lesson here? I know you can’t make someone love you. I know you can’t make someone tell you if it’s you, not them. You already know that just sounds paranoid, and makes you seem needy. One day it just starts with a sense that if you don’t call, or text, or message, or email, you may never hear from them again. And, the solemn fact is, you may never hear from them again.
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