Friendships ebb and flow. Sometimes you don’t necessarily fall out with a friend as much as the friendship just fades away into the background or fizzles out to nothing. Sometimes this can last for months or years. And it can be awkward to know, are you still friends? Is it ok to reach out? Should you just act like nothing happened? Could you? Or do you need to offer excuses and explanations on how and why you unofficially parted ways?
I think this depends on your circumstances. If you can reflect on why you grew apart for that time, what makes you think it might be different now? What do you miss about your friend or your friendship? Do you think you or they have changed enough to make the friendship more viable now? How close were you to begin with? How sudden was the lapse? Did you just ghost one day or slowly stop reaching out to each other in what felt like natural ways to each of you? Do you think your friend was hurt? Was it them or you who pulled away first or more?
The next set of questions to ask yourself are about what you hope or expect to happen if you do reach out. Are you comfortable with just exchanging an email update and not catching up in person? Or do you wish to resume a more time intensive connection similar to what you shared before? Are those expectations reasonable? Did you move away from your friend in favour of other friends, only to go crawling back when that didn’t work out in your favour? Are you prepared to be accountable for this and have you learned a lesson? Or if this is what happened to you, are you prepared to forgive and forget and try again?
Sometimes life does just take you off on your own paths and there is no animosity and often life will also bring you back together again in similarly natural ways. For example maybe you were close while you were studying, but became less close as you took on jobs and partners and mortgages. Then you later learn you both had a baby around the same time or moved to the same area or work for the same company and things naturally re-spark.
However, sometimes you have to be more forward in bringing about the change yourself. It could be that you saw something that reminded you of them and you suddenly felt an urge to get in touch. Or social media prompted you with a memory and you started feeling nostalgic, realising that you missed them more than you care to realise. Or perhaps you are going through a hard time and they were always the one person who knew exactly what you needed even when you didn’t know yourself.
Maybe you don’t really know how or why life got in the way and you stopped being intentional about your friend, but you would like to start being intentional again.
Once you have understood what happened, what you expect or hope to happen, your own intentions and how much you have to offer moving forward, the next step is actually reaching out. And there is only one answer to this – just do it! The general idea is that in person is always better, but in these circumstances I actually feel perhaps an email, letter or text message of some sort is better.
This allows your friend time to read and respond to you if they want to, in their own time, having given thought to their own thoughts and feelings and hopes and expectations. Give your friend time to process and respond before you give up hope. Don’t give them an ultimatum, such as, if I don’t hear from you in a week I will assume you no longer want to be friends, try to leave it open ended such as hoping to hear from you if you ever get time.
Tell your friend about your life, what has changed, what has happened in your time apart. Acknowledge that you do not know what is happening in their own life, and you would be interested to hear if they are willing to share. Definitely tell them that you have missed them and thought about them at times, (only if that is true) and you wondered if they had felt similarly. If you feel you owe them an apology, offer it, and if you want to offer an explanation, try and keep it brief and light. Remember, you want to move forward not spend too much time looking back.
Close the communication by thanking them for their time and your years of friendship. Tell them you still have fond memories and always will, regardless of the outcome, and that you wish them nothing but the best, and hope they are happy and healthy in life.
If they do not respond, respect that. I am not saying you can never try again, but give it a while before you do try again and do not try more than 2 or 3 times to resume communication. No response is a response.
Then move forward, slowly and rebuild. Accept that your friendship has to be a new one, it cannot just go back to being the way that it was. You have to get to know one another slowly, reform connections and build up momentum and trust. Or alternatively, move on alone and put that effort towards building a new friendship which could be as epic as your old one, even without a shared history.
But ultimately, the only way to reach out after a long lapse, is really to take the plunge and press send. Then wait and see!
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx
