Old friends going a bit ' funny'

I don't always think friendships can be picked up again easily if the contact is not consistent. People go through very hard times and if they don't hear from their friend at all during that period (and I'm not saying it's the friend's fault) then they might reach the conclusion that the person they thought was a friend isn't a friend. It's not true that old friends or close friends can go several months (consistently over the years) or longer and still pick up where they left off. It all depends on life circumstances.

Yeah i second this. I let "friends" walk all over me when in my 20s & 30s, put up with jealousy and little digs, when I hit menopause it opened my eyes and I stopped letting people take advantage of me, including family.

I recently turned 60 and noticed this with two
of my friends/acquaintances. The three of us all live fairly local. But I suddenly noticed the friendship, dynamics and effort had suddenly changed. I wanted to celebrate my 60th with them but they were both busy and uninterested.

I think in my case what it might be is I had children later in life and they are now off doing their own thing at Uni and in first jobs so neex me less and my DH is also ill. So I probably want to make the effort to see them more. Whereas they had children much earlier and are both now grandparents, one also works long shifts and the other has a demanding partner. So whilst I now have more time and space to see them more. They both seem to want to see me much less. I have acknowledged this and totally backed off and don’t initiate contact or meet ups anymore now since last year. But still see them occasionally but only if one of them initiates it. I tried to arrange things twice but neither were interested or available. But but thats how it is.

I've been thinking about this interesting thread today OP.

The pandemic killed off the last of my friendships. I have a couple close friends now, that's all. I have had a life-changing event happen several times in my life, some good and some bad. Each time it's cost me my friendships. This last time was during the pandemic, it was something awful and I couldn't talk about it. So I didn't reach out to anyone. I couldn't face getting that text back asking how I am and having to explain.

Now, I'm not rude and I value my friendships, so if they'd reached out to me I'd have responded and then they'd have known about it. Maybe some would have been supportive if they'd known. I didn't need anything from anyone, just their company occasionally, a few texts now and then. I'll never know because nobody did reach out to me and I just couldn't make the first move.

Time passed and I got over it, was able to speak about it, but by then it had been over a year, or two in some cases, since we'd last been in contact. I felt that I obviously wasn't seen by them as a valuable enough friend to keep in touch with over the pandemic, when most people focused solely on their family and inner circle friends. That being the case, I never did get back in touch and neither did they.

That all lead to a change in attitude from me. I decided I could no longer be bothered to seek out friendships as I had in the past, I'd settle now for making the most of anything that came my way and happened organically instead. I wasn't interested in putting in the effort to meet new people, put myself out there, make the first move. I wasn't going to chase people and I wasn't going to do anything I didn't want to, any more.

Before, I'd have gone places I wasn't that interested in and did things I didn't care about doing, because my friends did like it and wanted to do it and I was happy to be spending time with them. Now I'm much more true to myself and if I'm invited somewhere that I don't want to go I decline.

I shut down all my social media because it doesn't interest me and seeing life updates from people who no longer contacted me was upsetting. I'd only joined it in the first place because friends wanted me to.

If I text someone and they don't reply, I'll assume they're busy, or forgot, and try again a month or so later. 3 ignored texts and I'm done, I don't contact again. Same if people cancel a meet-up, I expect them to be the one to contact me to rearrange. If they don't contact me again then that's it, I don't contact them either and the friendship drifts into nothing.

It's hard to know who has space in their life for another friend, who actually wants to be friends versus who just saw you as someone convenient to spend time with when it suited them. I expect things to be very reciprocal now and I'm quick to let them go if they aren't.

It might sound incredibly silly but I've grown tired of carrying the mental load of remembering who I haven't heard from in a while and feeling that need to check in with them, see they're ok, deciding whether to ask them if they want to meet, where to go, organising it. Organising plan B in case they cancel last minute, so my day isn't ruined etc. I have a lot going on in my own life to deal with, without loading myself up with extra things to keep track of.

My two friends now it's very different. One we go out for coffee. They rarely contact me, either accepting or declining when I try to arrange, but they never let me down last minute and we always have fun. So it works. The other prefers to stay in, is a prolific texter most days, I reply when I can and we meet up at each others house when it suits us. It's low-key, low effort and fun.

Several times life has shown me people don't stick around. This last time I listened and stopped putting so much effort into something that will almost certainly be transient. I am like a few previous posters, just want to hang out have a cuppa and a chat. Go out occasionally if we both want to. Don't want to lean on someone or be leaned on, not on a regular basis. It's supposed to be light-hearted and fun. I decided the amount of effort I was previously putting into maintaining friendships, with people who ultimately turned out not to be bothered about me, wasn't fun.

I do wonder if other people/society generally have had a change of heart about the notion of friendships and their importance since the pandemic. That side of things I don't necessarily think is age related. I get the impression young people aren't going out as much any more either. Everyone seems to be suffering the mental health effects of loneliness and isolation. I even hear things about university, traditionally a place of great socialising, becoming a place where so many students are nose to the grindstone, eat sleep work repeat and depressed because they have no friends.

My perception of the world is that it's becoming a place where you either have online friendships which may occasionally seep outside the web into real life meet-ups or you have pretty much no chance of having friends at all.

Is Tiktok really where people hang out now? I didn't even know it had a messaging facility. I thought it was something for teenagers, ditto Snapchat, but I've just read a thread about someone not allowing their teen to use it any more due to sending nude pics. I've also heard that people are talking to AI instead of chatting to friends. I'm wondering if I should download some of these things onto my phone so I'm prepared for if I did make a new friend, if people maybe aren't keen on texting any more? Or just prepare to one day embrace friendlessness and talking to AI instead?!

Sorry this is so long. Just musings.

Another major factor is the atomisation of society generally. Because of our constant interaction with the internet we've become far more self-contained – in simple terms we no longer feel the need for interactions with other people as we did in pre-internet days. The fact is that many people now prefer spending their time online, which is predictable and controllable, rather than deal with the randomness of interacting with actual people on a face to face basis.

Yeah I think it’s this. I do make a concious effort to actually ring people as I bloody hate texting and voice notes are for teenagers!
I think nowadays everyone needs to try and resist the insularity of social media, Netflix and wotnot.
Honestly though, the way some of you are taking about 50s, bring so tired and shattered by work and life, or semi retired, not leaving the house after 8… you are still in your prime!

My mum had a couple of close friends from bring late teens and they were really close right up until she died so it can happen.
Effort has to come from both sides though.

It's really common to move on from old friendships, people do change over the years, you will have too. It's actually unusual nowadays to stay friends with people for decades, given we are much more spread out than we once were.

Or she no longer finds you interesting or engaging and is trying politely to shake you off.

Either way, it's clear she doesn't want to see you.

Time to take the unsubtle hint and move on then. If they get back in touch at some point and you feel like it you can catch up then.

I agree with this.

😂

This is so true @MySweetGeorgina and I have followed the exact same paths of communicating as you. When you see it written down like that it makes you realise how things have changed.

I do think that not everyone has managed to keep up with them or maybe can't write so easily in the style of how they are in person.

I agree - many of my close friends have moved to another part of the country. I always made the effort to keep in touch but lately I've got fed up with initiating it. It's as if they can't be bothered. We are all in our early seventies although I still work full time. I get resentful as I'm the busiest and yet I'm the one getting in touch with them. It may well be an age thing, it's quite depressing as I still feel quite lively and enthusiastic!
I do think an effort needs to be made by everyone as relationships need to be nurtured. It's important to have a narrative if what's going in in other people's lives or you lose closeness.

I can hardly believe that my dearest friend of 40 years standing is now only intermittently friendly to me and seems barely interested in some matters we have been talking and laughing about for decades, and rolls her eyes at others. But it has happened, and I don't know why. I really don't. I can see that we have both got less tolerant than we used to be with age, and perhaps that accounts for much of it.
Sad, isn't it. I don't expect friendships necessarily to last forever or even for a long time, but I thought this one would.
On the other hand, I have other old friends whose company I enjoy as much as ever, even though meetings are harder to arrange because we all live much further away than we used to.

Is it because they,ve other things going on?elderly parents,relatives to care for or illnesses? ..thats when your world is turned upside down x

Hey OP, try not to take it personally

the world is changing fast. Nd how people communicate and manage friendships has been changing a lot

people in their 50s like you and me probably used to write to people in our teens (letters!) and landline calls, then email then social media and texts, now WhatsApp and TikTok

some people are generation stopped keeping up at different stages, my oldest friend is still sad I no longer write her letters but I find WhatsApp so much easier to communicate now

others change and now mainly share their lives on Instagram

some have changed to voice notes (I can’t get used to that 😂)

long phone calls I now only do with my dad who is 90, my sister, and 1 old friend

the world just changes and people no longer call eachother like they used to

well, that is my experience any way

It’s clear that the OP‘s post resonates with many of us. I’ve also noticed how my group of friends has diminished over the years, though I’m still lucky to have a few good friends that I do see face-to-face on a regular basis.

As others have mentioned, I think the pandemic caused a sea change in our society generally. Most English people tend to be a bit introverted and I suspect that many of them found the isolation caused by the pandemic to be actually quite a relief from the pressures of socialising. They found they could be quite happy by themselves, and I think many people were surprised by that discovery.

Another major factor is the atomisation of society generally. Because of our constant interaction with the internet we've become far more self-contained – in simple terms we no longer feel the need for interactions with other people as we did in pre-internet days. The fact is that many people now prefer spending their time online, which is predictable and controllable, rather than deal with the randomness of interacting with actual people on a face to face basis.

And I've also noticed that as I've got older I simply don't have as much energy and initiative as I used to. I find myself contemplating organising a social occasion and then abandoning the idea as it's just too much trouble.

But I don't think it's automatically a bad thing. Many of my "friends" were people whose company I enjoyed, but I can't say, hand on heart, that I actually miss seeing them - in fact, I hardly ever think of them at all. I do feel lucky that I'm as close as ever to what I think of as my "true" friends, and I'm happy to concentrate my efforts on them.

I can relate to this and think it's also COVID that's affected a lot of people perhaps especially middle aged. I was mid 40s when it hit, handling an aging parent with Alzheimer's, carer burnout and then their death, plus another 2 deaths in the same span of time. This stage of life I can barely handle family life, teen hormones, and work. Then on top of that my hormones.

Had a very long term close friend ghost me a few years ago, I knew they'd had a breakdown and I even wanted to help, but they really went off the deep end. it really hurt and I realise I'd been more deep friend to them than they'd been mine. The kind of person that doesn't make a truce to even send a note to commiserate your parents death. They tried to apologise several times over the years, but I see now I'm worth more than that. But it's made me so wary now of making new friendships because I could get hurt again. I think I'm lonely but I'm worried about expending that energy, I'm just too tired and still recovering in grief. I've not lost hope though, I am a kind and thoughtful friend, the ones I do have are amazing. But COVID definitely had an. Impact on society I think.

My sister who is significantly older than me has over the years become much more abrupt in messages, noticed by others to, sometimes answering with one word, but irl same as always so I put it down to less capacity or tolerance with texting etc?

I'm quite young and I notice friends drop off. I find it upsetting too when you have shared some great times with them and it makes me wonder why we can't continue to do this. I put it down to people's lives changing and the longer you're not in contact, the easier it is to drift apart. It can be easy to say "oh I need to message them" and then life gets in the way and more days past.
It can feel sad and people change too.