I think im losing my old friends

Hey there,
Don't feel bad. I very much believe that they will message you back. But what I really appreciate is that you showed your responsibility of being a friend mate!!!and that is really important!! Even if they don't text you back and it happens that you meet them someday, just go and talk to them!!
Don't feel scared of rejection. You just showed the attitude of being a good friend. You know one thing..... Don't try to leave this habit of caring for your friends. This is the best quality in friendship that a person can have mate!!! Even if you think you are not able to make new friends, if you continue reflecting on this quality of yours, people will be attracted to you!! They will become curious in you!!
They will wanna get to know you because such attitude of being a good friend is shown by very less people mate!! That's why there is no peace between people. No one realises this. Just don't have any selfish attitude towards your friends. Just do your best in being a good friend.
That's it mate!!!! Don't leave this quality of yours!!! I am warning you!!! But the thing is you ultimately have to build in that confidence of talking to others. In this way they will get to know you more!!!!
Keep helping,caring,laughing with your friends. After all they are your friends!!!!!
Cheers

 

This is like a game of tennis. You hit the ball to his side sending a message. If he didn't reply, then he is not interested to play with you. Just wait for him to text back to you. If he doesn't he is just no interested in you. The worst thing you can do is to try to be with someone that doesn't want to be with you. Have some self respect and let them be, if they miss you they will make the effort to contact you. If not, is their lost, I know is hard but go out and look up for new friends that values you and are happy to talk to you.

 

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity", or in this case, its probably not a good idea to make assumptions about why other people do things when it doesnt help at all and only makes you feel worse.

I have a longtime friend that will vanish off the face of the planet for days, weeks, sometimes even months. He will ignore attempts at communication, stop doing any of the same things we usually do together, and then suddenly pop back into existence at a random point with no warning, and its like nothing happened. This has occurred dozens of times over the course of me knowing him and it used to drive me INSANE. After a while I just accepted that this was a thing he did and there was no point trying to do anything about it, I was actively wasting my time and getting literally nothing in return for it. Nowadays I just let them do whatever it is they are doing, I dont think about them, dont try to talk to them, and let them come to me. Every time so far they have come back, but there is always the chance that this will be the time they dont, and if that happens, then thats OK.

Now do I think they are a colossal asshole for doing this over and over? Yeah, I do, and they are. But its still a complete waste of time to try and engage with people who wont give the same back to you that you give to them. Every second you waste on a person who doesnt value your time is a second better spent doing almost anything else.

 

delete their numbers... it's only in movies and sitcoms like 'friends' where people stay friends for real life. in real life people change and they have bigger priorities. some people make new friends easily. i ignored red flags in my friendship and realized it after ending the friendship. never hang out with someone just cause you're lonely. been there, done that, regret that.

 

Man u cant rely your self esteem on external people. That will destroy you. Dont expect ppl to behave in certain ways. U cant control them. And if u didnt do anything super bad for them they will respond sooner or later.

 

Hey, sorry for the late response to this thread.

I went through the same thing myself. The way I made sure I didn't feel guilty or sad about these changes is by not trying to contact my ex-friends anymore. If anyone cares about you, they will contact you themselves after some time.
Make peace with these changes. Relationships can change, insofar as people change too.

 

Can relate, but it seems to me that that's just how thing are...
I mean, old friendships were built on old common grounds that either don't exist anymore or are just not relevant.
It's very hard to revive an old (especially long distance) friendship, you have to "update" it to a new common ground or interest; just remembering old times usually isn't enough.

 

I made similar experiences. I had a friend I know for 10 years and we talked a lot. But at the end she took distance from me because of friends who don't like me. She wanted to stay cooler with them. After I looked through it I were at odds with her. And meanwhile she acts like she won't know me.
If they don't respond - and if this happens often - forget them. If they had interest to hang out with you they would respond.

 

I think it depends on the context. I have friends who ignore most of what I say to them when I text them, but we talk verbally enough for it to not matter. Meanwhile, friends who I have to talk to via text, who dont talk back, I cut out without a second thought.

 

From my own experience, it really depends on how close those friends are, and what you used to do together.

Not everyone is interested in laying out their life situation for you, even if you are friends. If you are messaging someone asking: "How's your life, man?", and what you used to do was go to class together and chat in the breaks, then that feels inappropriate. Do you get me? If you used to chat about trains or whatever, you wanna message him about some new model you've gotten into, and how it relates to HIM. That is waaay more natural, and you are displaying ACTUAL interest.

I have no idea what your messages looks like, but what you are talking about made me think in these lines.

 

Oh thats a huge red flag for a horrible decision, had one friend who tried that BS on me once with my Childhood BFF by telling lies about him on me, back in elementary school, our friendship lasted 1 aditional year before I moved classes, to this day I still keep in touch with my Childhood BFF, keep fakes in check and dump them, if you lose good friends thanks to their BS, thats a big loss.

 

It hurts to say this, but people change. Life throws different things at them, they find themselves caught up in work or finding new people. It fucking sucks, and it's a shitty excuse to cut someone out of your life, but it's, as we say in Britain, sods law. We can't force people to change. Just remember, they are losing a bloody good friend! It's their loss at the end of the day, not yours.

I'm 17 and have already lost a majority of my friends from school. I never had that many, but I've lost all but 2 of my mates.
One guy, he was a really close friend, just drifted away. It started off as a big group of us, but me, him and my close mate who I still speak to everyday from being 7 were definitely the closest. The group split up, bit by bit, and us 3 kept going. One day we realised he just moved on. It hurt, a lot, but we managed to rekindle for a short while, but we properly lost him afterwards. It became so one sided, just me and my close mate making the effort, so I bit the bullet and said goodbye.

That one definitely hit me the hardest. I remember just a bit before that, I had some good friends from primary school, we moved up to secondary school and we started drifting apart one by one. I was close to one guy for a while, but sooner or later those evenings playing Minecraft stopped, and our regular talks in our lessons became none existent. I usually hung out with my close mate when we got to secondary school as we had more in common (he went to a different primary school). This lead on to me and my mate starting the group.

I suspect I could lose my close mate when he goes off to university, but only time will tell. I'm gonna make the most of the time we still have left.
I can see his life changing, where as mine is staying fairly consistent and the changes aren't as drastic yet.

My other close friend, however, I met when I moved secondary school and he's gonna stick around for a while yet, so I've still got him left.

I feel your pain mate, keep your chin up. I've lost a good number of friends over the years, but always remember, it's their loss, not yours. You've stayed loyal and respectful, they haven't.

 

All of my friends from primary and high school, and university, are gone. We just go seperate ways in life. It’s how it is. Been that way for a long time for me.

 

Yeah it sucks. I've only just left high school and at college now. My friends thought I would abandon them and make new friends, but they're the ones abandoning me. I always try to make plans with them, but they always just bail, not arrive or say they're busy (or say nothing at all) when most of the time they aren't (Usually online PS4 or XBOX playing a game when they say they're doing shit like "family stuff"). Some don't even respond to my texts anymore..

 

Yes, it is quite natural in the early twenties. Friends grow in different directions, move to different geographical locations, and join different circles. I had a high school friend who moved out of state who said he "owed" me a letter still in reply to my own (ha, in the days of letter writing). I've never heard from him since. The relationships from high school and college quite naturally dissemble as folks enter new stages in life, form new relationships with significant others, pursue the busyness of new careers, etc. It's not so much personal, as it's a natural social evolution that occurs when entering further into adulthood, away from a prolonged adolescence. Finding new social circles as a young adult is beneficial as well, rather than clinging to the old circles that are naturally fragmenting.

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I sit on the bus going to work, and see school age kids getting on board. I always think “you think these times will last, and you’ll know those people forever. You’re wrong.” Times change.

 

Age factor aside, I have this theory that the "connectivity" that digital platforms provide have in some cases created an illusory feeling of abundance and ironically made us out of touch as far as our social decorum is concerned. In real life, if you say something to a friend or an acquaintance in person they can't just air you and walk away, the social dynamics just don't work that way in society. Technology allows us to break that rule, which is why a lot of people including myself are very cynical about it.