Let’s Be Friends, Imperfectly
A friend’s name popped up on my Instagram page the other day. It took me by surprise, because we have been out of touch for over a year now. There was no falling out—we are a few countries away, and life just got busy. Nevertheless, I felt a rush of guilt when I saw her name. Why had I waited so long to reach out? I really care about her, so why hadn’t I made the effort? Did she even consider me a close friend anymore? These are all questions that seem to come up often in the context of adult friendships. It seems intuitive now, but looking back I realize that no one prepared me for it. It’s easy to assume that, barring some conflict, the people closest to us would carry over from one stage of life to the next. But eventually it becomes clear that your friendships will not, and should not, remain unchanged.
I find that I define myself in a deeply relational way. The health of my friendships and how I interact with others over all is one of the many scales with which I measure my goodness as a person. Now I am not imposing this as a standard—just recognizing that it is something that contributes to the way I view myself. And while I do not think it is inherently wrong, I think that it is a pattern of thought that has caused the disrepair of friendships that I had every intention of maintaining.
There have been many times when I have gotten a text from someone who I wanted to catch up with and delayed answering it until an embarrassing amount of time had passed. With the best of intentions, I will say to myself, “I’m so excited to hear from them! But let me wait until I can sit down and give them my full attention”. And then a day passes...a week...a month...and I’m just too ashamed to reply at all. Or, instead of sending someone a quick text when I’m thinking of them, I’ll wait until we can schedule a phone call. Which, given conflicted schedules, can get put off indefinitely. In my quest to show up wholly, or perfectly, for my friends, I end up in a constant loop of letting myself and others down and growing further apart from people. The truth of it is that good intentions cannot bridge the gap of time spent apart or out of contact.
That part is what hit me most when I saw that this friend was online the other day. I realized that if I reached out and she expressed that she did not consider us close anymore, she would be entirely justified. This is someone who I spent late nights in college with, and who spent holidays with my family. Someone who I talked about anything and everything with. But as beautiful as those memories are, it would be unreasonable to assume that they would suffice to keep our friendship where it once had been. For friendship to stay alive, we must put in the effort to help it evolve.
So now, I am going to close my computer and pick up my phone. While meditating on friendship is great, it is also up to me whether I wallow in the time gone by or take a step toward re-connection. Not every friendship will make it, and that is ok. But in the meantime, I will be working toward being an imperfect friend, instead of a perfect stranger.