Stephanie was in town for the holiday and I had a chance to spend a little bit of time with her. Diana and I had lunch with her Saturday (which is not nearly as dramatic or scandalous as you'd like to think, I'm sure), and then I picked her up last night after a tattoo improvement session. It's good to see her out on her own with a good job and her own place, in a locale with excellent views.
Anyway, one of her big frustrations is the way that "friends" choose to maintain their relationships, or don't, as the case may be. You'd think that after someone you're close to is gone for a year you'd make time to be with them, but apparently this is not the case. That's unfortunate.
Granted, different friendships work in different ways, but if they really do matter and are not trivial, there's a fair amount of regular, bi-directional contact. For example, Tim and I don't see a lot of each other, but we do check in from time to time and share the important details when they arise. We ping each other via e-mail or IM regularly.
And that's one of the biggest bullshit points, is that technology makes it so easy these days that the "I've been really busy" excuse is total bullshit. It takes no time to e-mail, IM or text. So why is that so hard?
I think it's normal to be hurt when the contact is not reciprocated, although it's not particularly healthy to start measuring your self-worth on it. You're left with just two possibilities really, to either let those "friendships" go or just accept that they don't fit your ideal of what they should be. Sometimes that doesn't seem like a choice at all.
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