To think it's sad but normal that many friendships drift

I have school friends that I am still in touch with and see from 60yrs ago and one from 70yrs ago. I also have college friends from 50 yrs ago and we used to meet at college reunions and kept in touch in between times. Covid and age has probably put an end to the reunions but I met up last month with two college friends one of whom lives in the same city. I don’t think I’m unusual!

I have recently managed to find three friends from different times in my life. I met up with one of them last year for a day and we got on famously. She was from my teenage years and so we had lots of reminiscing to do! Another one I haven't seen for 26 years and she and her husband live in Wales. We are going to meet up with them next weekend. We have booked a hotel close to where they live. We have had quite a few telephone chats, although the husbands have never met, so I hope it goes ok! The other one I met when we were 8 and stayed friends until we were 20. I am meeting up with her in the summer. None of us live near to each other anymore, but it will be nice to meet up again even if it is only once.

Two of my friendships have survived almost 50 years, another 40 and a third 25 - I see them rarely, but we pick up where we left off. My siblings are geographically scattered, but we remain friends.

I have a lot of people that I’m friendly with locally and many, many of them would describe themselves as my friend, but they know little about my life whereas I could tell you quite a lot about theirs. If I wanted someone to go for coffee with I could pick up the phone and know that any one of a dozen people would respond, but in an emergency there are just a handful of people I know I could rely on.

My closest friend is my husband and has been almost since the day we met.

I once read a great book about friendship and it helped me to realise that there are several different kinds of friendships. I used to be one who found it really hard to let go. But now I am very comfortable with people coming and going. I think its healthy and to be expected. .If you have three true friends that’s probably plenty. Friendships take time and effort after all, and there are only so many hours. And the other thing I have learned is never to invest more in a friendship than the other person is willing to invest. In my youth I had so many one sided relationships and was drawn to those who enjoyed mind games. Those are long gone now,thankfully!

You are right Judy54, it does seem that some people stay in your life for a while, perhaps a few years, others are transient, but a few will be with you forever if you are fortunate. Some years ago I lost a friendship that I thought would last forever - it had been over thirty years, but on reflection we had grown apart in our ideas, our ways, and no longer had anything in common. However, there is a friend that I have had since childhood, another from my teens, and one from my life as a young mother. They are still close and around - and I am more than grateful. Others I can remember that have somehow drifted away - this is surely the same for everyone? As another poster has said, it would be impossible to keep up with everyone.

I have lost touch with my best friend recently and unfortunately she is not one for chatting on the phone. She only liked to meet up to actually go somewhere and at the moment I have a bad hip and am a bit housebound. My other friends ring regularly and we chat for ages but somehow if I phone my best friend we dont seem to have anything to talk about.

My Bestie from school are still very much in touch, some school friends are only in touch thanks to Facebook. As are a lot of people I have worked with in the past. At lot from places I have lived are in touch via Xmas cards, some I don't expect to see again. When my DH managed to hide my Xmas Card Book I did loose touch with quite a few people. Others I have lost via natural happenings. I am 78 and could be next? I hope not, I've got too much to do!!

It takes work to maintain friendships at various stages in our life when we are all busy, but it can be done. I heft my home area because of my husband’s work but on returning 16 years later had kept my closest friends. I used to travel back 2-3 times a year and we had meals together and I met them individually for coffee. We chatted on the phone, were FB friends and exchanged messages and photo’s on WhatsApp. Christmas, Easter, Birthday and Wedding Anniversary cards(where appropriate!) were also exchanged. As I said, it takes work but if the friendship is for keeping it works. Some people do only come into our lives at certain times but others stay. I now exchange visits with 2 friends that I made while I lived away.

I made more long term friends when I left school and started work.We went to each others weddings and it was only when we moved to different areas of the country I moved too far to make it personal did we keep in touch by letter
I would dearly like to know where the friend ,who was to become my bridesmaid is, and have researched using her married name and the area where I last had contact
.So far the post code and address I have researched has only come up with the name of my friends husband.
I am reluctant to go further and that I should let the past stay in the past.

I have one good friend from my time at work, another more casual friend from the same office has recently come back into my life. Others live further away so we only meet every three months although covid has put a halt to that. The driving force of that group sadly died before covid struck and we miss her very much.
Both my daughter and son are still in very close friendships with friends they’ve had since infant school. It’s lovely to see. I don’t have any friends from school sadly.

I think the OP is right. There’s a flow of friendship, with long term friends, there might be differences of opinion, but by standing back for while keeps the friendship going.

Has anyone else found even as we age, we choose people from a similar career route?

Weekly I am in phone contact with 2-3 long term friends, who I have known for 55 years, 50 years, and 53 years respectively.

I am happy to share that I have 3 friends I met when I was 11 years old ( we were neighbours on the same block) and we don't meet much as 2 of them moved to the south west of England, and 2 of us still in south London. But this summer we are meeting up for a party as it will be the 50th anniversary of the friendships. On the other hand it is very true that some friendships fizzle out like when they leave your place of work .

It is sad but as said before it’s a fact of life for the majority of us - we are fortunate to meet lots of different people on our journey through life, enjoy them whilst you are in that relationship as they is always a reason for it at that particular time … but acknowledge as you get older your true friend circle gets smaller and those are the ones that are meant to stay in your life forever whether they are near or far.
It is a loss when friendships end/fizzle out … so she shouldn’t be hard on herself for feeling a bit lost. These days people can stay in touch by Facebook, WhatsApp etc so it’s not a total end unless you want it to be.

I feel very strongly that the concept of friendship has changed greatly in my lifetime.

My grandparents' generation, and to a slightly lesser extent, my parents' generation had basically made friends with a set of people during the early years of their married lives and retained these friendships into old age. They also had friends they had made at school, and put a great deal of time and effort into keeping up with family - both their own generation, the elder one, and our generation.

However, most of them lived their entire lives, or their entire life until retirement in the same place.

A great many people of our generation have not done the same. We chose to drop the relatives we only saw or wrote to "because they are family" and concentrated on the people we knew who shared our interests.

Naturally, some friends faded out of the picture, as the interest that had originally bound as together (young children, a place of work) changed.

My generation also experienced that those of us who married late, were automatically excluded from the lives of our contemporaries who had married and had children. No-one apparently wanted a single female, or a childless woman in their circle of newly married, nest-building happiness.

Are not nearly all friendships situational these days?

I have two school-friends left out of two school classes of 24 girls, two sisters who have known me since I was born, no friends from my college and university years ( death has been busy there, and others have moved to other countries or cities) and only one former colleague who has felt the desire to keep up with someone who had retired and left town.

I am not being self-pitying , just describing what seems to be the common experience here.

I guess I am the oddball. Including me, we are a group of 6 who have been close friends since around age 13. We vacation 1-2 times a year together and for those living nearby, we get together every few months. We vacation together with all of our families once a year. I also have one other close friend who I met 42 years ago at work.

I’ve been part of friendship groups which have seemed very close at the time, but have fallen apart almost instantly when the situation changed.
I’ve been part of school mum groups, and for many years part of a group of parents travelling around the country supporting their children in their sport. Some people I considered close friends, but the friendships never survived.
I had one very close friend since college, I thought of her more as a sister, we were there for each other through everything, about ten years ago she started to withdraw from me, and eventually I gave up trying, of course I miss her, but she obviously wanted to move on.

I think its quite normal that people move in different directions and friendships end.
We lost many good friends quite early on in our marriage because we were self employed and couldn't go out or socialise on the same evenings as others.
Then when we were the only ones to have a child ,once she had passed the being taken with us in her pram stage we dropped out of a lot of things.
Recently GC were the cause.As quite young GP who helped a lot with the wee ones we had one friend who refused to even have dinner at our house because we had a baby who stayed half the week with us and she'd have to cut back on her loud singing etc.
Wasn't much of a loss .
I cut off a couple over lockdown who we've known for 40 years as I just felt irritated with some of their views ...a bit too right wing for me .I have no problem if my OH still sees them but they are too much like hard work for me .I'm too grown up now to listed to folk spout nonsense and keep schtuum.Life I must say is much pleasanter without them

A group of young mums is a ‘support’ group, but once our babies have grown we tend to move on to different lives. Sad but true.

I'm not good at making friends i have a few i see now and then or for a regular coffee but 4 of my long term friends and i include my hubby in that all passed away in the last 4 yrs so i now only 2 people who've been in my life for many years but circumstances mean we only have phone or online contact. So at present my 2 daughters are my 'friends' but i miss a good gossip about stuff we shared with my now deceased friends.

My little gang of friends here broke up when covid happened and we haven't got back together again. I miss our outings but there were a couple of irritating things about the group and I don't seem to have any enthusiasm to get back with them.
Most of my old friends elsewhere have died or developed Alzheimer's.
I don't really have close friends now but am friendly with a couple of neighbours, one in particular whom I have lunch out or coffee chats with .

Kate1949

I'm an odd bod. I don't feel the need for friends. Maybe it's because I'm close to my sisters. They are the same. Of course we have friends, but it wouldn't bother me if I didn't have mine. Sounds awful I know.

I'm similar to you but I am closest to my adult children. I do have two long term friends from when my children were small, and many acquaintances - that seems to suit me best.

I was told by an older lady years ago, true friends you can count on one hand. I think she was right.

However, 3 of my old girl friends from when we were "young, free and single" are all back together again after a very long gap,it was just Christmas cards for ages .
All our children are now grown up, time hasn't made any difference.

Also I have a group of friends which include my sister we meet up for meals a few times a year plus a weekend away.

But I have never, sadly kept in contact of my old School friends,
my true long time chums I can count on one hand.

I've made an active choice to move away from friends, in the past. Anytime the friendship is anything other than caring or enjoyment in the presence of another, I am not really interested.

I've known some nice people that wanted to be my friend, but I didn't reciprocate. Selfish maybe.

Friends come in to our lives for a reason, a season or a lifetime. We have to accept that some friendships endure and others don't. Life changes often make it difficult to retain the association we once had with people from school, university, work etc. It is lovely to have long friendships but also exciting to meet new people too. We just have to be open to meeting different people some of whom will stay in our lives for a short time and others for a life time.

I agree with the above posters. I have been deeply upset with one friend when she made it clear she no longer wished to see me. We had been work colleagues and continued the friendship after she left and went to university. Then there came a time when I too went back into education and moved to another city. Looking back I can now accept that both of us had changed and our life paths had diverged.

I now love my own company but have one or two very close friendships which have stood the test of time for 20 plus years. We have many differences in taste and temperament but have learned to accept the differences and not try to change them.

For example one of my friends smokes. I wish he didnt and I fear for the effect it may have on his health. But its not for me to tell him what to do.