What to do if you're drifting apart from a friend
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What to do if you're drifting apart from a friend
By Art Markman
The relationships with friends and colleagues you’re close to in your life will ebb and flow over the years. As a high school student, you were probably close to a group of people, but then after graduation, you began to see them less often. If you went to college, you probably had a similar experience. As you get older, you’ll probably develop friendships with colleagues, as well as make friends with others outside of work —perhaps because you share common interests with them.
Through the magic of social media, you may be able to maintain the illusion that you’re connected to people from across your life, but chances are you only share details of what’s going on with a small number of people. And you may realize that there are some friends you used to be close with but that you don’t connect with much anymore.
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When you notice that you’re drifting apart from a friend who’s been important to you, here are a few things you can do to nurture those relationships:
BE REALISTIC
It’s natural to feel disappointed when you realize you’ve drifted apart from someone you used to be close with and talk regularly. Before taking any significant steps, start by being realistic about what kind of relationship you can have with them. What has changed that caused you to drift apart?
Most likely, things have changed in your life or in theirs—or possibly in both. With a colleague at work, you may no longer be on the same team or engaged in a similar project or even working for the same company. Perhaps one of you got promoted. or there was a change in personal circumstances—a marriage, divorce, birth of a child.
When there are changes, you may have to acknowledge that you can’t be as close to that person now as you might like to be. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t reach out and engage, but you should set reasonable expectations for yourself about what success is going to look like.
REACH OUT
Once you’re clear about your hopes for this relationship, reach out through your preferred channel of communication with that person (email, DM, text). Tell them you miss seeing them and hope to catch up.
Often, that’s all it takes. Even if it has been several months (or longer), people are usually happy to hear from you and appreciate that you made the effort to get in touch.
Not every attempted reconnection will result in an enthusiastic reply, however, and you have to accept that as well. You can follow up once to ask if there is anything you did that caused a rift and listen to what they have to say. After that, though don’t push. There may be a lot of things going on in someone else’s life that they don’t want to share. As disappointing as it may be to have a former friend go silent, you can’t allow your own happiness and self-esteem be too bound up in things you can’t control, like other people’s reactions.
MAKE A SCHEDULE
But assuming you do get a favorable response, you’ll probably end up having an initial conversation—perhaps over coffee, a Zoom meeting, or a phone call.
After that, though, life is likely to return to its usual hectic state. If you don’t make any changes to the way you manage that relationship, you’re likely to continue to drift apart.
It may seem strange (and perhaps artificial), but consider putting reminders on your calendar to reach out to people you want to keep in touch with. If your life is busy, you’ll spend a lot of time driven by a full work schedule and responsibilities at home. You have limited discretionary time to maintain your friendships in and out of work. Giving yourself reminders to reach out to people you care about can help cut through the busyness of your agenda.
Of course, you don’t need to let your friend know that you reached out because it was on your agenda. You can just let them know you were thinking about them.
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1 年I absolutely adore this practice; it's something I've made a habit of in my monthly routine. I send messages to friends or ex-coworkers I have a positive relationship with just to check in on them or to let them know when something reminds me of them. I believe that staying connected with your friends or ex-coworkers in a positive way is far more rewarding than suffering in silence