I get what both of you are saying. I guess I have a high need for connection due to medical trauma as an infant. I feel like I could open up about that to one of my high school friends. Although the thought still feels scary. It's less to do with him, and more to do with the fact that the trauma still feels really tender.
I feel this friend and I have grown apart. Because I'm autistic, I haven't asked him how he feels about our friendship. Apart from my autism, I'm scared to ask. What if he asks why I'm asking. I know all I have to say is I feel we've grown apart. Ever since he's moved away I feel this whole in my life. We were amazing friends in high school. We're both musicians, and computer nerds. We both feel passionately about education. Although this tends to bring up areas of disagreement. I'm a youth liberation he's not. So I just avoid the topic with him. At most we talk once a month.
Cha.
((I’m about to do the ADHD talking to HFA thing (Where “that’s just what happens” thing neurotypical people do doesn’t parse, and one needs to understand HOW & WHAT & WHO & EXCEPTIONS & PATTERNS …IE the basic framework of expectations in play… in order to kinda-sorta interact WITH that framework). If you already know all the lifespan psych cohort groups in transition patterning & what that looks like? Just skip & scroll to the bold!
))
There are these major milestones/watersheds in “normal” adult lives (that most people swear they’ll never do, and then find out why “everyone” does them when they get there, and end up doing what “everyone” does).
“Normal” is in quotes, because there’s no such thing.
“Everyone” is in quotes, because it’s arguably not even the majority of people, just the most visible segment of society…. BUT …is still being used, because even in outlier populations & subcultures, major life transitions = losing most or all of the friends one had before that transition, more often than not.
“Every generality is wrong!”
steaming ahead?
These are the most common lifespan transitions (in the west) where most people lose most or all of the friends they had during the previous chapter(s) of their lives.
- High school &/or Childhood friends
- University (all the friends you have -or lose- by going to uni)
- Graduation &/or Work (all the friends you have -or lose- by choosing a field to be employed by & everything that goes along with it, including homemakers)
- Single (all the friends -both single & married- before YOU get married)
- Married (all the friends you have -or lose- when you marry)
- Parent (all the friends you have -or lose- after having kids)
- Retirement (all the friends you have -or lose- after you retire)
- Assisted Living (all the friends you have -or lose- when you join a community (step away from the life you lived outside of that community) in order remain as independent as possible.
^^^ These are the major life stages (in the west) that “most” people go through. Clearly, there will be wide swaths of people who don’t go to university, or who enlist in the military, or who spend years in/out of hospital with major illness, or join/leave a community (church/circus/career) etc. that “skip” or “add” a stage/cohort group; as well as people who do things in different orders
AKA YOU ARE NOT WRONG that your high school friendships are -at best- changing, as your lives go in different directions… or, more probably… ending, in the gradual way that people who truly do like/love/respect each other try and hold onto each other amidst lives changing.
The only way I know of to keep friends post-transition, aside from dumb-luck (which does happen)… is to NOT try and keep the friendship as it was (which results in a gradual distancing of daily to weekly, weekly to monthly, monthly to a few times a year, until it’s EITHER just Xmas cards or social media likes OR fond memories of someone you used to be friends with?
CHANGE the friendship.
Trying to keep things as they were (like calling and talking for hours) results in a slow death.
CHANGING, like meeting up at a conference, or joining a committee, or becoming members of a board or club, starting a foundation or business, going on an annual habitat for humanity or other multi-week trip, taking up the same sport & meeting for competitions/regattas/exhibitions, following a particular artist/band/symphony/whatever & going together when they’re in town… pretty much ANYTHING… that both of you do as adults, singly, that brings you together under “new” auspices. So you’ll both be getting together in person AND have “reason” to be communicating in the interim about the “thing”, on both a necessary & JFF basis.
