Asklemmy

Oh yeah, the majority of my friendships have ended through just losing touch and me being hesitant to make the first move to reach back out. But at the risk of being hypocritical, just remember the proverb: "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now."

I did, recently, with a couple of high school buddies.

One, I left a voice mail, they never returned the call.

The other, I got in contact, I went to visit them, we had some drinks, dinner, chatted a lot, it was great. We have continued to be in contact since.

Overall, I'd say it was absolutely worth it.

I think about contacting my HS best friend all the fucking time. Never have tho. I was an awful friend after we left school tbh, I was never the one reaching out first.

Beyond the fear of rejection, the biggest thing stopping me is I still have nothing to offer as a friend. I never reached out because I never have anything I want to talk about, and I don't have anything to talk about because I don't do anything. I can barely afford gas to leave the house, let alone interesting things to do once I'm out. Catching up on what I've been up to would seriously take like 30 minutes, and like half of that would be explaining all the deaths in my family in the last few years

I'm gonna be honest I've lost friends because of reaching out.

At least 5 friends I had before I stopped talking because I simply was not in a good mental state to keep using social media/messaging daily, I was in a different country, and none of us had started a conversation.

I felt overwhelmed about it as well. Sometimes I even felt more nervous about reaching out than going to a job interview.

As soon as I sent the text asking how they had been, the first text I received was "You think you can just pick up the phone and text again like nothing happened? You never text"

They didn't even want to know how I was doing. I was taken aback but I immediately asked "I'm sorry I couldn't reach out before, but, why did you never text either?" And they just blocked me.

The good thing I can take from this is that I think actual friends would be happy that their friends reached out.

I just reconnected with a friend yesterday afternoon. We ended up talking for two hours and are making plans to meet in a few weeks. The 'sorry-we-lost-touch' part was brushed aside. It felt just like good old times again.

Try sending a text. Maybe your friend misses you too.

I'm old enough that I graduated high school before social media became a thing. My high school friends and I kept in touch via landline phone and ICQ. ICQ died and people moved so I have no way to find a lot of them again, especially the ones whose names are so generic I can't find them on social media.

I also have some friends I lost contact with because they decided to ghost me after I experienced a major trauma. We were young and I'm sure they didn't know what to say, were going through their own stuff, etc etc, but it was still very hurtful that they just vanished on me and never bothered to reach out even though they knew what had happened. It's been years and I'm not angry at them anymore but I have zero interest in being friends with them.

Part of the reason -- and part of the reason that I don't try harder to find people I was friends with when I was younger -- is that I genuinely feel like I'm a different person now than I was before some of that stuff happened, both because I experienced a really life-altering traumatic thing and because I just got older. The person who was friends with those people doesn't even exist anymore. I'd basically have to start those relationships over from scratch. I'm curious how they're doing and I hope they're well but I don't really want to reconnect.

I don't do much. Most of them are friends from when I was a kid but in a weird way I worry they would judge me in a disappointed kind of way with how my life is going.

Most of them have kids, spouses, or careers at this point so I don't know if they would be willing or able to make the time

Yep, it's been so long that I feel awkward about reaching out, which makes me delay and avoid reaching out, which makes it even longer since we last talked, which just makes me even more awkward about reaching out. It's a vicious circle...

No because if I stopped talking to someone it is for a reason

There are a few people, definitely, that I've thought about reaching out to. I have them on Facebook, could literally just send them a text at any moment.

The problem is twofold: the first; crippling anxiety. I worry that I'd be an inconvenience to them, or worsen their day for my having contacted them. I worry that maybe they never liked me in the first place - after all, they never reached out either.

The second issue is a general loss of social skills. The pandemic turned me into a hermit, and even though I've been in Uni both before the pandemic and after, my social skills have never recovered. I can't just join a group like other people do. I don't get on with people super easily in group settings; I'm better in one-on-one situations.

Certainly, this may just be anxiety. But it's that what if question that stops me from reaching out.