Maybe I’m alone on this one, but I hate how, as we get older, our friends drop off like flies.
I know … I know—family commitments, kids, work, rest, etc. I get it. But I just feel like, over the past five years or so, I’ve gone from a guy with a slew of close pals to a guy with one or two. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I smell. Maybe I’m annoying. But if you were to list my 10 best friends from a decade ago, only two or three remain on the list.
Making matters worse, I take it personally. I had an extremely close friend throughout college, and after college, who never calls or expresses an interest anymore. I mean, literally, never. I was always the person reaching out until one day it hit me like a rock: Maybe he just doesn’t care anymore. So I stopped calling, hoping he’d pick up the phone. We haven’t spoken in, oh, seven months. Maybe more (I sound like a scorned lover. Wacky).
It’s strange how, in 2010, neighbors replace classic friends as classic friends. Daniel and Andy across the street, Larry up the block, Chris down the hill—these are the guys I see most often. We chat and hang and occasionally shoot hoops on the driveway backboard. They’re wonderful people, and I dig it. But there’s something irreplaceable about historic friends—those people who knew you way back when. The ones who tried meeting girls with you in high school. The ones who got drunk with you in college. Those sorts of folks are invaluable to me; sort of make me who I am.
Alas, they’re largely gone.
It sucks.
