Some friendships don’t end. They just stop.
No fight. No betrayal. No final message. You start replying slower. They start reaching out less. The chat goes quiet. The birthday text gets shorter every year. And one day you realize you don’t actually know what’s going on in their life anymore. Not because you stopped caring. Simply because that bridge isn’t there anymore.
The strange part is there’s no one to blame. No betrayal, no cruelty, no moment to point to. Just two people who became different people. The conversations that used to fit don’t fit anymore. The jokes aren’t funny anymore. And you don’t know what to ask or what to say.
For a long time I thought this was a failure of mine. That if I’d tried harder, replied sooner, suggested more barbecues, the person wouldn’t have drifted. Maybe in some cases that’s true. For most though, I think we both chose this. Quietly. Without saying it. Like two people on the subway who choose not to talk, each one in their own music.