Moving 1100 miles away from my friends pretty much ended all of my friendships at once. Sure, there were a couple of people I tried to keep in contact with, but over time even those connections dried up. I suppose one of the key components of a friendship is "shared experience". You don't get that hundreds of miles away.
Growing up, making friends was trivial. Walk home from the bus stop and you have three new buddies before you make it to the house. Even a geeky asshole like me was part of a large entourage who got together on an almost daily basis.
Making friends as an adult is a whole different matter. Kids, work, obligations make things much more clouded. but, I managed to pick up a few good people to hang out and have beers with. So, it's all good.
I was in the Marine Corps for 4 years. In my units and MOS (job), people and even you moved around the world a lot. My first year was almost extreme in this regard; I lost a few friend at least once a month, but typically more. At first, I would try to keep the friendships going even though the people were far away. Then I started learning that it can sour the entire relationship because it will slowly fade away. The friendship isn't just the relationship between two people, but the entire system: people, situations (individual, relative, group, and setting), location, developmental stage, etc. So now when I part with friends that are either leaving, getting married, having a kid, starts getting unbearable, etc., I cut the friendship right there and remember it for the good times. It's much better than creating a bunch of bad memories.
Had one really good friend who went into the Army. Was in the Bosnia Conflict. Came back after a two year tour a little messed up. Didn't talk a lot about the shit that went on there. While his MOS (Intelligence) generally kept him out of harm's way, he still got enough of it to mess him up a bit. Another buddy of mine was a Marine. He did a little better. Unsure of his occupation, but he worked a lot with the encrypted radio stuff used for battlefield communications. He told me as much as he could about it, fascinating field. Was a little jealous ;)
Me and the first guy wrote a shit ton of letters back in the day. Made communications a bitch. We eventually drifted apart after I moved up to KC. Still email on occasion, but it's been years since I've touched base.
Takes a lot of willpower to decide to cut things off. I can understand where you're coming from, tho. letting things linger ends up worse in the long run.
Moving 1100 miles away from my friends pretty much ended all of my friendships at once. Sure, there were a couple of people I tried to keep in contact with, but over time even those connections dried up. I suppose one of the key components of a friendship is "shared experience". You don't get that hundreds of miles away.
Growing up, making friends was trivial. Walk home from the bus stop and you have three new buddies before you make it to the house. Even a geeky asshole like me was part of a large entourage who got together on an almost daily basis.
Making friends as an adult is a whole different matter. Kids, work, obligations make things much more clouded. but, I managed to pick up a few good people to hang out and have beers with. So, it's all good.
I was in the Marine Corps for 4 years. In my units and MOS (job), people and even you moved around the world a lot. My first year was almost extreme in this regard; I lost a few friend at least once a month, but typically more. At first, I would try to keep the friendships going even though the people were far away. Then I started learning that it can sour the entire relationship because it will slowly fade away. The friendship isn't just the relationship between two people, but the entire system: people, situations (individual, relative, group, and setting), location, developmental stage, etc. So now when I part with friends that are either leaving, getting married, having a kid, starts getting unbearable, etc., I cut the friendship right there and remember it for the good times. It's much better than creating a bunch of bad memories.
Had one really good friend who went into the Army. Was in the Bosnia Conflict. Came back after a two year tour a little messed up. Didn't talk a lot about the shit that went on there. While his MOS (Intelligence) generally kept him out of harm's way, he still got enough of it to mess him up a bit. Another buddy of mine was a Marine. He did a little better. Unsure of his occupation, but he worked a lot with the encrypted radio stuff used for battlefield communications. He told me as much as he could about it, fascinating field. Was a little jealous ;)
Me and the first guy wrote a shit ton of letters back in the day. Made communications a bitch. We eventually drifted apart after I moved up to KC. Still email on occasion, but it's been years since I've touched base.
Takes a lot of willpower to decide to cut things off. I can understand where you're coming from, tho. letting things linger ends up worse in the long run.