So, all my life, I've considered myself the one friend who is willing to reach out. If I have to be the person to call or text first, I'll do it. It's a role that I've learned to lean into rather than to resent.
That being said, there are moments when it's hard to feel like I'm the only person making an effort. I recently had a conversation with a friend from high school who has given up on her old friends.
This sounds really harsh, but most people can only put so much effort in before they decide to throw in the towel. Callie lamented to me that she had tried week after week to call or Facetime her friends, and time after time she ended up talking to a voicemail.
Even when she went home on breaks, she found that her friends weren't all that keen to see her. As time passed she grew jaded, and eventually, she decided that she would wait to see what would happen if she didn't reach out to her friends.
She was saddened, but not surprised, to find that her relationship with her friends faded to the point that they only talked once every six to eight months if that.
She was crushed that her friends didn't want to talk to her or see her, and she didn't understand what she had done to cause her friends to feel this way about her; like she no longer mattered to them. She sat inundated in this confusion until one phone call changed her entire perspective.
During this last school year, right before finals, she got a phone call from Kayla, a friend she hadn't heard from in months. Nothing was wrong; she had simply called to catch up. Shockingly, even after months, the conversation flowed as smoothly as ever.
Callie hung up the phone feeling briefly confused and wondering if she was crazy to think that it should have been awkward. After a few days, she realized that she wasn't crazy, she was just different than her friend.
Her friend, Kayla, was completely fine with not talking for months. In fact, she preferred it. She would go out and live her life, and she would catch up with Callie when it was convenient. It didn't make her feel like Callie wasn't a part of her life or like she was losing her.
Callie, on the other hand, felt like a weekly phone call or text conversation wasn't very much to ask for. She thought that her friends would've felt the same as she did if they really wanted to be her friend.
Because of this disconnect, Callie felt as if she had no friends left, or felt severely dissatisfied with the friends she did still have. It was a situation that could've been avoided with some honest communication and some compassion.
People are different. We all know this, but some of us don't truly understand that.
It wasn't Callie's fault that her friends didn't meet her expectations. She made an effort, and she tried to keep in contact at the level she needed for quite some time.
Her friends chose to ignore that and to only keep in touch as they saw fit.
It's okay not to need people as much as they need you, but you do need to care about what they want too. You might be living some grand new life since you've hit college and you may feel like it's too much effort to try to keep up with your friends from high school all the time.
Your friends may not feel the same. They might need you. So get on the phone. Call your friends, because you are their friend, and that means something.
