You probably are not reading this because...well, the title. But I'll go ahead and write this anyway. Either you deleted my number and other contact info, I was the one who did it, or in some other way, we just drifted apart. For a long time I thought when these friendships fell through that it was my fault. But then throughout high school and college, just by the sheer number of people I came in contact with, it became clearer why it happened, especially after graduating high school. It was an emotional last few months, with the excitement of beginning college, balanced by the lamentation of saying goodbye to most of the friends we spent the last four or more years with. Parting words including “we will visit each other,” “let’s keep in touch,” and “lets hangout during break” turned out to be empty promises and neither party kept their end of the bargain.

At some point the mindset shifts from quantity to quality. We all once thought that having the most friends possible was ideal. "The more the merrier," as the saying goes. The popularity contests high school offered daily urged us to know everyone's name. But eventually we both made the decision to focus on our core friends, people we wanted to hangout with at every opportunity. We only have so much love and attention to give and it isn't fair to neglect the others. The next logical step is severing those ties.

There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is an inherently human thing to do. Life is finite and eventually everyone will have to bid their last goodbye to the people they know. In the meantime we have to cherish those that we hold closest to us. We never know when but the days of every connection is numbered. The next graduation, job, move, or other circumstance is waiting around the corner threatening to reshuffle the deck. As for us, the cards in that deck isn't a one to one comparison. But where we end up next is partially up to us and also ultimately up to fate.

It's never easy saying goodbye, and in our situation, our goodbyes didn't do us justice: Disconnecting on social media, simply not talking, or in any another way, disappearing. But thank you for being my friend for a certain point in time. We may not have spoken to each other as often or we may have only interacted in school, but through those moments I saw the positive qualities in you and I hope you saw them in me.

For the select few people who refuse to speak to me (they have me blocked on social media or actively try to ignore and avoid me), I am sorry for whatever I did that made you hate me and disassociate from me. I am an awkward, weird, nerdy person, so not everyone understands me. I'm sure some of my current friends still struggle to do so. I always have my best intentions and see the good in people, and no matter what, I will try to keep the good memories I have with you close to me. In another universe or timeline, maybe just maybe we would have been best friends.

P.S. This last part goes out to my current friends: please let me know what I can do to become a better friend to you. Hopefully with the right amount of effort and commitment, this can become a lifelong friendship.