It recently occurred to me that I have not seen anything from a friend group text in a while. I figured everyone was probably busy with the summer, upcoming school year, and life. But then a darker thought struck. What if my friends ghosted me — and created a new group text without me?
This might be true and it might not. Maybe I’ll never know and that’s probably for the best. I thought about reaching out to a few of the girls individually. I wondered if I had done anything recently that might upset others and caused them to ghost me.
The hardest part about friendship is the feeling needs to be mutual. I can wish the world on my relationships with others but if they don’t feel the same way back or they are not in a season for friendship, it’s going to hurt.
Friendships ebb and flow like the tide. As our seasons of life and needs change, so to do our friendships. And that doesn’t mean somebody is a bad friend. It means it is not our season. That’s it! It might return and it might not.
As I’m scrolling through my messages to see the last time there was a correspondence with this friend group, I pass by dozens… DOZENS of texts from other friends who have popped up over the months. A few messages that I didn’t even respond to. And I realized that for all the pain and questioning I might have for this one group text, in other friendships I am the ghoster.
I thought friendships would get easier as we got older but in many ways it gets much more complicated. Balancing them with increasingly busier family schedules adds complexity that never occurred in my pre-kids days.
I think the biggest takeaway for me is to focus less on who is not responding to my texts and focus more on growing relationships with the friends who are reaching out. Friends who do touch base. Because these are the friendships where I know they are in the season of wanting more of me. Those are the relationships I want to be nurturing. Not bummed out wondering why someone isn’t giving me more of them they might not have left to give.
Leave a Reply