"Did you know we lose half our friends every seven years? And the most common reason we do isn't that we've become fundamentally incompatible. It's because we're no longer in the same place at the same time. Many of our friendships are effectively "locationships." We require something called "social embeddedness" (a similar context) for them to continue. The problem, however, may not be that friendships commonly decrease in closeness over time."
"This means that if we haven't spoken to a friend in a while, we should assume that we can still re-engage at any time. In fact, the study found that about half of friendships did not linearly increase in closeness. They went through ups and downs in their levels of intimacy. About a quarter of close friendships dwindled down to casual ones at some time point, but then ended up transforming into best friendships later on."
People lose about half of their friends approximately every seven years, primarily because shared location and social contexts change rather than because of incompatibility. Many friendships function as locationships that depend on social embeddedness to persist. Reaching out to an old friend can feel as uncomfortable as contacting a stranger; fewer than one-third of people reached out even when they wanted to reconnect and had time to draft a message. Assuming friendships are flexible rather than fragile supports sustainability. Friendships often fluctuate in closeness, with some cycling from close to casual and later becoming best friendships. Avoid assuming a lull means the friendship is over.
Read at Psychology Today
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