Losing Touch

Over the course of our lives, we meet people, we make friends (and/or enemies), and we continue. That's an oversimplification, of course, since we don't just go on accumulating all the friends we've amassed into a huge Friendster/facebook population. A lot of the time, we grow distant or lose touch. But that got me to thinking,

Exactly how does losing touch happen?

It's not like one day you're all chummy and "best friends forever" and then the next, you don't even really know where to start to talk to them again. There's not an "international date line" where when you cross, magical things happen and friends become strangers.

I figure losing touch takes time, and takes a passive approach on your part. (Yes, in a way, I'm saying it's your fault.) Each time you suddenly think of that person, but deem yourself too busy or too lazy to call them and say hi, or send an email, or whatever. Even if you remember, but forget later. Or even when you shrug it off as something less important than whatever you're doing at the moment.

Or say, you see their name on the latest faddish social networking site of your choice, or on your IM contacts list, and you don't say hi. (And I mean, how hard is it nowadays, really??)

That accumulates too. And after a while, it becomes A Long Time(c) since you've made any contact with them and it just seems to be out of the blue if you message them. So to avoid that awkwardness, you follow that slippery slope down into Lost-Touch-Land, and then your connection is gone.