On friendship and rejection

The friendships left behind… and maybe the ones ahead!

Photo by lilartsy on Unsplash

Especially during quarantine, I made a point to try and reach out to old friends, ones I may not have talked to in years.

I usually got one of three results:

1. Positive reciprocation! Someone else also wanted to reconnect and catch up like old times.
2. Read receipt on. I think sometimes people either read it and forget to reply or just don’t feel like replying. I realized one of my friends said that messaging stressed her out, and sometimes she’d leave a person on “Read” for a long time and remember but also feel guilty for not responding… so then she wouldn’t respond because it’d been so long. Kind of a vicious cycle.
3. Flat-out ignoring. Not even bothering to read the message.

Of course, the first option makes me so happy! I’d be like “Yay, they value me as a friend, too! It’s just our lives have gotten in the way, but they want to share about their own life!”

The second option makes me a little sad. I’ve tried to grow more understanding, especially when people tell me they’re not really good at messaging.

The third one actually made me kind of mad. I had a friend who I thought was close ignore me for over a year, and I reached out…