As per my outlined five greetings below, the real question on my mind, is how do you go from Oh come here! to Oh you… from *hugs* to *shun*

Aside: I did a bit of this self asking question thing I don’t like that much, but it fit into some of my points so it grew into a literary device theme. When I read this again in a few months I will probably hate it and delete them all.

1. Date and dump. This is a pretty easy way to hurt their feelings, turn friends into enemies. I haven’t really done this ever. Hooray? … yes!

2. Roadblock. Sometimes when you’re talking about something significant to one or both of you, a disagreeance or opinionated comment can really put up a roadblock. If you offend someone, or totally reject them based on a major principle, then it is extremely rare to continue to grow unless one or both parties is very gracious and flexible. Black Eyed Peas make the most atrocious music, if you are inspired by I gotta feeling, you need some grammar lessons, and I hope you don’t insert random reverent hebrew sayings in the middle of a party — or shout out DRANK and the days of the week. Take it off?… NO! (did i offend you? if so, it was intentional)

3. Time or distance. This one is the most obvious to me as I’ve become friends with busy people, and then moved across the continent twice. Some friendships don’t regress, but get put on a shelf. I thought recently I had gone quickly in reverse with one friend, but after a good chat, things were back to exactly where they are. If you aren’t careful, this can be the #2 roadblock occurance as being busy is sometimes offensive. It depends on what type of priority is given, and the importance expressed of a reconnect. Most of my friends would like to reconnect, and when it becomes more of a strong want, then they might signal a flag. Whether or not I catch this, or fail as a friend is dependent on my awareness and compassion at the time. I probably could write a lot more on this one as I am an expert. However, I am definitely not an expert of avoiding this. Expert isn’t the right term I guess. Victim? Veteran? … ya.

4. Growing apart. I think for many of my friends growing up I found the type that we really shared depth with. With depth, you can’t really grow apart quite the same, but it does happen. People navigate through different stages of life, and lose interest in what once was a staple conversation. Maybe people change their mind about priorities, or what is funny, or which activities to do. These are a bit hard to handle when they happen. I would also include in this group when there was a one way need relationship that no longer is needed. I don’t have a guitar anymore so I don’t need to hang out with you guitar man. Or, my relationship is happy now, so I don’t need you to mend my fragile heart. If I try to think objectively in the big picture, these aren’t so bad. Often they are better off, they are happy, they have new people and that’s just how it goes. I’m not even just “happy for them”, I truly am happy. When one of my friends met her soon to be fiance, I knew my role was going to be replaced by him within days of her talking of him. She is well taken care of and I am no longer there for her because I simply don’t need to be. I wrote her today before writing this blog, and I am genuinely happy for her :-) Growing apart? … not always bad.

5. Mystery. I hate this one. I don’t even know what to write about it. But having someone near and dear totally cut me off sucks, I wish it was one of the above four, it may have been, but I missed the confrontation. Ugh, confrontation is so necessary sometimes! I would much rather know what is up, and learn, than to have a mystery reverse. Did the borgs zap a tractor beam on you and suck you into their cube for assimilation? Did i misread a hundred things to establish where I thought we were to begin with. I just.. dont.. get it… and I wrote two blog posts to solidify my lack of getting it. Hooray? .. no.