That one friend...

As I was creeping on some of my friends' Facebook photos, I noticed some interesting patterns about our lives over the past few years. Namely, the differences in what happened to me compared to what was happening to them over those years. Lets take a look: 

1. As the years go on, more pictures are taken. I am in less photos with them.

2. As the years go on, they did more things together. I did less things with them.

3. As the years go on, they start to do more "less" significant things together. I only do the significant things with them (i.e. birthdays, holidays, end of exams, etc.).

4. As the years go on, there are very few things they don't do together. There are a bazillion things I don't do with them.

I'm not sure why that happened. Perhaps my frequency of spending time with my friends stayed the same, but theirs exponentially increased. This lack of growth on my part created a distance that I feel a graph would appropriately demonstrate:

The purple gap represents all of the jokes, goofs, selfies, secrets, and life altering moments that I missed... It's a lot of stuff. 

My antisocial behavior has been less than ideal, but its the way I am. And if my not spending time with my friends wasn't bad enough, I also don't ever contact them....well, hardly ever. I hate talking on the phone, and I don't know where my phone is long enough to send a text most of the time. I suffer from a severe lack of curiosity that prevents me from knowing what is going on in the day to day lives of the people I care about most. Now when something exciting happens, I am only too happy to help them celebrate, and when life is less than kind, I am always there to lend a clean sleeve and stay up for hours on end with tissues, magazines, and ice cream. 

But that just might be the worst kind of friend, I think. Its not that I only care about the "big stuff," its just that I am terrible at remembering to acknowledge the little stuff, too.

When I watch movies or see people around me, girls in particular, when they have their close knit friend group and the people they call on for everything, and hang out with every night, and who make plans around what's going on in each others lives, I am fascinated. In awe, even. I have never had that type of friendship. I have never really had a group of friends who I confided in and who confided in me. No sleepless slumber parties chatting about boys, no meeting in the usual spot, no crazy spring break road trip....the list goes on.

My closest friends probably don't even know that I consider them to be my closest friends because they probably think I have a completely different set of close friends....

SO, I say all of this to say that this week I am challenging myself to reach out to all my friends: my gal pals, my chickadees, my love muffins, my homies. It's about time I, at the very least, let them know that I value our friendship and that I want to hold on to it. And also ask for their forgiveness and patience as I try my best to be better at being a friend all the time....OK, at least once a week.

Here's to using my end of the phone...and to trying not to be THAT friend...