I don't know if you've ever had a friend like this:
You used to chat all night and be inseparable.
You've also made an appointment to participate in all of each other's big moments and grow old with each other.
But I don't know when you stopped contacting, and the circle of friends did not like each other, becoming the most familiar stranger.
In the relationship between adults, gathering and dispersing is the norm of life, and gradually drifting away is helpless in life.
There is no unbroken feast in the world, and some people are destined to be passers-by in your life and cannot accompany you to the end of your life.
There is a saying that goes something like this:
"There are some roads that can only be walked alone, and those who invite good companions to accompany the rainy season and walk through the years together, but one day they will eventually disperse at a certain ferry port."
After the passage of time, I understood that the friendship of adults is slowly becoming a stranger.
01
Life loses its intersection
On the way to growth, we will meet all kinds of people, and we will also be separated from some friends.
There may be thousands of ways to get separated from friends, but one of them is that they have different growth trajectories from each other, and their lives have lost their intersection.
One writer once shared one thing.
Once, she had dinner with two friends who had already given birth.
Even though we hadn't seen each other for a long time, the writer and they never talked together.
It turned out that these two friends had been talking about how their children would cry several times in the middle of the night, how to buy milk powder to be cost-effective and reassuring.
Not only that, they also exchanged mobile phones to see photos of each other's children, praised each other's children for being cute, and listened to each other's unrelated to themselves, so they couldn't insert their mouths at all, and she could only eat awkwardly.
After that meeting, they tacitly reduced their contact.
There's a saying that's right:
Life, in fact, is like a road from a wide plain into the forest.
Companions can travel in groups on the plains, and once in the forest, the situation changes. Each person concentrates on each other's path and finds his own direction.
If you don't contact anymore, it's not who did something wrong, it's not that you don't care. Rather, everyone's life may no longer be at the same stage, and there will be no common topic.
It feels like you're eating sushi without mustard and soy sauce, and it feels like something is missing.
If you come back and forth, you will lose your meaning, and separation will be sooner or later.
Forcing is fruitless, and it is useless to force it to stay, it is better to leave the previous beauty in the depths of the heart.
Not disturbing each other and being okay with each other is the greatest respect for the past.
02
The three views no longer merge
Life is fluid, and each person's three views will change with their own circumstances.
If the thoughts are not at the same height, there is no need to persuade each other, only mutual respect; if the three views are not on one level, there is no need to blame each other, just tolerate each other.
Remember, Douban saw a netizen @ cocoa sauce experience.
She had a friend who got along very well at first.
However, the more she interacted, the more she found that every time she met with her friends, she would be depressed for a long time.
Once, when they were shopping together, she looked at a dress and was about to try it on. But the friend pulled her and said that clothes should buy big brands in order to improve their temperament.
But netizens do not think so, thinking that comfortable and decent clothes are enough.
The last time they met, she told a friend that she wanted to quit her job and go to graduate school.
Unexpectedly, her friends did not encourage her. Instead, he poured cold water on her, saying that she had been working for several years, and now it was too late to go to graduate school, so it was better to find someone to marry.
If the three views do not fit, talking to each other is like playing the piano to a cow.
You like to go to the cinema to see a movie and feel the atmosphere, but the other person feels that it is the same everywhere you go; in order to stay in shape, you go to the gym to work out, and your friends will say that there is no need to torture yourself.
No matter what you say or do, you won't get recognition from the other person.
And what the other party thinks, you naturally can't understand.
Over time, the differences between you become more and more numerous, and even disputes will arise because of this.
No matter how deep the friendship, it cannot resist the layers of contradictions intentionally or unintentionally.
It is better to leave some retreat for each other, disperse with dignity, and leave energy and time to friends with similar views.
The feelings of thin water and long flow are all based on the fit of the three views.
Strong integration will only tire each other and embarrass each other.
Ending a love affair requires decency, and ending a friendship is the same.
03
The distance is getting farther and farther away
Qian Zhongshu said:
The best way to fall in love is to "borrow books", borrow and return, so that there is contact. The frequency of interaction between two people is at least twice, and this is how the strong connection is brushed out.
The same is true for friendship.
On the road to growth, some relationships have invisibly opened up distances because of the different growth rhythms.
In the end, each other is no longer in trouble, and the feelings fade.
This is how my relationship with my friend Xiao Jia drifted apart.
A few years ago, just after graduating from college, she went to work for a top company in the foreign trade industry.
I've always been at home for various reasons.
At the beginning, she would share things at work with me every day, and I listened to them with relish.
At that time, I naively thought that even if I had not worked, it would not affect the relationship between the two of them.
But she was getting busier every day, and we had very little time to communicate.
Every time I chatted, she would share some insider information that I didn't understand, and every time I didn't know what to say.
Later, she was promoted and paid a salary, but I was still an unemployed vagrant.
Once, I wanted her to help me look at my resume.
But I don't know why, at the moment I pressed the send button, I suddenly stopped and did not send her resume, but to another friend.
Later, our contact naturally became less and less .
Nowadays, we are used to the mentality of not having each other, gathering and scattering, gaining indifference and losing calm.
For the rest of your life, you don't have to invite too many people into your life, or lower your expectations and be yourself.
Liu Tong said:
"The farthest distance is that people are still there, love is still there, but the way back is no longer there."
Life is full of many helplessness, no matter how deep the feelings of the past, once there is a gap, there will be a gap. No longer want to trouble each other, the feelings become strange.
The world is so big and the population is so large, it is rare to meet a friend with the same frequency and the same pace.
If you are lucky enough to encounter it, you still have to cherish it.
04
I agree with Feng Zikai's words:
When I was a child, I always thought that if I became a friend, I would always be a friend.
When I grew up, I understood that between people and people, where there is forever, can accompany each other on a road, it is very warm.
The fate between people and people is deep and shallow, and the gathering and dispersion are even more involuntary.
Cherish when you meet, and leave quietly.
Some feelings can be had, don't care if it lasts forever.
Finally, to those friends who have been separated, thank you for coming, and hope that you can take care of yourself when you are without me.
Welcome to the "Narration of The Stranger" column