An Open Letter to Changed Friends

This is to all the friends that I still love, just not quite in the same way anymore:

     I’ll still speak to you in endearments, ask about your day.  You’ll still be on my mind when I'm making arrangements.  I’ll still text or call whenever something important happens.  But now, there’s that sense of duty, you’re not natural to me anymore.

     When we first met, I wasn't quite comfortable with you at first, but then I never am with people that are new to me.  We got to know each other, and then came to a consensus that we enjoyed each other’s company.  Our personalities complemented each other and so we were friends.  Your opinions were always stronger than mine, but they were still along the same lines.  We planned a holiday together, even though it didn't quite happen. It was fun.

     Then something changed.  Was it the change in circumstance; was it something that one of us did?  Was it the new people you met, or the trouble I was having in my own life?  Either way, we’re not quite in synchrony any more.  It’s like one of us has changed time signatures without telling the other and we can’t work out how to get back to the same place.  The things you say are no longer such that I agree with you unthinking, and reciprocally it seems as though you feel a lot of  confusion at what spills from my mouth, and much though I feel I want to engage with you, I don’t think we’re on the same page anymore.  I start avoiding you without even realising, while I look forwards to seeing other friends, with you it feels a little like a chore. 

     I still want to be nice to you, so we don’t talk about the fact that one of us has changed.  I don’t know if you've noticed it too, if to you everything’s fine, or if you, like me, don’t want to admit that it’s happened.  Are we both just pretending for the sake of old times?  Is that a good thing?  Should we be being more frank?

I don’t know, so I just keep on acting the same, and I hope that’s alright by you.