The Friend You Think Of Often And Never Contact

Almost everybody has one, and the gap between thinking of somebody and telling them is where most friendships quietly die.

There is a particular person who comes to mind several times a year. You see something they would have found funny. You hear their name somewhere. You wonder how their mother is. And then you do nothing, because it has been too long, because you would not know where to start, because a message that carries several years of catching up feels like a thing you need an afternoon for. So the thought passes and returns in another few months, unchanged, indefinitely.

The remarkable thing is how small the required action is compared with how large it feels. The message that works is usually the one that does not attempt to cover the interval at all: a photograph of the thing that reminded you of them, a single line, no preamble. It gives them an easy way in and asks nothing. Most of the imagined difficulty is a story about how the message will be received, and that story is almost always harsher than the reality.

There is a habit worth building here, and it is very simple. When somebody comes to mind, tell them, at the time, in whatever half formed way is available. Not later, when you have something more substantial to say, because later does not arrive. This one habit, practised for a year, does more for a person's friendships than any amount of resolving to be a better friend, because it converts a private feeling into a thing the other person can actually receive.