Were We Friends, or Were We Just in the Same Routine?

I have always sort of felt like I was the friend in passing.

I have had close friends. Best friends, even. Friends I have considered family. But a lot of those friendships have belonged to a particular season of my life. We were roommates, neighbors, or coworkers. Then someone moved, changed jobs, made different life choices, or simply got busy, and the friendship slowly became an occasional interaction on social media.

For a long time, I treated that as evidence that friends just do not stick.

Lately, though, I have started wondering whether some of those friendships actually ended, or whether they simply lost the routine that had been holding them together.

When Being Social Was Part of My Routine

When Jen and I first got together, I was the outgoing one. I talked to people, went places, and pushed myself outside my comfort zone. It helped that I was doing Herbalife at the time, so being “outgoing” was practically a job requirement.

Now we have somehow switched roles.

Jen works at the school and spends her days around people. I work from home and mostly see the people who live in my house. Jen used to be the homebody, but somewhere along the way I joined her and then apparently took over the position completely.

Working from home is convenient, but it has also removed a lot of the ordinary opportunities I used to have to form and maintain friendships. There are no coworkers stopping by my desk, no spontaneous lunch plans, and no casual conversations that slowly turn into something deeper. If I want connection now, I have to create it intentionally.

That is where I struggle.

I am guilty of not reaching out as often as I want to. I do not always show up when we are invited somewhere. Eventually, when you turn down enough invitations, people stop asking. I understand why. I cannot disappear into my house, decline plans, and then feel shocked when everyone continues living without me.

But sometimes I still do.

Friends for a Season

When I worked at NTT Data, I had several coworkers who became actual friends. I was the oldest one in the group, but I still went to bars with them, spent time with them outside work, and hosted Friendsgiving. They met Alyssa and my mom. These were not people I only talked to because we happened to share a building. At least, it did not feel that way.

As the work we were doing came to an end, people began leaving and finding new jobs. I remember asking everyone to stay in touch because I did not want to lose them as friends.

We did not have a dramatic falling-out. Nobody betrayed anyone. Life simply carried us into different routines.

Now we are acquaintances who interact on social media.

That seems to be the pattern. I have had several close friends for a season. Sometimes their choices separated us. Sometimes mine did. Sometimes there was no big reason at all. The thing that placed us in each other’s lives disappeared, and eventually so did the closeness.

Were We Only Close Because It Was Convenient?

That question recently crept into one of the friendships I value most.

Kit and Kat are not just casual friends to us. We consider them best friends and family. We became incredibly close when we lived across the street from each other. We cooked for each other, spent holidays together, and shared ordinary life. They have met almost my entire family, except my stepdad, and they are not exactly missing anything there. Ha!

Living across the street made friendship easy. We did not have to compare calendars three weeks in advance. We were already there. Connection was built into everyday life.

Recently, their lives changed. They had roommates and were helping watch their godsons, which meant they had very little free time. More than a month passed without us seeing each other.

Meanwhile, we could see them on Facebook and Snapchat, having fun and doing things that did not include us.

We may or may not have been a little jealous.

Okay, we were feeling some type of way about it.

It made me wonder whether we had been “routine friends.” Were we only that close because we lived across the street? Had the friendship felt deeper than it really was because proximity did most of the work for us? Now that spending time together required planning, were we slowly becoming another set of people who occasionally reacted to each other’s posts?

Then Kit’s birthday came around.

We spent the entire Sunday together. We went to the gay pool, then to the lesbian bar, and genuinely enjoyed being together. Alyssa and Iona, Alyssa’s best friend since preschool, came to the pool and bar too. Kat was not feeling well enough to come to the pool, but she joined us at the bar later. Having both of them there felt like the perfect ending to the day.

And just like always, it felt as if we had never skipped a beat.

Maybe Routine Is Not the Insult I Thought It Was

That day did not erase the fact that we had gone more than a month without seeing each other. It did not magically make everyone less busy. But it reminded me that absence does not always mean the connection is gone.

Maybe I had been using the term “routine friends” as an insult when routine is part of how most friendships are built. It gives friendship a place to live. It creates the everyday conversations, shared meals, inside jokes, and ordinary moments that slowly become a real connection.

When that routine disappears, though, the friendship has to become more intentional. Once we are no longer coworkers, roommates, or neighbors, spending time together stops happening automatically. Someone has to send the text. Someone has to extend the invitation. Both people have to make room in lives that may no longer naturally overlap.

And that is the uncomfortable part for me. I cannot quietly wait to see whether someone notices my absence, feel hurt when I see them having fun without me, and then use that hurt as proof that the friendship no longer matters. If I want people in my life, I have to participate in keeping them there. I have to reach out, accept some invitations, and occasionally leave my house even when staying home would be easier.

Maybe the lesson is not to sort everyone into “real friends” and “routine friends.” Some friendships truly are meant for only a season, and some life choices create distance for a reason. But other friendships survive long stretches without constant contact. They are the ones where, when you finally sit down together again, the familiarity is still there. The laughter is still easy. It still feels like home.

Sunday reminded me that Kit and Kat are those kinds of friends. Our routine changed, but our friendship did not disappear with it. We may have to work harder now to create the moments that once happened naturally, but the connection is still worth making room for.

Maybe that is what adult friendship looks like. Not constant access. Not proof that everyone is having fun only when you are there. Just people whose lives keep changing, choosing to find their way back to one another anyway.

Who in your life still feels like no time has passed, no matter how long it has been since you were together?