What can cause friendships to crumble?

JohnC101 said:

Long periods of time without communication can cause friendships to go.

My condolences for the lost friendships.

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This.

I also realized I meant nothing to those I considered my closest "friends."

I chose to cut them off and move on with my life.

Peace

Knowledge is generally a factor. People aren’t generally as invested in learning things as I am or moving to the next level. I’m always looking to learn more.

A vicious cycle people fall into with me is that they think they can be abrasive or thoughtless in the beginning of my learning process, because I’m a liability in their view. What they don’t realize is that once I’ve learned what I need to learn, I’m not going to perpetually put up with a bad relationship. At a certain point, I’m better off just dropping them and moving past their level on my own.

In order to retain me as a friend, you have to either treat me with kindness and respect from the beginning, and/or you have to keep learning to stay ahead. Sometimes it can take a long time for me to really master something, which also tricks people into thinking the relationship is permanent. So I cycle through people a lot in my inner circle, usually every 2-3 years or so.

I think what causes friendships to die is needs that the people involved can’t meet or can’t communicate. I’m gradually realizing that what feeds me in relationships is forms of knowledge, dignity, and respect, being treated as a human being rather than a dog or a mule. Which is hard to make other people see. I have to earn it. From the outside, it looks like entitlement. But also, if you don’t, I know you really don’t love me. Eventually I will leave. I have a lot of patience to wait for you to improve, but if you can’t, eventually it will be goodbye. If you can’t look up from your scathing criticism enough to allow me to breathe, eventually I’m going to exhale all of my air into you and the relationship will die of carbon dioxide poisoning.

Other people have other needs that need to be met for the relationship to continue, and I probably need to be better at meeting their needs and mature a bit more, but point stands. If you’re not meeting each other’s needs, eventually the friendship will crumble. Friendships change as your needs change. That’s how it generally works.