As we grow older, priorities change, interests change. For example, the children that we had in common with friends now have children and have moved. Our priorities and interests change and the demands on our time take us in different directions. You are not alone!

Very well said by Ben. Kids, music, food, wine, business ... these are the things that pull us together with friends. When these priorities change, we tend to drift apart.

Time is the most precious commodity in my life at this time. I only seem to get together with friends on the occasional weeknight dinner, or weekend dinners planned months in advance. I think most of us would like to spend more time with friends, but we are at that stage in our lives when so little time is available.

My son said to me the other day ...

When your young, you have time and energy but no money.
When your middle aged, you have money and energy, but no time.
When your old, you have money and time, but no energy!

I love what Paul wrote.

We have certain friends where the same has happened. I have to admit, with a few, I made the decision to stop pursuing the friendship as I saw no reciprocity. I was right because there has been no contact since my last contact. As I get older, I have les patience.

I have found that one of the benefits of social media technology is there are more ways to prioritize and maintain some level of relationship with people from the past....I agree that people change, as does with whom we wish to spend our time!

Ahhh...Friends. ...My dad once told me that as I got older I would be able to count all my friends on one hand.... He was right. In no way is that a bad thing. Of course I go back to my Navy friends. Guys I haven't seen or heard from in 45 years. They would be there for me in a heartbeat. So...not really "friends" per say but Brothers in Arms. I'd rather stay home with Diane and the dogs than go out to dinner. We very rarely have or want ANYBODY over. That all happens in the form of a party or celebration where we can kill 100 birds with one stone. But God knows I'm not into killing birds or any animal ....besides humans. So...now....it's The Archer Family....my Alzheimer's stricken psychiatrist friend and his wife...Haber and Sattler are on the fringe of the perimeter...But you see...I have a wife and 5 children( my boys are my best friends now) and 4 grandkids. My 3 year old Labrador Retrievers Finn and Kona. I have a cigar humidor filled with Cubans. I have my Harley. I have my health. I have a beautiful wife (a little to the right of Atilla the Hun however) but I need that, I have Single Malt Scotch, I have rare steak. I grow my own vegetables. I have a flat screen surround sound. I have the Yankees...I have Eli Manning. I have California. I own LAND in a huge Redwood Forest where I reside. I have ME !! One thing that I must say. Our relationship (yours and mine ) is one of the most interesting relationships I have ever experienced. It is coming of age in the most peculiar manor...perhaps what Maurice said about social media technology. Never would a thunk it!

Hollander Sends

To my dear mentor partner I can unequivocally say you're not alone!
I think of Judith Viorst's book, "Necessary Losses"- it's worth a read. Life is all about loss and being able to anticipate and adapt to that reality....Conversely, it is also about experiencing the new and continuing to grows..in a word, life's all about CHANGE...embrace it!

There are many questions but so few answers to this dilemna. It is what it is.

Om the flip side just last week I reconnected with my oldest childhood friend I have not spoken to in 30 years.

I like how you use"fade away" to define the missing of friends. All of us have experienced
this loss. A good friend of mine offered this poem when I suffered through my divorce- especially the last stanza:
Reluctance
BY ROBERT FROST
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
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such an interesting and evocative question. I haven't "broken up" with any old friends - i just find that the older i get - there are a very limited number of people i care to share my time with.

You hit a nerve in me. People come into and out of our lives like waiters in a restaurant.

A few years ago, a childhood friend of mine contacted me after more than forty years, and we had dinner a few times. But his life was a shambles, three failed marriages, estrangement from his adult children, etc. As usual, my wife had sage words for me: "You can't help him."

I have a great friend from college, Erich. I was best man at his wedding just before I left to live and work in Argentina, the end of 1986. After I returned to the States (with my wife),

...CONTINUED

he was living with his wife in Albany, running a very successful business. He ultimately sold the business for a fortune, and moved with his wife and five kids to Charlotte, NC. We keep trying to get down there, but life just sort of happens. Aiming for the fall, when the weather there isn't totally bestial. It's been at least five years since we got together, and that pains me. When Mother died in 2008, he drove down from Albany to be there, and gave a wonderful speech at her memorial.

Social media is okay, and I do keep up with a bunch of people on it, but I guess I'm too "analog"...

I find the extent to which people find each other dispensible to be disconcerting

Life takes us down interesting paths. Sometimes choices others make cause directions to change; not always the choices we make. In that way, Gotham also serves as a connector since we stay in touch through our various media (Fredslist and the other lists), and via our meetings and events. In general I stay closest to those I routinely see whether it be in Gotham, other professional and political engagements and involvements, my Pythian activities, the guys I play ball with (many of them 2x/week and many of them got involved also in the Knights of Pythias which I got to subsidize our gyms). I often make plans in person. Others may call or email; I do that more sparingly.

In honor of your title, some Stones" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pt_zum97kjE&feature=kp

Some Buddy Holly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRlOI3N7Hao

and some Dead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REz4QFfjiM0

some New Riders (I Don't Know You) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SynF5nOqudk
(The title and lyrics fit: "I don't know you but you've been lately on my mind.....")