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Comment by lvturner | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure I agree with your take here, it's rather uncharitable.

I've lost touch with friends because I failed to do this sort of thing, it's easy to not keep up with people when there is no immediate driver or common interest (perhaps I'm atypical or neurodivergent) this is multiplied when you leave a country and no longer see some people on a regular basis.

A system like this would ensure my forgetful nature doesn't kick in and give me that reason I need just to check in on someone I actually care about but haven't had the opportunity to speak to in a while.

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How do you manage to lose touch with friends? Did you not miss them?

If you did, why didn't you contact them?

If you didn't, why do you care?

One can not forget about friends, one can only stop caring.

I do miss some people. I do not contact them, because I do not think they feel the same way about me, and I do not want to bother them. Social anxiety is a thing.

Or just in your mind you still have that bundle of memories which make you underestimate the time passed since last contact because you've been busy with life.

Of course I miss them and I do contact them when I do so -- though sometimes it's too late and their phone number has changed or their social media account has been de-activiated.

I'm just saying I could make MORE effort, and I don't see a prompt to do so as being harmful.

It’s not about forgetting. I don’t forget my friends, but at the same time life happens. Kids, work obligations, relationships. It’s easy to forget to reach out to friends or acquaintances. Easy to underestimate when the last time you made contact. That’s just life.

Agreed. Sometimes life just gets in the way and if something isn't urgent or can be put off for a few days in order to handle the immediate and now it is easy to forgot what isn't right in front of you.

I'm sure most have the best of intentions that they will reach out to friends and keep in touch, but the best laid plans of mice and men...I don't see why having a system to do this so bad?

When I miss people, I often don't have time to reach out. When I have time, I often don't remember that I wanted to reach out to people. Sometimes life keeps us too busy.

> One can not forget about friends, one can only stop caring.

You seem to use forgetting in a sense that is akin to erasing a person from your past, as if they never existed. That’s very drastic. People do forget to reach out not necessarily because they don’t care but because things slip their mind. Life happens. Stress happens. The proximity isn’t that close anymore. And so on. Isn’t setting up a system like this not a good effort on their part? An example of them caring enough to make sure their relationship stays alive? “Don’t be a stranger” sometimes takes a bit of work. So why not use tools that can help with that?

I grew up moving a lot before email was ubiquitous.

Also all my family is overseas.

As a kid I would try so hard to stay in touch and it never worked. The harder I tried the more it hurt for those attempts to fail.

But I'd see family once a year or so and we'd catch up and it was always wonderful.

I think about people all the time, but it doesn't trigger my reaching out.

It's like a really deeply ingrained learned helplessness or generalized relational despair.

Some people for a variety of reasons, some cognitive, some environmental, don't have their internal desires intrinsically tied to the psychological pressure to take action.

Due to surgeries and anesthesia I also developed aphantasia, so anything short of in person interactions feels quite hollow.

Be glad your experience in life is healthy and normative, for some of us it takes effort.

> How do you manage to lose touch with friends? Did you not miss them?

Well yes you can not miss your friend for long period of time because they are far away and a large enough social circle keeps you so busy locally that your mind do not get the opportunity to feel it.

Anyone who has been living in different areas/countries lost track to some real friends. There is always a moment when you feel you might want to reach out to them again but sometimes it is too late.

Question 1 I think is packaged in your follow-up questions:

- Did you not miss them? 'Missing' someone is an interesting way of thinking about it. When should you 'start' missing someone? I find that often I miss people intensely soon after we meet. This can be difficult, because it may not be possible or practical to meet or communicate with someone immediately, but then that 'missing' starts to wane. By the time it starts to become stronger again, a significant period of time might have passed.

- If you did, why didn't you contact them? Missing someone is fairly subjective as mentioned above, but for me, contact alone is not enough to stop me missing someone. Meeting in person is. If I contact someone, it does not stop me missing them we are unable to meet in person, and in fact in some cases, makes me miss them more. Many of my friends don't live in the same city (or even the same country) as me.

- If you didn't, why do you care? Because friendships take work, like any other type of human relationship. Someone who currently is an 'acquaintance', who I wouldn't really be too upset about not seeing frequently could develop into a friend.

> 'One can not forget about friends, one can only stop caring.' - I think here you're using a very literal definition of forgetting. I think most people don't actually forget about friends, they just use the word forget as a shorthand for 'not actively thinking about all the time'.

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