So basically I was in this one friend group in highschool. Many members came and went, often due to fighting of some sort. I cut off ties with all of these people both because my friends and them were now “hostile” with each other and in some cases also because I partook in criticizing them.
But now I’m quite lonely, as I’ve distanced myself from so many people I once knew on these same terms and limited myself from interacting with those who I knew were close to them because of that.
Now, a few years have passed, and I’m seeing the same friends for whom I distanced myself from those people just casually hanging out with them again. Sometimes even after having complained to me about them.
I’ve been invited and went to old friends’ birthdays a few times too, but mainly out of a genuine “we were close once and I want to honor that” feeling, but it all felt so fake knowing there was this air around.
I’m pretty sure it goes on the other way around too. But it’s all so confusing. It’s like a cordial/friendly hostility??
Yet I’m not even sure how aware some of them are of it.
I’d like to say mine is integrity/loyalty and their relationships are clearly of the more “superficial” kind, but if just about everyone is doing this, what if I’m the overly black and white thinking one here?
I guess I also fear I might end up lonely if I keep cutting people off so “easily”.
And even if I wanted to I couldn’t “come back” to most of those people either, since I never really bonded with them as much as the people I stopped talking to them for.