A funny thing happens when you've known someone long enough.
Eventually, you become convinced you own the copyright to their personality.
We know which drink they'll order.
Which person they'll date even though they absolutely shouldn't.
Whether they'll stay out for one more.
Which dress they'll pick.
What they'll say when we call crying from the back of an Uber.
And, perhaps most dangerously, who they're supposed to be.
Then one night you're sitting across from someone you've known for fifteen years and they order sparkling water instead of a martini, announce they're leaving the city, and casually mention they've started enjoying mornings.
Mornings?
Who is this person?
And where is my friend?
Of course, it isn't really about the martini.
It's about something much more unsettling.
They've changed.
And you weren't consulted.
And I couldn't help but wonder:
Do we really miss people—or do we miss the versions of them that made the most sense in our lives?
We All Cast Our Friends in Roles
Every friend group has a cast.
There's the responsible one.
The chaotic one.
The one who always has a boyfriend.
The one who absolutely should not have a boyfriend.
The one who makes the reservation.
The one who's forty minutes late to the reservation.
The one who orders dessert.
And the one who says they don't want dessert and then eats half of yours.
We love these roles because they're comfortable.
They tell us where everyone belongs.
Including us.
Then the chaotic friend gets married.
The married friend gets divorced.
The career-obsessed friend quits.
The friend who swore they'd never leave moves somewhere with a lawn.
And suddenly everyone has gone off-script.
Which would be fine if their character development didn't force us to reconsider our own.
Because if you're not the reckless one anymore, does that mean I am?
We Love Growth Until It Ruins Our Plans
We're constantly telling people to evolve.
Choose yourself.
Set boundaries.
Change careers.
Leave the relationship.
Move somewhere new.
Stop caring what people think.
Protect your peace.
We're incredibly supportive of personal growth right up until it affects Saturday night.
Your friend setting boundaries sounds wonderful until the boundary is that they don't want to listen to you complain about the same person for the seventeenth time.
We're thrilled someone has fallen in love until they stop coming to dinner.
We encourage someone to chase their dream until the dream requires a different ZIP code.
We celebrate people becoming more confident until they start saying no to us.
Apparently, we want everyone to become their best selves.
We'd just prefer their best selves remain extremely convenient.
Then There Are the People Who Become Boring
Can we admit this?
Sometimes people change and become healthier, happier, more emotionally stable—
and slightly less fun at parties.
It's terrible.
The friend who used to stay out until two now has a bedtime.
The person who once ordered another bottle now wants herbal tea.
Someone who previously had wonderfully questionable romantic judgment has met a lovely person and suddenly has nothing interesting to report over dinner.
We should be happy for them.
We are happy for them.
We would simply appreciate one minor crisis every few months for conversational purposes.
But maybe that's the deal.
Sometimes peace isn't particularly entertaining.
And perhaps we've confused someone's chaos with their personality because it made such good stories.
Relationships Have Ghosts
Romantic relationships may be the worst for this.
Every long relationship contains several people who no longer exist.
The people who first met.
The people who stayed out late.
The people who had sex in the middle of the afternoon because apparently nobody had laundry then.
The people who could spend an entire Sunday in bed without discussing groceries, schedules or whether someone remembered to pay the insurance.
Then somewhere along the way there are jobs.
Children.
Mortgages.
Parents getting older.
Bodies changing.
Responsibilities multiplying.
And one night you look across the kitchen and wonder what happened to the person you fell in love with.
But perhaps the more interesting question is:
What happened to the person they fell in love with?
Because we're never the only ones witnessing change.
We've changed too.
Maybe we're both standing there missing people who haven't existed in years.
Nostalgia Is an Excellent Editor
The past has fantastic lighting.
We remember the dinner.
Not the argument in the taxi afterward.
We remember being thinner.
Not being wildly insecure.
We remember the spontaneous nights.
Not checking our bank account the next morning.
We remember the old friendship when everything felt effortless.
Not the parts that weren't.
Nostalgia removes all the administrative details.
It gives us the highlight reel and convinces us it was the entire movie.
No wonder the present has trouble competing.
The present still has laundry in it.
Sometimes They Really Did Become Awful
Of course, not every transformation deserves applause.
People can change into people we no longer want around.
They can become selfish.
Cruel.
Dishonest.
Exhausting.
Or simply incompatible with the life we're building.
Growing apart isn't always some beautiful spiritual lesson.
Sometimes someone becomes unbearable.
Sometimes we become unbearable.
Hopefully temporarily.
Accepting that people change doesn't mean we have to remain seated in the front row for every version.
We're allowed to leave.
We're allowed to stop calling.
We're allowed to realize that a friendship belonged to one decade and doesn't need to survive into the next.
We're allowed to love someone and no longer particularly like them.
What we probably can't do is demand they become their 2017 personality again because we had more fun with that one.
And Then There Is the Person in the Mirror
Perhaps the strangest person to outgrow is ourselves.
We keep old versions of ourselves around too.
The body we used to have.
The career we thought we'd want forever.
The person who went out more.
The person who worried less.
The person who wore something without wondering whether it was flattering.
The person who thought thirty sounded incredibly old.
We look at photographs and sometimes feel homesick for ourselves.
But I don't want every old version of me back.
Some of them had terrible taste in men.
Some had terrible eyebrows.
Some tolerated things I wouldn't tolerate now.
Some were trying very hard to appear happy.
And some were genuinely wonderful.
I can miss them without handing them the keys again.
Maybe We Need to Meet Again
Perhaps long relationships require introductions.
Not literally.
That would make dinner weird.
But maybe every few years we need to stop assuming we know everything about the people closest to us.
Ask different questions.
What do you want now?
What are you bored with?
What don't you care about anymore?
What would you do differently?
What have you changed your mind about?
Who are you when I'm not around?
Because knowing someone for twenty years doesn't necessarily mean you know them today.
Sometimes it just means you have twenty years of outdated information.
And maybe that's what makes loving people so difficult.
We don't get to freeze them at their most convenient age.
Friends change.
Partners change.
Parents change.
We change.
Some people become strangers.
Some become closer.
Some leave.
Some surprise us.
And occasionally, if we're lucky, we meet someone we've loved for years and realize we actually like the new version even better.
Maybe that's the risk of loving real people.
They refuse to remain characters.
And I couldn't help but wonder:
How many people are we accusing of changing when what we really mean is: you changed without asking me who I needed you to be?
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