Names I Still Scroll Past

I was bored out of my mind, unable to sleep, at 2:13am when I came upon his name. It’s always a rush - for good or for worse - when all those memories suddenly rush into your brain. For a second, I smile slightly at the memories. But as quickly as the smile flashed on my face, I grimaced at the reality of our connection: we didn’t have a connection anymore.

It was a quiet silence that slowly creeps in unnoticed. One day, I realise that it’s been months since we last spoke. Still though, I didn’t reach out. He didn’t reach out. Months turn into years.

I can only describe it as a slow unravelling of something that once felt so tightly woven until all you’re left with is a faint memory of what used to be.

I think about him sometimes – not always, but enough. It happens on those quiet nights. Or those moments when a shared joke resurfaces in my mind. Or when I come across something he would’ve loved. In those moments, it feels almost absurd how far away they are now. The space between now and the last time we actually knew each other has is now an abyss.

A quote from the show “How I Met Your Mother” stuck with me for years, and it’s one I first heard long before I understood how true it was. Some of the jokes in HIMYM haven’t aged well, but the life lessons have. It goes like this:

As you grow up, you will be shocked when you discover how easy it is in life to part ways with people forever. That’s why, when you find someone you want to keep around, you do something about it.

Every time that quote flashes in my head, something in me flinches. I’ve done the parting. I’ve also been parted with.

Some of those losses were mutual. It’s when two people silently agree to drift. Others are more lopsided: one of us holding on just a bit longer than the other. I wait for a message that never comes. Or perhaps he never sent one. Vice versa.

I don’t think a final moment to wrap things up neatly is owed to us. That’s not a bad thing. Life isn’t always built for tidy conclusions because sometimes connections fade, without intent or harm, and that has to be enough.

Love and conflict are just two possible reasons. The quieter possibilities is that two people started growing in different directions. We both didn’t know how to bring their old selves into something new.

Even knowing all that though – even when I hold that logic close – there are names I scroll past, photos from the past, and conversations I sometimes replay in my head that make me pause. I wonder sometimes if they think of me too – a gentle unspoken, “Oh, you were important once.”

It’s a lingering thought that reminds me that connections aren’t guaranteed. Staying in someone’s life - really staying – takes effort to build and maintain. From both people.

At the end of the day, the normalcy of drifting connections is one of those quiet heartbreaks that no one really prepares you for. That’s why, when someone matters, when a connection feels worth preserving, you make time. Meaningful connections require tending. Without it, even the strongest bonds quietly stretch into distance. Eventually, that distance becomes space.

Reach out.
Send that meme.
Make the trip.