Fwiw, I recently saw a girl that I knew in high school on facebook. She had sorta "dated" a close friend of mine. For some reason, my teasing nature, in my recollection anyway, got a little carried away with her. I've kinda felt lousy for YEARS about this. On facebook, I could see that she has a pretty great outlook, and was a happy person.

I mustered up my courage, and sent her a message telling her that I felt liked been an asshole all those years ago. She replied to let me know that she didn't even remember, but that she appreciated the sentiment. I felt a lot better, and we've had a few conversations online about our kids etc.

That's my story anyway. Depending on your specific circumstances a similar approach may work!

Thanks, richat.

My main motivation is to apologize for being such a jerk.

I should see if she has a Facebook page!

I had a good friend for years who was really the only friend I had who'd call me up and chat for hours, telling me about her love interests, work, family (mainly love interests). The conversations would get a bit long, and sometimes repetitive, but I generally enjoyed them. We'd hang out, play pool, go to baseball games. She was the kind of friend who'd go to doctors' appointments with me, and vise versa.

We, however, were not good traveling partners. She's the go-all-the-time, must-see-everything type, and I'm the where's-the-nearest-lounge-chair type. When I was preparing to move down to Miami with Jon for graduate school, she came with me to look for an apartment (Jon was working). She drove me nuts. I only had a week, and I had to find a place. We'd rented a car, and she gave me such a hard time about using it to see apartments. She'd get frustrated with me for spending the evening looking in the classifieds. She kept pushing me to look at places in Hollywood, FL, where we were staying (why she didn't book us in South Beach -- she's a travel agent -- I'll never know), and I kept telling her it was too far (40 minutes minimum, with rush hour traffic worse than NYC), but she wouldn't listen. At one point, when I needed the car, she threw the keys at my face. It was not a good trip. (I, ultimately, did find a place, from the university's recommended list; in hind sight, I should've started there.)

At that point, though, we were still friends. She even came down to Miami and stayed with us for a week. I admired her in a lot of ways. She's spirited and smart and adventurous, and though she had her entire large intestine removed as a preteen and has an internal colostomy bag, with large scars on her abdomen from several surgeries, she doesn't let that stop her, bikini and all. Then came Vegas.

She invited me along with her and another girlfriend of hers for a long weekend in Vegas. I was excited. I'd never been that far west. Most of the trip went fine, and I really liked her friend, too. Again though, she was on a mission to see "everything," and, at one point, when both her friend and I were tired and wanted a break, she shouted at us, "This is my trip, and we'll do what I want." (The room was comped -- she had travel agent freebies.) Then, on the way back from the Grand Canyon (which was amazing), she and her friend got in this long, drawn-out conversation about how all "those people" (meaning blacks and latinos) had "ruined their neighborhood," which was the same neighborhood I lived in at the time, too. They were so nasty about it and went on and on about it so much, I couldn't stand it anymore, so I called them on it, pointing out how racist it sounded and asking them to please stop. They did, but the rest of the ride was rather quiet (they were in the front seat and I was in the back), and things were never the same after that. Maybe I should've kept my big mouth shut.

When she dropped me off at home from the airport, though she was, on the surface, polite, I knew I'd never hear from her again, and I haven't. It's been six years. I do miss her, though. I'd love to hear from her again; I'd love to know how she's doing. I don't even know if she's still living in CT. I'm not sure if I still have her phone # or email, but I was thinking about trying to get in touch again. A friend that easy to talk to is hard to find, at least for me. I know she'd get a kick out of Jon and I being married. A lot of other friends have faded, too. Moved away, lost touch. Nothing so dramatic. Little moments that soured things maybe. Friends who I never thought would fade. I've come to expect friendships, even close friendships, to only be temporary.

Anyway, this was a longer story than I thought. Sorry about that. I guess it's been on my mind.

Sometimes friends are situational friends. You may like these people and share things in common, but don't have any real connection other than the situation.

I find that there are times when I spend time with a person, but grow away from that relationship as we both change. I don't think you've been a jerk - the two of you had different paths.

It does seems like a wonderful idea to get back in touch with her. Not to say you were a jerk, but to see how she's doing and to fill in the gaps. Undoubtedly, you have both changed and may be more in synch now, or not; but you will not know if you don't say howdy!

I had a roommate in college, great guy, fun to hang out with and full of stories. I figured we'd be friends 'til we were old men. Kept in touch after college; he joined the Air Force and we met up when he was stationed in Japan.

Several years ago, when I was living in Maryland, he called me and said he was working temporarily at Ft. Meade and wanted to grab dinner some night, and I could meet his wife.

So we went to a Mexican place, and they were really happy; his wife was Air Force too, and they just seemed made for one another. Then they started talking about church; er, she started talking about church, and he started agreeing. No problem. They were both very interested in my time in Israel and my near-conversion to Judaism.

Then they started steering the conversation to hot-button topics like abortion and creationism. I kept trying to steer it away, but they were adamant, and all they wanted to do was bully me into accepting the unacceptable. I resisted, said, "Hey, I'm not going to try to change your minds, and you won't change my mind, so lets talk about other things. It's been three years. There must be something to talk about."

They just kept it up. "Evolution's just a theory blah blah blah." Finally I snapped, and said, "You don't know what a scientific theory is; we can't have a conversation when our definitions of the most basic elements are different. We are simply not on the same page. Let's talk about something else." Then I got accused of elitism, the old line, "Oh, well, I guess we're just not as smart as you are. You think you have all the answers because you don't have room in your life for answers from God."

Let's talk about how you guys met, huh? Not a chance. That was the last time I spoke to my college roommate. Sometimes I wonder what he's up to, but that dinner really killed most of my curiosity.

LoriFLA, she sounds like all kind of fun, but then there's this:

She was tired and very busy. Sometimes she would copy my test answers.
and this:
We would probably still be friends to this day if I wasn't such an asshole.

I read those lines and think to myself, "Well, if there was an asshole in this equation, I don't think it was LoriFLA."

And, you know, even if you were occasionally a jerk... gosh, so is everyone once in a while. I bet your old friend feels like a jerk when she remembers that she used her busy life as an excuse to cheat off you. (And if she doesn't, she should.)

There's no reason you couldn't reconnect with her if you wanted. Some of my reconnections with old friends have been terribly disappointing, dissolving even the fond, fuzzy memories. A very few have been tremendously rewarding.

Yeah, sometimes I'm too hard on myself. Sometimes I was a snob and I had little patience or understanding for my friends' flaws. I cringe at that behavior.

Pips and Hugh, I loved reading your stories. Every one of us probably has a story or two like this.

Lori, if it makes you feel any better, I wouldn't want to be in the hospital and depending on a nurse who got through school by copying from the gal next to her, no matter how nice she is and how busy she was at the time.

I apologize for being a jerk all the time.

I think one of the things that makes this OK with people (because everyone is a jerk at some time or other, except the people who are trying SO hard not to be a jerk that they are really really boring) is that I have, finally, enough self confidence and "OKness" that it does not come off as self-flagellation.

There have been a couple times when I have had difficulties with others, and have owned my part of it and moved on, and the other person has been pissed off that I could so "blithely" move on and get over it while they were still not OK with it.

So if you think there is anything in reconnecting with this person for you, in the future, I would send her a note, with your feelings about the above and see where it goes. She may blow you off, or she may behave in a way that makes you sorry you wrote the note, or it could turn out fine.

(OH, on preview. ..everyone is a jerk at times other than occhiblu. She's delightful 24/7.

No pressure, though.)

Oh good lord, no. I am a jerk reasonably often, though very very very rarely is it on purpose.

See? She cracked under the pressure already!

everyone is a jerk at times

Yes, yes, yes! Everyone. There's a reason this cake strikes so many of us as funny.

I don't look at it and think, "Hmmph, somebody owes me an apology cake!" I look at it and think, "Boy oh boy, I oughta have one of those delivered to [So-and-So]."

I had a friend, I met him when I was 12 - he was 17. We both had email, which was unusual for the time, so we became pen friends. Our paths crossed a few more times, and the friendship was established. He was the closest thing I've had to a brother.

About two years ago I had a "thing" with one of his friends (I'm a girl), and things between us were never the same. The same year I had a major falling out with a mutual friend, and he pretty much stopped initiating contact - though we were still talking pretty frequently.

Throughout that year though, he became more and more dismissive of me. If I rang and asked what he was up to, and if he wanted to 'hang' he'd allow me to go to the cafe for lunch with him, but I wouldn't be allowed a say in the restaurant.

One day I snapped, I swore at him, told him that if he didn't enjoy my company I wouldn't inflict myself on him any longer, and that I have plenty of other friends who actually do like me.

I know I needed to take a stand like that - and he was such a jerk for the last year of the friendship, but he meant so much to me for so many years of my life.

He re-added me as a friend on facebook this week. If he'd apologised, or rung, or tried to contact me before now I'd have been friendly, mostly... though he kind of has tried half-heartedly a couple of times soon afterwards, I rejected the peace-pipes.

Hopefully though, things will begin to change. I want him back in my life - but not if he's going to slip back into the old patterns of behaviour.

Hmm. Reading this makes me think of this straight guy that I hung out with a lot in college. I had just recently come out of the closet, and he was totally cool about it. We had great conversations. Then we drifted apart a little bit, and when we met up some time later, he revealed that he'd converted to Mormonism. At that point I wasn't only non-Christian, but I was somewhere between paganism and atheism. He knew that I knew his religious hated me, and I knew that he knew I thought of people of his faith as bigoted fundamentalists.

I remember feeling like I was speaking to him through a wall. There was just no way we could ever be on the same side of the wall again, and it made me sad and kind of bewildered, because I really didn't think he was the closed-minded bigot that his religion demanded he be. I wanted to reach through the wall and pull out the "real him" but who was I to say who the real him actually was?

So months passed, and then he called me out of the blue, asking if I wanted to be his roommate in a dorm. We both agreed that a newly-converted Mormon and an openly gay guy knowingly sharing a room would be kinda cool in a really perverse sense . . . but I said no, because I'd grown up around homophobic bigots (not my family per se, but it was just the cultural norm where/when I grew up) and I didn't want to live in that kind of atmosphere ever again. I didn't say it in those words, but I think I somehow conveyed the general concept. We ended the conversation on friendly terms, and wished one another well.

That was the last time we spoke, as far as I recall. We may have run into one another here and there, and made very brief small talk, but it was the last real conversation we ever had.

I've never felt guilty about our friendship ending, and it actually ended on kind of a bittersweet note . . . but this fact in particular left me reeling with questions about the nature of friendship. If it ended on a good note, were we still friends? Should I have looked past his religion despite the fact that his religion advocated intolerance toward me? And, perhaps most troubling, if neither of us did anything "wrong" in terms of the friendship itself, then why was it hard/impossible for us remain friends?

Anyhow, I've rambled WAY longer than I expected to. Surprisingly potent topic!