Goodbye?

Friends since 1994. You were my senior in secondary school. We were both prefects, we were in the same Art Club and you had a crush on my good friend as well.

You graduated first and I graduated 2 years after you. We kept in touch for the longest time after we both left our school, albeit on and off.

I remember there was once I even crept out of my house in the middle of the night (at the risk of incurring the wrath of my parents) to meet you at my void deck because you were crying your heart out over a break-up.

We last met in 2011 when you popped by my office area. We had kopi at Yakun.

In 2012, I invited you and your wife to my wedding. You took a long time to reply me but said you would be there. And then on the very day itself, you cancelled on me. You said you had to work at the last minute. It was a Sunday, I understand because you do shift work. I was upset but I understand too if you were busy and all you could do to inform me was to send an SMS. I would even understand if you told me afterwards that it was because your wife didn't like me and hence didn't allow you to attend my wedding.

But then after that you went MIA. No calls, no SMSes, nothing. Since then, every time your birthday rolled around, I would send an SMS greeting to you. I received no reply both in 2013 and 2014 when I wished you. I reached out a few times in between, dropping you an SMS each time to ask how are things. No replies.

Over time I didn't even know if you had changed your number. You were dormant on Facebook as well. I was wondering what went wrong? How were you? How were things between you and your wife? And your cats too...

I knew you were still around though. You "liked" one of Little Baby's photos I posted up on Facebook the day she was born. A silent "like" I could easily have missed seeing.

I was busy for much of 2014 but at the back of my mind, I often wondered how did our friendship deteriorate suddenly a few years back? There was no pre-empt, no warning sign, no major quarrel or blow-up. And I think neither of us did anything stupid to warrant a sudden downward dip in our friendship.

I was perplexed. I had half a mind to not salvage our friendship anymore and let it spiral out of existence. Many a time I told myself to let it go. But I decided to reach out to you again. I dropped you a Facebook message a few weeks back to ask how are you. No reply again.

Your birthday was on 3 Jan and I dropped you a Whatsapp message to wish you. Surprise surpise.
You replied and thanked me for my well-wishes. I did not expect that and was hence somewhat surprised.

I asked after you. A simple 2-liner message.

You read it. Whatsapp shows 2 little blue ticks when the recipient receives and reads the message.

You did not reply again.

Sometimes, there is no point pursuing what is not meant to be, especially when the other party does not reciprocate.

A 2-decade old friendship. I tried.

Maybe it is time I give up and let things go.