Have you ever noticed that there are certain groups of friends that when you run into them they like to share stories about what they remember the most about you? I find this interesting. Because it isn’t always the same groups of people, but it seems likeonce the group starts the “what I remember best” it is hard to stop. I know that I have a tendency to do this as well. Like this weekend, I ran into lots of friends from college. One group, the group I spent most of my freshman year with (lets call them group A), and hung out with in the dorm, when I saw them, they wanted to talk about what they remembered about me. I think this is probably because for the most part group A is still intact; they still live together, or at least visit each other, and talk on the phone a lot. But they only see me on occasion and so it is easy for them to reminisce about me, because I am not in the picture much anymore. It is as if when I run into group A, even though at the moment we are together, really we exist for each other in the past, and the memories are the most vivid part.
In contrast, two of my roommates from college stayed with me this weekend, and we discussed one of our other roommates who was not present (we will call this group B, mostly roommates from Windsor). These roommates ended up being my closest friends in college, and even though I love my friends in group A and I definitely think of them as friends in the present, group B contains the friends that I talk to on the phone on a regular basis and the ones I visit regularly. For this discussion, I will include myself in group B. So this weekend group B is discussing a member of the group that is not present. And we spoke of her in a manner similar to the way that group A discussed me. And this particular absent friend has been living out of the state for about the past last year. And we don’t see her much. I talk to her more than the other two, and I probably see her more than the other two.
The question here that I am asking is, at what point do your friends start to talk about you in the past tense? I don’t think that this has anything to do with how much your friends like you. It is just a reference to how you used to be an every day part of their life, and now you aren’t. And I don’t think that this is anything that should be seen as negative, obviously you are important if you are still being discussed. Also, you can’t live in two different places very easily. This can apply if you just moved from Atlanta to Athens, but you go to Atlanta two or three times a week, and still talk to your friends in Atlanta all day, and don’t make friends in Athens because you still rely so heavily on your friends in Atlanta ( I mean, you are planning on moving back there anyway). This can also apply to living in the past. Well, you can’t help physically living in the present, and like I said, living in two places at one time is not good. The bottom line is that moving on in your life is good, and although you might be able to keep up with a lot of your friends from college, you can’t keep up with all of them.
But you know what? It still kinda hurts. It is sad to be thought of in the past, and it is upsetting for me to think of certain friends are being in the past. Whenever a friend starts a sentence like, “What I remember best about you…..,” it is bittersweet. It is really sweet to be remember well, and for people to have vivid, particular memories about you (as long as they aren’t too embarrassing). I would never start such a sentence like this when speaking about a friend who was part of my everyday life unless the conversation was already underway. If one of my other friends began discussing what they remembered about a mutual friend, I am sure I would have input, even if the mutual friend was part of my present. Do you think that the more you talk about someone in the past tense, the more you think about them that way? I am scared of group dynamics, and it is scary that someone in a group could have the whole group thinking about an absent member in the past tense, even if the absent member is not past tense, just absent. I definitely have friends who are absent, but not past tense. I also probably have friends who are present but are past tense. Will group B one day talk about me in the past tense?
I guess this is just part of growing up. I’m not actually asking a question here, and I don’t have any answers, this is just a thought that I can’t get out of my mind. It seems to stem from a fear I have about being considered the past. Which is stupid. Obviously something about me is afraid to move on, and doesn’t like change. Maybe this is something that I need to work on.
the thin line between optimism and delusion... 
If you tunnel into the abandoned mine, turn to p. 30
I reference my friends, not so much in the past tense, but by chronological order. I seem to always start stories with “my best friend from high school” or “my roommate from my senior year of college”. I think this is more for the benefit of anyone who listens to my stories, as no one in Athens really has any sense of who in the world I’m talking about. Springfield and SMS were slightly different social circles than anyone here ran in over the last four or five years.
As far as how my friends refer to me, I’m not sure (although I’m guessing the word “bastard” comes up a lot). When we get together, there is a lot of “Kipp, do you remember the time when you . . .”? I find this to be a good test of my memory. Further, it becomes a good time to relate other new, similarly stupid stories to them, which usually start “I was with one of my really good friends from law school . . .”
I think when you know you have a problem is when your friends start talking about you like you’re not there or as though you can’t hear them. Usually brought on by drinking, it’s kind of fun to listen to other folks plot out things you should do or tell stories about you as though you have no say. Like if your friends sat down with a Choose Your Own Adventure book based on your life.
Either that, or it’s like Bruce Willis in the Sixth Sense. But if that were the case, I’d like to think we’d figure out the twist ending about halfway through.
Past friends
Charlsie,
You haven’t even lived that long, and you are already missing past friends. Just wait until you are as old as me (about twice your age) and your life will be strewn with many wonderful, past friends. Many of them are people that when you were a present friend you were sure they would always be a present friend no matter what. But then you move or they move and as you sid, you can’t live in two places at once, so the reality of location and changing situations causes the eternal friendship to become a past friendship — still very dear in your heart, but not a present reality. (I just realized that the preceding sentence is just the kind of run-on sentence which I teased you about a year ago and almost doomed our friendship before it even started.) It is sad to have some wonderful friendshihps fade into the past, but the good part is that there are many incredible future friendships ahead of you that you don’t even know about yet. Fifteen months ago I did not have any friends in Athens; now it is home and there are so many good friends here — even some friends who gave me free tickets to the UGA-LSU game.
David