The secret to keeping friends is to actually communicate with them at least every few weeks. It doesn’t need to be anything big, just checking in and signalling that you exist and do care. If you don’t do this, even if you yourself can remember, they might forget because tragically, this is just the way the human brain works for most people. When Steve moved, he likely went and looked out for other people to help him over the loss of this connection, and then they became his best friends, not immediately, but over the course of years and years. Even though none of this was your fault, how was he supposed to know you were still interested in his life after not hearing from you for over a decade?

Hey everyone, I’m back! I’ve been off-grid for a year and a half bc I got a PhD position and didn’t want to lose it due to political background checks against “extremism” during the trial period (obviously these checks mostly got leftists fired -.-). It’s about a new way of mathematically tackling nonlinear PDEs and I’m extremely happy with it because I can finally apply my specialist knowledge towards something actually useful, at the forefront of research!