Friendship is the marriage of the soul, and this marriage is liable to divorce.

Close friendship has the weight of a vow nobody spoke aloud, which is why it can come apart without a single formal moment. Nothing is signed, so nothing is dissolved; the calls get further apart until one of you stops expecting them. Because there is no ceremony for the ending, people often decide it was never that serious. It was. The absence of paperwork is not the absence of a bond.

If a friendship has quietly lapsed, let yourself call it a loss rather than a scheduling problem. And with the ones still going, do the unromantic maintenance: answer the message, name the small hurt while it is still small.