Sometimes loneliness ends with the text you’ve been too proud to send.

Being the one who reaches out feels like losing a contest nobody else knows is happening. Both people usually wait, each assuming the silence means something, while it goes on meaning nothing. Pride does not keep you company in the meantime. It just gives the distance a reason to stay.

Send the short, unimpressive one. No essay, no explanation of the gap, just a question or a memory. Most people are relieved rather than smug, and the ones who are not have told you something useful.