In business, they say that it’s much easier to maintain an existing customer than to gain a new one. I believe this to be true. The customer has already chosen to work with you, presumably with some measure of goodwill. Other businesses are also vying for this customer but the combination of loyalty and inertia works in your favor. It’s important to reach out, woo, and nurture this customer, but the customer is yours to lose.
Much of this logic applies to friendships and relationships as well.
When people are important to you, you’ve likely already spent time together doing fun things, hard things, sad things, and all kinds of things. As adults, we get busy and it’s easy to get tunnel vision for work and a handful of people right in front of us, but with a little time and a little care, we can make sure to hold on to the other people in our lives that matter.
Sometimes I’ll bump into someone who I have been reaching out to without much reciprocity. I might ask about what’s going on in their lives so that I might understand cancellations or the silence I get when I reach out. I’m usually told that they’re busy, working lots of hours and that they don’t have time. Then they’ll post an event picture that involved hours of prep time, travel pictures, other hobbies, or time with other friends. All of this is okay but it does illustrate that they do have time, just that they chose to do other things with it. Sometimes people really do get that busy; sometimes it becomes an undeniable pattern. When the pattern is undeniable then we have choices to make for our own sanity and self-worth.
When you make time for other things while ignoring someone right in front of you who is trying to reach out, it doesn’t go unnoticed and you show that person that they have fallen lower on your priorities than these other things. Again, this is totally fine, this is your choice, but people won’t wait around. If they do, there will very possibly be a growing distance between you. I control myself, my actions, my time, and only my own. You control yourself and all of the same for you. We all deserve reciprocity for our efforts and we deserve demonstrated actions that match stated intentions. When the plans are to meet up and it works out, or the goal is to keep a friendship going and efforts are made, that connection is strengthened. When the trend is silence or someone no longer being present, this will cause closeness to wither.
It doesn’t take a lot to show someone that they still matter to you. Make plans together and then show up. Drop them a line on their birthday, or just in general. We all live in our own little bubbles these days and even small positive gestures make a big difference. To starve a friendship from one side is to let it die; a little bit of nourishment goes a long way.