Should I try to seek closure with a person I used to love but drifted apart from, or is it best to leave them be?

There’s a person I used to be really close to who doesn’t talk to me any more. We didn’t have a fight. We just drifted, but I still think about them all the time.

We were really close from year 7 to year 12. The truth is I had a devastating crush on her. I told her about it one day; she let me down very sweetly and our friendship continued. She was the first (and so far only) person I’ve ever felt I loved. She’s the reason I identify as bi. And I believed for a few years she loved me too, if in a different way to how I hoped.

After high school we drifted apart. It’s been four years now. I still send her birthday messages which she replies to, but that’s about it. One time I tried to build a conversation but after a couple messages back and forth I was left on read.

I moved on from the crush years ago, but the loss of the friendship still bothers me. At one time she was one of the most important people in the world to me. I’m desperate to know why we lost touch and if the memory of our friendship still has any importance to her. I think about texting her how I feel but I always stop myself. How do I get closure?

This letter has been edited for clarity and length.

Eleanor says: I think a lot of people’s first experience with love, real love – whether romantic or platonic – is with a high school friend. Those relationships are so formative, so close. You talk constantly, you know everything about each other, you build a whole world of jokes for just you two. Then come so many life changes, so quickly, and the world those relationships were tied to can disappear. A lot of people find themselves as adults not really speaking to someone they once shared a whole secret language with.

Of course, not knowing why that closeness went away, or where it went, gnaws horribly. But I think it’s important that “How do I get closure?” and “Should I reach out?” are not actually the same question. There are lots of ways to get closure that don’t involve reaching out, and there are ways of reaching out that don’t end in closure.

When there’s lingering uncertainty about why a relationship ended, it’s easy to feel like there’s a big narratively satisfying answer locked in a box, and that the other person has the key. Open it! Show me! If we could only persuade them to open the lid, at last we’d know why; we’d understand. Just as likely, though, is that there’s nothing in the box. There is no satisfying answer waiting to be shared. The drifting just happened. Dunno. Shrug. One of those things. Felt different to me than it did to you.

You might decide to reach out to your friend for lots of reasons. But you have to reach out knowing the full range of possibilities. And one possibility is that what feels to you like a story cut off in the third act doesn’t feel like a story to them at all.

Maybe that’s not true in your case. Maybe there is An Answer. I don’t know your friendship, how she felt about your feelings for her, what she’s up to now. Sometimes people drift because they’re avoiding unaired conflict. Sometimes, though, there is no “why” beyond what you already know: they didn’t feel like staying in touch.

So reaching out needn’t mean closure. But, equally, closure needn’t mean reaching out. You don’t need someone else to give you closure like it’s theirs to dispense. What feels so awful is the sensation that your story together cut off midair. Finding a conclusion could involve changes that are completely internal to you. You could write a letter you never send; you could settle on a way of narrating this to yourself; you could take the time to appreciate your high school friendship, separate from whatever your relationship is now.

When someone’s left us hanging, it’s easy to think it can only be resolved if they finally pick up the phone. But her answer might not give closure – and closure needn’t come from her answer.

Ask Eleanor a question