As we get older and our lives get busy it can be so easy to lose contact with our friends. It takes an extra effort to stay connected. Near or far. Possibly is harder to lose a friend who still lives nearby.

Close by

I have lost my entire role playing group; and we played together for a quarter of a century.

I don't know exactly what happened; it's not like we fell out. Rather we just drifted.

I miss those guys.

So I get your question. It can hurt.

I do my best not to think about it, either way. It just leaves a big old hole in the heart.

That seems fairly common-finding a man and disappearing. That always seemed sad. You could always find the one that moved away again

Why are we ranking them?

Losing a close friend is never easy. Soundsl like the person you described dumped your group after it served its purpose. That's sad. These days, you never have to "lose" your friends simply because they move away. Surely, the dynamic of your relationship will change if you can't spend time F2F, but with all of the electronic means of connecting, you can sustain your relationship. I'm still friends with a neighbor I had right after moving to CA (in 1976). We both enlisted in the AF, but about 6 months apart. We have only seen each other a handful of times since then, but we remain connected via phone, email, and FB. He's planning to retire back to CA soon (he greatly misses his home state having spent the last 30 years or so in Lincoln, NE.), so we'll see one another again soon. =]

Maybe your friend is happy and that happiness has blinded her to your suffering (after all you all still have each other right?) just ask her how it's going and say youre glad she's happy but miss her, maybe she'll recognise that she suddenly neglected good friends. Of course she may not give a shit but then you'll know. On the other part of the question all of my friends and family are far away, it gets super lonely sometimes but I wouldn't call them lost.

Lives close by. that hurts . You don't get that many friends along the way. moving away can't be helped

I'm paraphrasing here, but: "One of life's hardest lessons is learning to say goodbye to someone you wish to still be around"
I always took that as leading to cut contact with people who are not good for you. You may have a friend that moves far away, but potentially running into someone you were once really close with can hurt.

I would suspect it depends on how close you are to that friend and how entertained your lives were and probably is individual. I've had both and both are hard. :-/

Both are difficult. The close one is probably a bit harder just because your bound to see them around town.

I can see either. If you still get along but live far away now, that can be tough to keep up a friendship. But if you lose one who is close by, it could be a falling out or drifting away (which might be easy).

Further away seems worse. You can aways start up again with someone close by, but it's been my experience that in spite of promises to stay in touch, it usually only happens via facebook, if at all, with friends who move away.

If a guy is hanging with old friends and running around with them instead of paying attention to his girlfriend or wife, he'll soon be single again. Women expect the undivided attention of the men, or they toss their stuff on the lawn, change the locks and move on to a more attentive lover.

Unless the woman is heavy in masculine traits..then she might join the guys in drinking and watching sports.

When I was growing up I didn't understand the angry behavior of some of my girlfriends when I got a boyfriend. One close friend never spoke to me again. It wasn't until later that I realized she was probably bi and had crush on me.

Since then, that has been a frequent occurrence, and I observed that far more woman react that way than I'd realized. As a demisexual, I don't experience sexual attraction, so I'm blind to it.

I think close by because you have probably fallen out with them. the ones who move away especially these days can easily be still your friends. the ones who live close but blow you out where never your real friends.

Moved away is easier, but I get it when a person enters a relationship and I don't see them as much. What is worse then even losing them, is when they try to be your friend, but you become very disposable. They break plans with you at the slightest whim of their new relationship (my friend would break our plans because his girlfriend wanted him to go to the store for some groceries). I finally just flushed that friendship. And we had known each other for almost 30 years...but it was a pattern throughout our friendship