We sometimes wonder to find a friend cold and distant to us, and perhaps we moralize on man’s fickleness and inconstancy, but the reason may be to seek in ourselves. We cannot expect the pleasure of friendship without the duty, the privilege without the responsibility. We cannot break off the threads of the web, and then, when the mood is on us, continue it as though nothing had happened. If such a breakage has occurred, we must go back and patiently join the threads together again.

Thoughtlessness has done more harm in this respect than has ill will. If we have lost a friend through selfish neglect, the loss is ours, and we cannot expect to take up the story where we left off years ago. There is a serene impudence about the treatment some mete out to their friends, dropping their friends whenever it suits them and thinking to take them up when it once more happens to suit them. We cannot expect to walk with another when we have gone for miles along another way. We will have to go back and catch him up again. If the fault has been ours, desire and shame will give our feet wings.

The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black