The Thing About Reconnecting With Old Friends Or Flames

“Hello Titi. Can you talk?”

I stopped mid-stride, just a few feet from my office door, and read the message, short and cryptic, on my phone screen. Suddenly feeling heavy in my palm, I held the phone up to my eyes, as if to confirm that the message was not some illusion created by the zig-zag cracks on my screen. It was not. Reluctantly, I clicked my WhatsApp icon with a shaky finger, afraid of what I might find next.

“Chat me up when you get this,” the concluding part of the message read.

Emotions, like a sudden heatwave, burned through me, scorched my skin and moistened it with sweat. Fear turned to shock, then maybe confusion, only for the briefest moment, before turning back to fear. The texter had blocked me everywhere – WhatsApp, Instagram, X and every other available platform – for all but three years. So, why was he texting me now, out of the blue, and with what seemed like an urgency too, early on a Tuesday morning?

Friendships and Relationships Come and Go!

It wasn’t until after having a conversation with this person, after stumbling the rest of my way into the office, after mumbling greetings absentmindedly to colleagues, after I had had a moment to think, that my fear turned to anger. Had this person, with whom I had been obsessed for the longest time, not told me never to contact him again when I tried to reach out after he blocked me? Why then did he think he could just waltz back into my life, for whatever reason, and pick up where we left off? What made him think that I had not blocked him too? Did he think that I was sitting on my hands waiting for him to unblock me? Maybe I had always nursed the hope of reconnection with him, but I had not expected it to be in this manner, where he would unnerve me and leave me unsettled the entire day.

Blocking gives an air of finality, it signals the end of a relationship – platonic or romantic, and tells the other party that there is nothing more to say or share. I’ll admit that I have blocked others just as much as I have been blocked. And that’s because I understand that not all friendships and relationships last as long as we would like. Some end naturally, where the friendship simply runs its course. You wake up one morning and you are no longer friends. There’s nothing to talk about, nothing to do together. Others end slowly and gradually, where you find yourselves drifting apart, not for a lack of trying but because you have outgrown each other and do not share the same values, principles and beliefs you once shared. And yet others end forcefully and deliberately, where you decide that you have reached your limit and cannot continue with the friendship or relationship, because it’s draining, crippling, abusive or toxic, or no longer serves you any purpose. You may even have a disagreement that you could never come back from, even if you tried.

The fact is, friendships and relationships come and go, almost like everything in life. When you understand this, it becomes easier to process the feelings of sadness, regret and dejection that may come with the end of a friendship or relationship, especially one that lasted a long time. Saying it is easier to process these feelings does not make it a less daunting task, though. Well, because this person was a huge part of your life. This was someone that you loved, spent a lot of time with, engaged in many activities with, shared your deepest, most personal secrets with. This might even have been someone you made lifelong plans with because you couldn’t imagine a future without them. Of course, you cannot just shrug it off like the relationship was nothing. It could take weeks, months or even years to get over it.

The Thing About Reconnecting With Old Friends Or Flames

I mourned the end of my last relationship for the longest time. Even though I had decided to end it, I missed him. I started to question my decision, wondering if I had done the right thing. I dealt with the feeling of regret, that perhaps I had self-sabotaged yet again. There was also the fear that I might not meet anyone new which I had to deal with. Then came the panic and anxiety which left me with the question: “What if the next person is worse?” After all, don’t they say, the angel you know is better than the angel you don’t know? You can imagine how badly I wanted to patch things up with this person, to reach out to him, to talk to him, hear his boisterous voice which reminded me of my late dad, and congratulate him each time I read or heard something nice about him.

Just like me, you may find yourself with the urge to reach out to an old friend or flame. It may just be a whim you want to act on. It may be something bigger, which niggles at you for a long time until you give in to it. It may also be a certain sense of duty that you have towards the other person and you feel like you owe it to them to get in touch, even if it’s been years. But you should bear in mind that the relationship or friendship will probably never return to what it was before it ended. That’s the thing about reconnecting with old friends or flames. The fact that you were best friends with this person or you were in love with them and them with you does not mean that you can pick up where you left off. For one, they have moved on and do not need the disruption. Some did not deal well with the end of the relationship or may still be hurting from how the relationship ended. So, they may not be receptive to having a conversation with you let alone having you back in their life. Once, I called an old friend on a whim, and while I was talking, she interrupted with the words “I’ve got to go” without as much as an apology or explanation, and she never called back. She apparently had no interest in speaking with me, even though we had once shared the most amazing intellectual chemistry.

Remember, you cannot relight a match that has been burnt out. There’s no point trying to rekindle something that no longer is. Besides, there is a reason the relationship or friendship ended in the first place. Think about it. This person’s habits, behaviour and idiosyncrasies that you could no longer put up with then are probably still there and will not just go away. Are you ready to deal with them all over again? Perhaps it’s best then to leave your past relationships where they should be – the past. If you, however, have made up your mind to reconnect with an old friend or flame, be sure that you are ready to live with whatever baggage, old or new, that they may come with.

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