I'll never understand all this drama with graduating that always happens in anime/manga
Like... why are they acting like they will never see each other again? Just fucking add your friends on facebook and hang out from time to time lol
Because that's not the same thing at all. It's definitely not the same as school times where you're almost always in some level of contact with each other which reaffirms that connection constantly. You need to make specific plans to see each other, which conflicts with schedules, and if you're going out of your way to get together, just hanging out and doing nothing is almost never a thing. Your interests start to diverge from one another and suddenly you are speaking apples and oranges to each other. One week turns into a month, and can turn into a year of putting off getting together. Losing a thing that gets you together definitely changes things a lot.
People move on, whether they necessarily want to or not. Hell, my little sister moved just 40 miles away when she turned 18, and we used to be practically attached at the hip growing up, but I see her maybe once a month in person. We text a lot and talk to each other on the phone so it's not the biggest loss, but it's still a bit sad. Of all the friends I had in my school years, I've managed to stay in close contact with only one of them, and that's just because we ended up as roommates for a long, long time. Granted school for me was like 17 years ago, but it only took about 3-4 years to lose touch with all of them. They all had their own lives going in wildly different directions, and none of them even live in the same state anymore. The things we enjoyed that often brought us together started to become less and less important in our lives which was another dividing force. I made new friends in my adulthood and the rest was history.
My sister's friendships are much of the same. She is still in light contact with a few highschool friends, having graduated 7 or so years ago. I suspect the more connected nature of modern times played a bigger role in keeping those connections a little longer, but she definitely doesn't feel even remotely as close to them as she once did.
So yeah, it's a very real thing that happens. Long distance relationships suffer for these same reasons.
I don't think characters that bring this up seriously expect the person to forget them the day after they graduate, but rather want them to both feel the same level of friendship in the future as they do now.
last edited at Jul 8, 2020 9:43PM
