There's a strange kind of pain in being polite to someone you once knew completely.
We didn't fight. We didn't stop caring. But suddenly, every interaction required a filter, a measure, a careful choice of words. Smiles became smaller, laughs quieter. Conversations became safe and surface level, because neither of us knew how to cross the invisible line that had grown between us.
I noticed it first in simple things. The way I hesitated before replying to your messages, crafting words that wouldn't push you away, wouldn't sound too desperate, wouldn't hint at the unease I felt inside. You did the same. I could tell by the pauses, by the careful phrasing, by the silence that stretched a little too long between sentences.
We were still talking. We were still present in each other's lives. But we had become strangers who knew too much about each other.
It was painful in a quiet way. Not explosive, not dramatic. Just… heavy. Like carrying a weight you can't put down, because to acknowledge it fully would be too honest. And honesty felt dangerous.
Sometimes I wished I could break the rules we were suddenly following. To speak freely, to laugh freely, to reach out freely like we once did. But even in wishing, I was careful. Because I knew that the threads of our friendship, stretched by distance and unsaid words, could snap with the smallest wrong move.
And so, we learned politeness. Learned to measure our words, our reactions, our emotions. Learned to smile when we didn't feel like it. Learned to laugh when the laughter didn't reach our eyes. Learned to exist in the same space without fully being in it.
It was strange and sad, but also necessary. Because some connections can survive distance. Some survive change. But surviving doesn't always mean thriving. Sometimes surviving just means being careful enough not to let go completely.
And in that carefulness, we discovered a new form of closeness fragile, tentative, and polite.
It was still us. But it wasn't the us we had once known.