As children, many of us learned this rhyme:

Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.

It’s actually a paraphrase of a quote by 19th-century Welsh composer Joseph Parry, and its message still rings true today.

It’s easy to assume that growing apart from oldfriends is just a natural part of life. And while that does
happen, it doesn’t have to. In fact, building friendships takes a surprising amount of effort—research published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships shows that it takes about 50 hours of time together for someone to move from acquaintance to casual friend, and around 200 hours to
develop a close friendship.

That’s a serious investment—and one worth protecting.

Yet many people hesitate to reconnect with old friends. In a study shared in Communications Psychology, social psychologists Lara B. Aknin and Gillian M. Sandstrom found that over 90% of people had lost touch with a friend, and most felt either neutral or uneasy about reaching back out.

As time passes, it seems, people begin to view their former friends almost like strangers.

But maybe that’s exactly why reaching out matters. Because behind the time and distance, those old friendships might still hold something golden.