<p>cite evidence please :p</p>
<p>you can stay out of contact with a close friend for several months - and STILL be a close friend (but meanwhile be in contact with a lot of people in the interim)</p>
<p>plus close friend is ill-ly defined. there’s a continuum. and the reciprocality of “close friend” is also variable. the perceived stability of a “close friendship” is also very variable (and this could mean a lot => what if you have a secret that you NEVER want your close friend to know, but still confide virtually everything else in him/her?)</p>
<p>One CCer considers me to be his closest friend, but we haven’t really talked to each other in like 2 months. And we’ve had similar lapses of contact in the last 2.5 years</p>