Absence

This post is intended to be written from a 3rd person's perspective, and 'I' is referring to a random individual, and used merely for the sake of convenience and simplicity.

Some says that " absence makes the hearts fonder", but i think that's more of the exception than the rule.

It's true that people will tend to miss those who have been away, who they haven't kept in contact for quite some time already, but that applies to those who they cherish. If you are just an acquaintance, meaning that you are the-kind-of-person-that-I-can-talk-to-but-not-one-that-I-must-talk-to, then your disappearance would matter little, to the extent that I would not ask you out to meet, unless it's in the context of a group gathering.

Although they are acquaintances, they might still be concerned about one another. However, due to the lack of opportunities to meet up, say after graduation, change of workplace etc, they will only take the effort to understand more of what the person has gone through via the cyberspace or word of mouth. I think it's simply the issue of "face", where you don't want to be since as awkward to ask the person how he is doing, fearing that he might think that you are weird. Of course, some do ask, but maybe when they happen to meet up, or say during birthdays where you ask how the person is doing. Other than that, cyberspace stalking would presumably take place predominantly.

Moreover, if you are not close to one another, what else can you ask besides the trite and hackneyed, " So.. how's life?" Honestly, what do you expect the other party to answer? I mean, life has so much going on that you can't be requesting for a simplistic answer. Yet, due to the lack of closeness between one another, taking the effort to tell the whole story seemed like an overkill. Besides, the other party might not want to listen and will be overly shocked by your overt action. Some are even worse, as they ask such questions on facebook. With everyone being able to see that particular update, someone would be crazy to reasonably expect the other to reply with a deeply private response?

So in the end, nothing is spoken and such relationship will only rekindle when the opportunity to meet comes along, though probably not through the initiative of either party.

And yet, for the otherwise, the good friends in this case, things get much more trickier. The scenarios are:
1. Things remain where they are left off
2. Things go on a decline, where the rate of descend is uncertain

Case 1:
I think there's are the kind of friends that have lots to talk about. Probably both parties open up to each other, sharing their innermost thoughts and are sincerely interested and concerned about each others' lives. They understand that they are busy with their individual lives so they give each other space. These kind of friends will always try to reconnect with one another, from time to time, so absence from one another will be relatively temporal. Moreover, the absence will lead to more topics to talk about if both parties are enthusiastic in recounting interesting things that occurred while the other is absent. In this case, absence indeed does makes the hearts fonder.

Case 2:
This is when the relationship is based one parties' interest in the other. They can talk and have fun together, but only one party is the active person pushing for things to happen, being concern about the other. Although the other party enjoys the other's presence, he is not one that actively seeks the companionship of the other. He is not really interested in the other parties' life, although he makes an effort to remember what is told to him by the other party. He doesn't ask, doesn't take much effort to connect with the other, doesn't open up much and perhaps handles most of his relationship this manner. Thus, if you the active party, the ball is always at your court to engage the other. Absence, in this case, is particularly destructive as the active one might start to question why he is so enthusiastic about the relationship when the other party doesn't seem to bother at all.

Moreover, with the passive unwilling to open up active, the topics that they can converse get lesser and lesser,  an anemic problem when natural points of convergence, such as the same workplace or school, disappears with resignation or graduation respectively. In some cases, the passive simply doesn't bother to respond to much of initiatives of the active, such as request for outings, random msn chats that accelerates the rate of deterioration in relationship. After all, why put in so much effort, when the other doesn't seem to appreciate at all? In the end, what happens is just the active looking at the passive's name either at his phone or his msn account, unsure of what else to say after all excuses, such as some random jokes, festive greetings are exhausted. What's left is a tired soul and a nagging regret that fades away with time, with the relationship descending to that of pure acquaintances.