Howards End ~ Chapter 10

"Several days passed.
Was Mrs. Wilcox one of those unsatisfactory people--there are many of them--who dangle intimacy and then withdraw it? They evoke our interests and affections, and keep the life of the spirit dawdling round them. Then they withdraw. When physical passion is involved, there is a different name for such behavior--flirting--and if carried far enough it is punishable by law. But not law--not public opinion, even--punishes those who coquette with friendship, though the dull ache that they inflict, the sense of misdirected effort and exhaustion, may be as intolerable. Was she one of these?
Margaret feared so at first, for, with a Londoner's impatience, she wanted everything to be settled up immediately."

A few friend's have fallen out of my life lately. E BdS who I made such fast friends with has been as distant as she used to be available. There's an entire group of acquaintances who's evite list I fell off of. I'm a Scorpio so I usually square my shoulders, say 'oh well,' and wander back into the world to find new friends to fill the gap. Then I read this passage, and realize I've been acting too cool to admit the the dull ache, and the sense of misdirected effort and exhaustion that have accompanied the decline of these friendships.