The mechanism
Close relationships require no maintenance when you are physically proximate — maintenance happens passively through shared environments. When proximity is removed, the passive maintenance stops.
Without intentional contact, relationships decay toward a default: strangers who share a history.
The drift happens gradually, then suddenly. The first missed birthday is noticed but not acted on. The second produces mild guilt. By the third, reaching out feels laden with the accumulated weight of the gaps.
The intervention
Relationships that go beyond six months without contact lose their baseline warmth. The intervention becomes harder the longer it is delayed.
The optimal maintenance interval for close friends is roughly 30-45 days. For secondary connections, 60-90 days. These intervals prevent the gap from reaching the awkward threshold.
In LIFE, the Social module tracks your last contact with each close connection. When the interval exceeds your threshold, it surfaces a nudge. The nudge is not a task — it is a reminder that the window is open.
Most drift prevention does not require a call or a plan. A single message — "Saw this and thought of you" — resets the interval. If the nudge appears, send one message within 24 hours.
Steady wins.