Old times good friends

In the last couple of days, I picked up my phone and made 2 calls to old times good friends. One to Malaysia and another to Singapore. It's always, always nice to hear the voices of good old friends. We chatted about everything, caught up with things in our life. So much to talk about as the last time we really spoke was 6 months ago. It reminded me how we used to hog on the phone for hours when we were in high school, and back then the phone bill were calculated by the minute. Countless hours, gossiping about 'who like who', LOL! All those hours of conversation, have helped to form a strong bond among us. Somehow as we grew older, we don't do that anymore. We spend less time on the phone, slowly, less time meeting up and now we probably chat to each other on MSN a few times a month, maybe a phone call every 6 months and a yearly meet up, if all goes well. Since when we become so anti-social? 

I remember when I was younger, I thought about why my parents haven't got many friends that they hang out with. I remembered telling them that all my time is filled meeting up and talking to friends. I loved hanging out with my friends and I will not stop doing it. I'm kinda biting my own tongue now. Now I understand why it was the case. It wasn't because my parents were non-friendly people or they're weird, it was because as you grow older, you have more things to juggle and less time for yourself, not to mention time for your friends. Everything becomes priority driven and often you'll find that the time available to spend with friends are lower on the list. Not that friends are any less important but when you have to compare with every other thing, you'll find things like cleaning, laundry, resting, groceries shopping 'surprisingly' top the list! (As if it's a surprise) And as soon as you have kids, the left over time you originally have for yourself is reduced further, possibly to nil. Correct me if I'm wrong, as we get older, we got so much more responsibilities that it's no longer as easy as dialing the number and sit there for hours. Nothing is straight forward or clear cut. It's no longer a case of black or white. 

Why have things become less obvious and more complicated? I don't want to be anti-social, I want to spend time with my friends, I love catching up, I love to gossip again, I love to know about everything about everyone, only if I can find more time, only if there is more than 24 hours a day, more than 7 days a week.