There’s a theory floating around the internet lately that’s called the “5-Year Stranger Theory” which basically suggests that a large portion of the people in your life right now won’t be in it five years from now. I wrote about this ladt week. And it’s still on my mind. So here is my second take.

So, people fall out with one another. Not in a dramatic, falling-out, unfollowing kind of way. Just gone. Drifted. Replaced by new names, new faces, new group chats you haven’t muted yet.

Cheerful, right?

But as a social psychologist, I can’t help but think. This isn’t entirely wrong. Our lives move in chapters such as jobs change, cities shift, kids grow, identities evolve. The coworker you see every day becomes someone you vaguely remember when LinkedIn nudges you: “Congratulate them on their new role.” The friend you once texted hourly becomes a “we should catch up soon” that lives in permanent limbo.

We don’t just lose people. We cycle through them.

And yet, we’re wired to experience relationships as permanent. As if the current cast of characters is somehow the final one. So when the natural drift happens, it feels like failure instead of life doing what it does.

The internet, of course, has turned this into a kind of existential PSA. Enjoy people now because they might be strangers in five years.

Which is both wise and mildly unsettling. Like being told to savor your coffee because the mug will one day betray you.

But maybe there’s something grounding in it, too.

Not everyone is meant to stay. Some people are situational and perfect for a version of you that existed at a specific time, in a specific context. And when that context changes, the relationship doesn’t necessarily break. It just completes.

The problem isn’t that people become strangers.

It’s that we expect them not to.

So maybe the takeaway isn’t panic-texting everyone you know or trying to lock relationships into permanence like emotional Tupperware.

Maybe it’s simpler.

Be here for the people who are here now. Laugh fully. Show up. Don’t assume infinite time.

Because whether it’s five years or fifteen, life has a way of quietly editing the cast.

And one day, someone who once knew your coffee order, your bad habits, your whole story will just be someone you used to know.