Great friends who drift.

Here's the paradox at the heart of it: people with ADHD are often some of the warmest, funniest, most engaged friends around — and research consistently finds they have a harder time making and keeping friends, with fewer and lower-quality friendships on average. It isn't a lack of care or a lack of charm. The same brain that makes you a delight to be around also makes the maintenance of friendship — the texting back, the remembering, the showing up — genuinely difficult.

Several things pull friendships apart. Out of sight, out of mind: a friend you're not actively looking at can slip from your mind entirely, so weeks pass and the unanswered text becomes a guilty mountain. Overwhelm: when you're barely managing your own life, thinking about someone else's needs is one more thing that never reaches the radar. Rejection sensitivity makes you over-read a slow reply and assume the worst, so you avoid rather than reach out. Add social overwhelm and masking that leave you drained, and the impulsivity that interrupts or zones out mid-conversation — and the drift makes sense. None of it means you don't care.