the problem is that reaching this level of friendship is difficult. it depends on both people to be open and the ability and willingness to show they care, but also on opportunity. in my experience this is usually connected to some difficult situation that allows one or both to engage. for example of the few close friends that i have, one invited me to a private blog where he detailed his personal challenges over the decades. his level of trust made it easy for me to return that trust, and when i needed help/advice it was easy to turn to him. another i met a few months ago, and he likewise went out of his way to help out in a challenging situation. if he ever asks me for help, no doubt i will return the favor. and if either ask how i am doing, i have no doubt it is genuine. but then, if anyone else would send such a message i would approach it with the same assumption. there was another friend that i met many years ago, where i had the feeling that we could become close friends, but we lost touch. but writing this comment motivated me to reach out. let's see what happens.

what would make chats awkward is if the topics never go beyond smalltalk. if every so often a message exchange is like: hi, how are you? how are the kids? i am fine, kids are doing well. how about you? likewise thanks. and the conversation keeps remaining at that level, then i start wondering, why are we even talking. there has got to be more.

First, I think it's great that you have a couple of relationships that are at that level which is definitely not a given.

Second, I love that you decided to reach out to that old friend because relationships come and go and it's never to late to pick up an old friendship.

As for your final point, if the idea is to call someone in order to replace the classic facebook passive stalking I think it's fine if the conversation never goes too deep. It's a way to show you care and sometimes it's all that matters. Maybe in doing that, when it's time to have deeper conversations, they'll remember that you called them and showed interest. And that's something they can't see if you just scroll their facebook page.

And I'm saying you generically, not talking about you specifically.

But I do get what you're saying, if every time you talk to someone you have shallow chats, after a while you might start wondering what's the point.