is losing friends, growing, drifting apart from them normal?

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As somebody who has lived in the NT world I can give my perspective.

When you are in school you are with your friends for many years but this all changes when you leave school.
In my experience most NT school leavers have aspirations to better themselves whether through work or career but also through climbing social ladders.

On that journey they may make friendships with you but unless you are both travelling on the same path then one of you will naturally start to drift apart. Social media nowadays makes it possible to keep in touch but lets face it, a 2D friendship is not the same.

Other friends might be aiming to climb social ladders and when they feel you are holding them back they will ignore/avoid or stop taking your calls. This is also normal in the NT world.

ya, I have sometimes wondered if the untimely death of the Father of my childhood friend, he was only 15 when his Dad passed away, a sophomore in high school, impacted his personality, attitude a lot to the extent, point, that it made him develop an attitude, personality, that he didn't want to speak to or reconnect with certain people from his past, who knew him from the time his Dad was still around.

I don't there is one human who hasn't experienced a relationship where people drift apart because that's just and it's the way it is. It is not pleasant but it gives you more room to meet other people who want to meet you. It sometimes takes a while but you find them when you are not looking.

ya, my current best friend, I've known him since 2012, we met at work.

ya, I feel I screwed up, made things worse, when I tried to reconnect or rekindle my friendship with my childhood friend, former friend, its a long story though.

I think so. People can change from 15 to 30 and not have the same values or needs in a friendship. Distance, jobs, kids, etc, only make it harder.

I miss my high school friends sometimes, but I'm also glad I met new people who care more about what's important to me now and make me worry less.

ya, it sucks, and makes me angry, when someone doesn't give you a reason as to why they don't want to reconnect or rekindle the friendship in the first place, i'm sure its easy or normal for the person who is attempting to befriend that person again, to think or assume that other person has a grudge towards them or something against them.

Making and keeping friends is easy for NT females and males.
It is hard for Aspie females because we are often labeled weird and creepy.
It is most difficult for Aspie males because they are labelled as weird and creepy and being male they are regarded as dangerous.

it was definetley one of the worst moments of 2019, when a former child, childhood friend, refused to reconnect with me

I had two childhood friends, one from primary school - I have never forgotten her and was sad to hear she had died a few years ago, and so wish the person who told me had let me know that she knew where this old friend lived in later life while there was still a chance of reconnecting. Kay was lovely. We went to different schools after we were 11 and never met again. It felt like missing a limb for a long time.

My adult closest friends are far dispersed, most have left the city where I live (years ago) for other countries or distant places and stay in touch by phone and email but it is never the same. Auckland, where I live, is a very expensive city to live in. This has been a major reason friends have left though not the only one.

However my closest friends are cats. I'll never be able to have another one, as I can't guarantee its future given my own age and stage and condition. However as one final bucket list act, which I am intending to do once I recover from some major surgery this year, is to go to the Greek island of Santorini - lots of cats there - I have been to the Cyclades Islands in my young years and hope to be there again, though I didn't go to Santorini way back then.

I think as you get older you experience more distance from friends, and life changes because of that, it is possible to make younger friends though they don't relate to all of the same things that your own age peers do (sometimes that is a good thing!).

I haven't seen her for 42 years. I am two days older than she is, so we celebrated our birthdays together on the day in between. She made me laugh more than anyone I have ever known, and I loved her for that, her clever brain, and her unique personality. And I still do.

Our last meeting was a visit from me to her after I returned from a long spell in Europe. She was - I realise now - in a depressed state that I didn't recognise. There I was, full of my news, not noticing her unusual silence at the time. I hadn't thought about her changed circumstances, living in a desolate place, infant children, probably struggling with a lack of money and so on. When I ended the long telling of my news, she spoke very bitterly (in a tone I had never heard before): "We always knew you were the one who would get away". And for the first time ever I saw anger in her eyes, focused on me.

I'm much older now, and understand the hurt I caused her that day. But I have never had a chance to say how sorry I am that my immaturity in those years caused her pain. And I never will have that chance. But the love goes on. I cherish the years of happiness we had as adolescents who imagined wonderful things ahead. I hope she found them in abundance later on.

I also have got through a situation where a really close childhood friend and I drifted apart. My attempts to rekindle the friendship really did not go well

She didn't respond badly, but I could tell she just really wanted me to leave her alone.

ya, I like to feel that as we get older, we value and place more importance on friendships than we did compared to our childhood, teenage years, etc.