It's kinda sad-there are only 3 people who I can really say I'll miss. Two are a husband (and P.O.) and wife. They are genuinely kind and caring people, and I believe they would be regardless of whether they are JWs or not. The other is a woman in her 60s who is also a genuinely kind and appreciative person. In fact, she was the only person we wrote a separate letter to (along with a copy of our DA letter to the elders). We told her we would miss her and we are not choosing to end our friendship with her, but we will respect her decision to avoid us in keeping with what "good" JWs are expected to do.
When we began missing a lot of meetings years ago, we realized that our "friendships" were based solely upon how active we were in the congregation. When we were first baptized, we were invited to EVERY get-together and we really felt we had found a nice group of friends. When we began to miss meetings and service, the invitations came to an abrupt end. Since we ended our "worldly" friendships before baptism and were not considered "good associations" with JWs because of missing meetings, we realized we really had NO friends at all! How sad. However, we have good supportive families (none are JWs) and I have friends at work. It is really going to take some time to rebuild our social network. This forum has been helpful. Who better to talk to than those who have "been there"?