I have found that many Witnesses are increasingly open minded these days. Less so with elders, but it not impossible to keep some friendships.
I find that you just have to have a mutual respect of each other's right to believe what they wish, even though you disagree with it. There is no need to keep hammering someone with 'apostate' ideas. And there is no need for you to have to listen to repeated appeals to "go back to meetings".
Now alot of Witnesses won't go for this, but a surprising number, over time will eventually see that you are not a wicked evil person and be comfortable around you. If you are comfortable with your not attending meetings, if you are feeling good about it all and give neutral answers for your non-involvement such as "i'm just taking a break from things for a while", it helps alot.
In the end, these friendships are still a little odd, because you can never be a truly honest version of yourself. They probably can no longer really be called friends, but it is nice to see people, catch up on old friends and what's happening locally without any shunning or uncomfortable feelings.
I think this difficult-to-achieve middle ground would be a nice direction for the organization to go in. Some sort of mutual respect by those who remain Witnesses and those who just don't feel to be "active" in the religion any more.
Path