I miss some of the friends left behind...but not enough to go back to the religion in order to renew the friendships the fell to the wayside. Those that I'm still friends with don't require my being at the Kingdom Hall in order to keep the friendship going.
I've thought a lot about this so-called "conditional" friendship. Quite frankly, I think 'most' friendships are conditional. I'm friends with my workmates. But by and large, if I left the company, I would lose contact with most of them. Our friendship was conditional on the fact that we worked together. I'm friends with a lot of my neighbors, but if I moved, I would lose contact with most of them.
Now out of all my workmates and neighbors, I might keep up with one or two that I made a pretty good connection with. I think its the same with the JWs. We left, but since we're not at the meetings, most of them go on without giving us much thought. There are few that we keep up with but the percentage is about the same as if we quit our job or moved.
Any time a major life change is made, friends are lost and new friends are made. If we're lucky we may have a handful of people that become "life-long" friends and despite were we go, what we do, we're able to keep up with each other. Those friendships are few and far between no matter who you are.
I try hard to not hold grudges against former JW friends. They've been brainwashed. I think it they were left up to their own devices, they would not allow the WTS thinking to dictate how they treated people.
A lot of JWs think that all JWs are life long friends and that they're better than the "world" when it comes to friendships. Its not true of course, but its not the fault of the individual person, its the indoctrination by the WTS.
Its still sad, however, that we lose friends because this stupid religion has its hold on people.