In August of 2024 when I was texting with my ex-GF she’d texted that she tended to form deep attachments and was never drawn to a stranger.
That didn’t make any sense.
If people aren’t in your family, they’re initially strangers.
I remember her ex-husband saying in an email that he would struggle to listen to strangers in reference to an organized theme show wherein folks read letters that I had attended with my ex-GF.
My ex-GF texted me yesterday saying that it was great to see me and that I felt familiar and like a stranger.
Obvi, I don’t get what either of them mean regarding strangers.
What don’t I get about these assertions? Who are strangers? Can someone who you’ve shared intimacy with become a stranger to you?
Return 
Yes. By the time my divorce was finalized my ex was a stranger to me.
Oh, wow.
I don’t feel any different…
She said “familiar and like a stranger.”
Well, I remembered all the reasons why we were getting divorced and how he was at the end of a relationship compared to beginning. He started to become a stranger while we were married, and that’s what pushed me away
That is so interesting…
I think that I’m the same. I texted her that. I just am unwilling to talk about my dating with her. It’s immaterial and no one will ever be her metamour.
What is also interesting is that I don’t feel like I know her very well–even after a year. I told her that a lot and noticed on Monday that she tends to talk about others and not herself. That will probably always mean that I don’t know what motivates her, which is fine in an infrequent friendship.
There are all levels of relationships. That’s not a bad thing
I think it depends on how one defines “stranger”. If defined to mean “someone you’ve never met” then your confusion is understandable. It can also be defined as “unrecognizable to me”, which is how I think your friends were using it. And hence the phrase, “You’ve become a stranger to me now.”