When do you no longer "know" someone?

My best friend and I have known each other for 20+ years and when I see something that reminds me of her, I always buy it for her.  I know what style of clothing she likes and what sort of shoes are her style. I know what kinds of food she eats and what kind of wine she drinks.  I usually know what her advice will be even before I ask for it.  I even know what ailments she suffers from.  I think she could probably say the same about me.  We talk almost daily, so I feel like our knowledge of each other is pretty up-to-date.  

Right after my divorce, I lived with my GBF (gay best friend) and because he was also recently out of a very long-term relationship, we often called each other our "replacement spouses."  I knew how he preferred his eggs and what kind of ice cream to buy at the grocery store.  I knew that if there were brownies baked when I got home, it meant that his heart had been broken by some loser.  I knew how he preferred the towels to be folded. I even knew about all of his allergies, including the ones to certain medications.  We no longer live together, or even in the same state, but we talk occasionally and he visits Atlanta and I visit Jacksonville and we catch up on our lives and when we hang out, it feels like no time has really passed at all.  

When I was married the first time, I felt like I knew EVERYTHING about my ex....and I basically did. We had shared childhood and teenage memories starting from the 6th grade on.  If you asked him a question, I could (and usually did) answer it.  Even after we divorced and he was living with a mutual friend, I could entertain that friend by guessing my ex's answers to questions or predicting his actions.  But, it's been over 4 years since our divorce.  We are both remarried and living completely different lives than we lived when we were together. We never speak.  I only hear about him and his life through our mutual friends. 

So, here is the incident that started my thoughts on the subject of this blog:

My ex-husband and his wife recently had a baby and I had a tree planted in Israel in honor of the baby.  His new wife sent a Thank You note via e-mail.  In this email, she used the word "we" and made several statements about the things they value and their interests in advocacy and a few other things that I would not have considered to be true about my ex.  I, immediately, forwarded the email to my mother, my best friend, and another mutual friend of ours and wrote something along the lines of, "Who is she kidding? He doesn't value those things!  When has he ever had any interest in advocacy?"

Now...I'm telling on myself here.  I'm showing you my gut-reaction and admitting that it wasn't a nice one.  I felt that she (the new wife) was trying to "pull one over" on me (the old wife) and was describing someone (their "we") as if half of that "we" wasn't someone that I knew better than anyone else knew for over a decade.  I really assumed that she must think me a fool if she expected me to believe the statements in her e-mail.  Over the next few days, I started rethinking and regretting my gut-reaction and my quickness to negate the statements she made in her e-mail.  Maybe I am right and maybe he really doesn't care about those things, and she's just using the "we" pronoun to describe herself...but maybe he's changed.  Maybe she's introduced him to new thoughts and new causes and new ideas.  Maybe he's different than he was when I knew him. Going through a divorce is transformational. I know that I am different.  I know I've changed quite a bit over the past 4 years.  He doesn't know me anymore either. Here's a silly example: I know for a fact that if you asked him if I like salmon, he'd tell you that I don't.  But, guess what?  Now, I do!  I started eating it and really liking it about 6 months ago!  Also, I'd be really angry if my current husband's ex-wife assumed that she knew him better than I know him.  Yes, they were married for longer than I've known him, but he's grown and changed too.  I'm certain that I know the current him better than she does, so why wouldn't I give my ex's wife the same credit?

I'm not able to answer the question in the title of this post.  I'm not able to put a concrete number on the length of time it takes for someone to stop knowing someone else.  However, I am able to say that after several years, I can admit that I know longer know someone and that someone else probably knows them better now.  This has also made me realize that I need to make a conscious effort to continue to know my friends and family.  I can't rest on the laurels of our past time together.