I think it depends on the person.  There are people in my past, that them not being around now actually makes me happy.  Even people that at the time, I cared for very much.  However, there are also people that even a day without them makes me miss them more than people that I haven't heard from for years.  I do have people that their absence now, makes me wonder what if they had never been around, and in many of those cases, I wish that they had never been around.  Unfortunately, we all have people that turn out to be nothing like who we thought that they were, but I think that those people only make us treasure the people that have always been real to us even more.  It hurts so much to be lied to, and that's why I only tell even the little white lies as scarcely as I possibly can.  Way too many people have lied to me in my past to even think of reflecting that pain onto those I love now.

~Ben