We used to talk every day, then he moved away, I got busy, and it's been a year now without any contact. We ran into him on the street yesterday, and it was weird and awkward. Can you call this a friendship breakup?
The friendship didn't break, it just fell asleep, and that's totally normal. A year of silence isn't a death sentence, especially if it was real before. Try writing something simple, like "been thinking about you, how've you been", and see if things come back to life or not.
I'd say it's more of a natural drifting apart than a real break-up - nowadays in 2026 people often stay in touch in waves, especially when life takes you in different directions. Awkwardness when you meet up doesn't mean the friendship is dead, it just takes time to remember that connection you had, or to figure out that you've both grown in different ways.
Try just writing him something neutral - not a big "I miss you," but something like "saw your post on social media, how are you doing" or "remembered this funny moment yesterday when we..." to see if there's still a spark or if it's really burned out.
The main thing is not to confuse awkwardness at meeting with the death of the friendship - sometimes people just forget how to talk after a break, but that's easy to fix.
One thing though: if he doesn't respond to a few attempts to reach out, then yeah, you can already consider it over, because friendship takes effort from both sides.
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