Comments on: Should we contact old friends?

by: Tigersue

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 22:29:16 +0000

I have had more blessings in getting in contact with long lost friends. It is worth doing, and a hello, how are you? never hurt anyone.

by: Kim

Mon, 17 Apr 2006 16:33:38 +0000

I vote that you should contact old friends. I agree that friendships don’t end, they just hibernate, or in more entomologically friendly terms they go into diapause. I love hearing from old buddies and friends. I am notorious for not keeping in contact with people. I hope people don’t forget about me during my negligent eras, because I never forget my friends (except that one girl, what was her name? That one who lives in Albania or something like that. I hope she doesn’t mind if I come visit her this weekend.)

by: JKS

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 07:13:17 +0000

Hi Kristy! I’m glad you found this site. I was just thinking earlier today that I should call you and tell you to come hang out here.

High school reunions. I’m so jealous. I will never get to go to one. I didn’t go to any high school for more than a year and a half. I didn’t ever know enough people that I’m sure if I showed, I wouldn’t know a soul. I’d like to attend somebody’s reunion, though, maybe I can talk my husband into going to one of his someday. I guess I’d just live vicariously through movies like Gross Pointe Blank, lol. I guess its like your Senior Prom or graduation. Sounds really significant, but it is actually extremely boring.

by: Stephen M (Ethesis)

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 03:43:25 +0000

I touch base with people as i find them again. Sometimes it goes no where, sometimes it is a delight.

My daughter Heather is dating a friend’s son — the two of us go back (on and off) thirty years and the son is a great kid. That worked out very well

by: manaen

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 02:26:19 +0000

Now in my 50s, I’ve sought and been sought over the years to renew old acquaintances — even went to 30th HS reunion, a first for me. Each time was breifly rewarding, but not sustained for much as we all had developed separate lives and didn’t make the extraordinary effort to create long-distance friendships between the people are now. I recommend looking up old friends: maybe you’ll be able to help or be helped with a current situation, maybe you’ll enliven a dormant friendship, but you definitely will end your indecision about whether to do it!

by: Starfoxy

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 00:40:31 +0000

I’ve been waffling about contacting one of my ‘old’ friends too. Except it’s only been 2 years since we saw eachother. I’m nervous though because every time I’ve seen her after a long break she’s broken up with the guy she was dating the last time I saw her and gotten a new boyfriend. I always feel like an idiot when I ask “So how’s that guy?” and she answers “He’s the scum of the earth.” I almost want to wait longer so she’ll be married or something the next time I see her.

by: Mark B.

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 23:52:17 +0000

I remember seeing a good friend shortly after I returned from my mission. She had written to me quite regularly (but she was definitely not my girlfriend) until one last letter where she told about having found the “right” guy, how the sun setting over Utah Lake seemed to be a sign that they were meant for each other, right after each returned from a mission, etc. etc. Then, nada mas.

Until I returned home and inadvertently ran into her and her baby (and, incidentally, an old flame from my freshman year at BYU) at the supermarket. I was happy to see her, but she just acted as if she wanted to get out of Dodge. By the way, the husband/father of her child was the guy she dated her freshman year, not the guy with whom she had the epiphany while watching the setting sun over Utah Lake.

And then, again nada mas for over 20 years, and I ran into her at the CES conference (for volunteer seminary teachers). I saw her at an early session, and thought I might see her again (and surely 20 years would have erased any embarrassment), but, alas, she must have vanished, and I didn’t see her again.

My dad had some old Army buddies, from World War II. One had grown up in New York City, and sometime in the early 60’s my mom convinced Dad to look him up (although he worried that they would in fact have nothing to talk about). He was saved from that embarrassment when he found three columns of Richard O’Connor’s in the New York telephone book.

by: Kristy

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 23:11:03 +0000

Yes, old friendships never die, they just hibernate. I’m one of those roomates JKS has my parent’s address of. And thank goodness too. I have renewed some old friendships, and it has been very rewarding.

by: Proud Daughter of Eve

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 20:05:19 +0000

I vote for contacting them too. You never know who is feeling invisible to the world and who might appreciate knowing that someone remembers and cares about them even after all this time.

SereneQueen has a story on her blogsite about someone she’d tried to regain contact with. It didn’t work out right then but years later it helped the contactee have the courage to talk to her and share her burden when they were both struggling in a time of trial.

It might hurt, I do have to admit that. Not all reunions go well but there’s so much potential for good too. I say it’s worth it.

by: JKS

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 19:08:07 +0000

I vote yes. Do it. Don’t have huge expectations from it, though. Your hope would be that you won’t lose contact again. You want names and addresses!
(For my college roommates, I got the names and addresses of their parents, and eventually their spouses parents to make sure we’d never lose touch).
Maybe you’ll just send Christmas cards once a year, or an email every once it a while. Maybe all you will get from them will be occasional lame email forward jokes. (Yes, there are people whose only contact with me are FW:……can you believe it?) But it is nice to know where they are.
Maybe you can pick up the phone and call and things will click and you’ll be friends again. Maybe not. But, it is nice to hear what’s going on in their lives. It kind of feels like an unfinished story to not know what has happened to people.
(A casual ex-boyfriend emailed a few years ago soon after 9-11and he lives in NYC, just got married and he’s a lawyer). It was really nice to have that. I wish I had that for everyone else I knew in high school and will never, ever see or hear from again.)