Yes - I am in the process of doing that right now. The results are mixed but mostly positive. Without going into too much detail, we were very good friends for 3 years at my first job out of uni but when my contract ended we lost touch. It’s about 20 years later now and although I still enjoy their company the friendship is very different. It’s helped me reflect on how I’ve changed since then. Definitely worth it, but not without challenge.
Two friendships that I can think of, one was rekindled, one wasn’t and I’m not thinking of renkindling it either.
The first one was because my friend moved to another country and we just lost touch. I talked to him after about a year, he got angry at me because “why didn’t I write before”, I just Uno Reversed his ass and asked him the same question and he said “damn bro u right” and started talking again.
The second friendship, he started using me as his chauffeur, he was invited to my house at 3pm because I had university tests the next day, he showed himself up at 11pm with someone I didn’t know and I had to let them in to stay the night because my country wasn’t the safest.
He got drunk that night, made a mess in my house and left the next morning without saying shit and he was supposed to be my best friend. After that I straight up stopped talking to him.
Nowadays, my “best friend” has moved away from 3 different countries because he’s a drug dealer and he’s always using the product he has to sell or losing it somwhere and several people are looking for him, he lost 5 kg of cocaine in Argentina. The reason I know is because the first friend I mentioned in this comment is also a friend of his and he actually keeps up with his antics.
That escalated quickly.
But I guess drugs and friendships never really go hand in hand.
Yup. My childhood best friend reached out after learning that I was getting divorced a few years back. He lived out of state but was in town visiting family, so we got dinner. It was good to catch up. I ended up being one of his groomsmen and we still talk/game together, although distance still prevents us from meeting IRL too often.
I’m marrying his ex-wife.
Story time ?
Short and simple, don’t rekindle a friendship where you feel like you were slighted somehow before losing touch. The resentment will be out of control.
I once did that, after unexpectedly stumbling upon an old college friend of mine. We had a nice lunch, planned to have another one but didn’t really scheduled it. Life did its trick, and we lost touch again.
I keep trying this, usually when I come across someone in my contacts who I haven’t seen in a decade or something. Particularly after deleting Facebook a few years ago, I want to keep up with people.
It’s always the same pattern though. We hang out, have a great time, sometimes do it one or two more times, and then it just never happens again. The problem is that it’s always me doing the lifting. I have to remember to call, set up some plan, make the thing happen. If I don’t do the work, it doesn’t work.
I generally end up deciding that it’s not worth my time to fight so hard to see someone who obviously isn’t interested in prioritizing time with me.
One or two have maintained touch, but there’s probably a dozen more who fell back off the map. Forever the optimist though, I’ve got another one on the calendar in a couple weeks.
I’ve had a few experience with this and each was drastically different.
On one end, I reconnected with a friend I hadn’t seen since high school and invited her out for dinner. We met and just picked up right where we left off. Every time I see her now, it’s the same. I invite her to all my parties by default because she’s a great person to hang out with. We’re very much similar people and really enjoy each other’s company.
On the other, I reconnected with an online friend I hadn’t spoken to in a few years. It was nice to chat with him again but the more we talked, the more it was clear to me why we stopped talking in the first place. He was sort of controlling and jumped to a lot of weird conclusions and never communicated what he wanted clearly. We stopped talking regularly and while we’ll say hi if we’re online at the same time, we don’t seek each other out for long chats.
There’s a former friend I’m almost certain would be the first type if I reached out, which honestly makes reaching out all the more terrifying because the rejection would hurt all the more.
Doesn’t help that the one real attempt I’ve had at reconnecting with a friend was very much the 2nd type. We were very much the rawr xD type of kids, long story short we ended up going to different schools and lost touch, I went through tons of traumatic events and “mellowed out”(aka became horribly depressed). We reconnected online years later and he hadn’t changed a bit, if anything he’d gotten worse. His idea of a stimulating conversation was one of us saying something like “1”, the next saying “2”, continuing ad nauseam.
Covid helped that I guess.
Yes, a few times.
Some attempts have failed, others have been reasonably successful.
So last Christmas we (another mutual friend and I) got back in touch with someone we hadn’t spoken to for almost a decade, met up in the Pub and it was like it’d only been a couple of months.
Instant reconnect.
Might be another ten years before we meet again because since then almost no interaction.
What you gonna do?
I generally feel like it’s worth it. Even if that worth is only validating why you stopped chatting to that person in the first place.
Especially because I have no irl-linked social media, Im often initiating contact… But I like checking in on random people every few years or so, you never know, you might brighten someone’s day; develop connections you might not have with acquaintances because you’ve both changed; or at the very least, reminding yourself that there’s no loss if you don’t talk to that person ever again!
I’d rather be regretting my interaction than to regret not interacting at all.
I’ve come close a few times. I’m so introverted usually my only friendships are held together through my significant other so if they drift away, so do I. I’ve tried reaching out in the past but it never amounts to anything.
I’ve tried several times but it always ends up in just losing touch again as we used to have a common place to frequent, so most of those friendships were due to location. I used to be best friends with a guy for around 7 years in elementary and middle school, found him a decade later, messaged him, everything goes well and we talk on the phone, game a bit but after a few weeks everything just goes silent.
We tried to rekindle two more times but I guess not going to the same places daily or working together makes friendships almost impossible.
There was an attempt one time. It was terrible. That person was still as self-centered as ever.
I have to buy her flowers every few days. And chocolate.
