Have you ever..contacted an old school friend?

I got in touch with an old schoolfriend through Friends Reunited and we are still friends on Facebook. It is obvious we have led very different lives and neither of us has suggested meeting up. Interesting to know how her life is going though.

I have kept contact with quite a few from my class at Grammar School and only a couple of weeks ago, met up with two of them when I was in the UK. We are never at a loss for something to talk about.

However, if one of them was a high-flyer, I wouldn't expect them to reply, but it wouldn't do any harm to try and contact them. If they're nice enough, they will remember you and offer to meet you, if not, best left alone.

I contacted an old school friend via Friends United some years ago. We emailed and exchange Christmas cards for a while. A few months ago she visited me and we had a wonderful weekend and now text regularly. Yes, we has both changed, but we still has so much in common and to discuss. We are both 67. I say go for it. The worst that can happen is that you find you don't after all connect or that she does not reply. At our age, that isn't a hill of beans! By the way I also contacted another school friend around the same time and I didn't hear a squeak from her. Her loss, I think. I am not arrogant by the way, just pragmatic..

About 7 years ago I got in touch with an old school friend on Friends Reunited. We had gone to the same infant and junior schools. We spoke on the phone and she said she was regularly in touch with a couple of other school friends from the same class at secondary school, one of whom also went to the same infant school and the other one just the secondary school. We have since met up regularly two or three times a year. I live in Essex and the others live in Chingford, Woodford and Dunmow. We all meet up at Liverpool Street station, go and have a coffee and a natter, then a look round Spitalfields Market and then a meal in a restaurant before returning home. Sometimes we meet at Westfield shopping centre in Stratford. It is as if we had never lost touch! They all sound the same and we can't believe where the years have gone. I'm really glad we're all in touch again, although I would really like to also do other things together as I know they all see each other quite a lot, but I don't have a car and am further away.

I had an interesting "meet up"a few years ago. A girl who went to my High School married and they bought my childhood house from my parents. Years later as I was going to drive along the road I decided I would knock on the door and make contact. I didn't need to as her husband was in the front garden tending to his roses. He called his wife and they invited me to see the changes that they'd made to my family home over the years. It was amazing and the only original thing there was a small window on the side of the house that used to be a pantry under the stairs.
The long garden was mainly a huge Carp pond with many large fish in. It was a great visit and I saw them once more when making a sentimental journey in that area.
I meant to keep in contact but didn't for various reasons.

I have been to a couple of school reunions in the past.
I discovered that some didnt come because they felt they didnt measure up in some way, which was a bit sad. Especially the ones who were single at the time.
The rest of us I dont think would have cared a jot, and did want to have seen them.

I have been looking for an old College friend for years to satisfy my curiosity.

However I have had mixed experiences of meeting up with old friends. I was approached twice to meet up by people in my past, and after a initial couple of meetings one of them was never heard from again. The other, who lives in America, we met up with and we have Fb contact now, that surfices.
I am missing two people who I would like to know about but one was German. I think it doesn't do any harm to make contact, as long as you don't expect too much.

In 2001 I contacted an old school friend via Friends Reunited. She had organised a couple of reunions and invited me to the next one. I've been going every year since. It's interesting to meet and catch up with people and discover how their lives have turned out.

Lots of us became teachers, bank clerks, health workers, and the like. Some were entrepreneurs and at least one is now a millionaire living in the US.

Some people haven't changed since they were 17 (no, really) and others are unrecognisable. Fascinating!

When I was at school, I had a pen friend in Sweden. This was in the days when you actually wrote and sent letters. We lost touch in the mid-sixties when we both left school.

A few years ago, before Facebook and Friends-Reunited, I thought I'd have a go at tracing her.

Firstly I found the website of the town where she lived and hovered the mouse till I found the email button where I told my story.

The next day, I received an email suggesting I try another Council organisation. I did a search and found their web-page and repeated the process!

The following day, I received a reply stating that they had found my pen-friend and gae me up-to-date details. Shortly after, I received an email from her.

I tend to keep in touch with her sister now on Facebook but it was nice to fill in the intervening years!

I have found that even if people are initially keen to contact you or respond to your approach to them, they fall away once they have found out what you've been doing since last being friends.

So my advice would be go for it, but don't have high hopes or take it personally if they either fail to respond or seem keen and then "disappear".

To be fair, I am quite sentimental about past friendships that I valued, but I've noticed that others can barely remember what they did at school or who they were friends with.

Organised a school reunion twenty years on with a couple of friends I had kept in touch with. It was a lovely day - and what was interesting was that most people hadn't essentially changed very much personality-wise although in some cases their lives had been lived very differently.

It turned out that people you didn't care for much in the first place you still didn't care for - but the reverse also applied. This event gave me back two valued friends I had lost contact with. We now meet up every year, and really enjoy each other's company.

Got in touch with several old school friends thru FB a few years back. Found out they all still met up every so often. Said I'd love to see them all again but they never have asked me. I know they still see each other and have occasionally mentioned that I'm in their area sometimes and would like to catch up but it seems they dont want to see me. Feel a bit sad . We were all so close once.

Ooh, this is a difficult one, isn’t it? Personally myself, I don’t agree with school reunions for this very same reason, as I am sure people only turn up to see where they are ranked in the ‘most successful’ list. I di once see a school friend on (was it the?) Friends Reunited site but I didn’t go for it, even though I would have loved to.

But don’t we all look at ex classmates and think how much better his / her life appears to be in comparison to our own, not knowing that they are maybe thinking the same thing about you. Truly, it’s not what you achieved in work / money but how happy you have been. Some people seem to be ticking all of the right boxes from the start of life – good parents, good exam results, good university, good job and a good marriage but who’s to say that those individuals agree with what we think?

If you’re happy with what you’ve got, go for it. The person who seems to have made a name for herself and has a lot of respect may not be happy with the way their life has panned out and needs to talk to someone who didn’t climb those dizzy heights.

It is very difficult to advise. I had a best friend at school, we were inseparable and so in tune. We remained firm friends even after we left school, but then somehow we lost contact.
Several years later I managed to track her down and invited her to spend the weekend. Visions of a joyous reunion soon vanished after she arrived.. Our paths had led us into such totally different directions that we no longer had anything in common. I knew when she left that the bond was broken and I felt so sad.
I wish that I had not found my Friend and instead just remembered the wonderful times that we had together when we were youngsters.

I didn't like the girls I was at school with enough to keep in touch but I have a friend who I have known since we were toddlers living in the same road ( our Mums had tea together & we just clicked)
64 years later we are still friends- been though everything together- primary school, worked together, marriages (each other's bridesmaids), children, grandchildren & now retirement. Totally different people but best friends. We often say that no-one else in the world knows so much about us as we do about each other.
I think if you like someone enough you stay in touch anyway . If you didn't stay in touch then there must have been a good reason.

phoebes, no too sad BUT if we'd ever had the time to go off together and be old ladies behaving disgracefully, what fun we would have had

Thinking more about old school reunions, tho, apart from attending the same school at the same time, surely it's common interests we've developed that's the glue that's needed to sustain a friendship? And if that's not there, there's really nothing else, is there?

Alishka - your friend's life sounds as if it should be made into a film!

Thanks for all your replies and your interesting stories, some a bit sad.
I took the plunge, doing as Swanny suggested, congratulating her on her achievements and keeping quiet about my life. I am hoping to hear from her but won't be upset if I don't . I am just really pleased that I have found out a bit about her life and that she has done so well...and is still going strong!

I have successfully contacted a group of old friends. We meet up once a year, talk on FB and this year we arranged to go away on a long weekend abroad. Although I had to drop out at the last minute due to bereavement, the trip was very successful and I hope I will get another chance to join them.
However, when I had my last child, I contacted another old friend who I had been to college with who had twins of the same age. She moaned and groaned so much about how difficult life was with twins, didn't seem to enjoy being a mother or doing anything else in life except for moaning. Whilst I did have some sympathy, I found it so dispiriting so I didn't contact her again. She obviously found my love of motherhood and life too much too because she didn't contact me again either

I'm best friends still with a friend from nursery school (40 years!!) Although we live at different ends of the country we see each other as often as possible & speak on the phone. She's near my mum & has been able to help mum out (mums ill) & do the things I can't. I have a lot of old friends on fb, some blast's from the past & some I delete if we have nothing in common! ! Suck it and see op ☺

I got in touch with my best friend from school on Friends Reunited. Her family had emigrated to Australia after she finished school at 18. We wrote for years, then lost touch. After we reunited, she came to England for a visit and it was as if we had seen each other the day before. We email and skype now. She has visited the UK again and we spent a day together. I am going to Australia soon and will be spending a few days with her and her husband. We are very close and get on very well. I have contacted other people from school but nothing came of it.

I didn't, but someone else, who I knew vaguely at primary school, contacted me through Friends Reunited and we corresponded, then met up a few times. He changed my life in rather a startling way, and although we now have no contact at all, it's thanks to his 'interest' in me that I began to feel valued and confident, after years of being put down/belittled/controlled by my ex DH. I'm now divorced and living with a new partner (also someone I met on Friends Reunited!) and I've never been happier.

I have regular contact with my best friend from School days, we have studied together, become Nurses and worked together, been each others bridesmaids, I live in Sweden, but have a second home just ten miles from my friend, how fantastic is that!
I have had contact with another School friend over the past few years, we try to meet up when I am in the UK, and have a good chat,still have a lot to chat about. How lucky am I!

Give it a go. I have contacted lots of my old friends thanks to the internet. Some contacts were successful, some not but I think as you get older it's nice to see how old friends are doing and what they have done in their lives. You will regret it if you don't. If your friend dosn't want to reply to you she won't - no harm done.

I've reconnected with some through Facebook. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. My most disappointing experience was being contacted by one of my closest friends - we'd lost touch at 18. She said she was dancing round the room with joy at finding me, & would message properly when her ipad had charged. I wrote with a brief description of what had happened to me over the last 40 years & said I was looking forward to hearing from her.

Nothing. She was clearly active on Facebook, but ... nothing.

I left it a few weeks then messaged, saying, am I ever going to hear from you?

Nothing. So I gave it another couple of weeks then with a heavy heart deleted her. It made me realise that however close we'd been at school there was a reason we'd lost touch, the reason being she was rubbish at maintaining a friendship!