Approaching past friends

[Relish in Chaos]

Now, as many of you may know, sometimes you'll have friends for an extended period of time, but you may naturally drift from them away, either because you just start hanging around with different people, or some other reason.

But have any of you guys ever just gotten past the potential awkwardness and approached them again in a while to ask them for a coffee or something, so you can try and be friends again?

I'm just curious because...well, it's something that I'd been thinking of after my recent trip to my therapist. There was a girl I used to be friends with about three years ago, and while we had the occasional argument, she was quite nice and she actually still lives quite close to me. Her, I, and some other friends would always go into the park and just mess around when we didn't have anything to do. But after a while, I stopped sitting near them on the school bus because there were more people that I wanted to talk to elsewhere. That's where it began. And now, to my knowledge, no-one of us even go to the park anymore. At least, not as much as we used to. And neither of us even say a word to each other as we pass by at school.

Anyway, what are your thoughts and experiences with this sort of thing?

 

[Marter]

I ... actually, I never have. I've considered it, but never actually cared enough to do so. Usually, there will be a reason for drifting apart in the first place, and that reason is usually reason enough to not bother trying to rekindle a dying (or dead) friendship.

 

[sky14kemea]

A lot of my friends from school moved away for University, and consequently made lots and lots of new friends that they prefer to hang out with now. (So I'm the opposite from your story. =P)

I still see them for birthdays and such, but very rarely. Mostly because our interests clash now. They like going clubbing and drinking, and I like staying in and playing LOTRO or drawing.

It's sad, and yes there is the awkwardness that you mentioned, but it happens to most people eventually. The hard part is moving on without regrets!

 

[Scarim Coral]

If they were one of my "close friends" from High School then I'll keep my distance from them (if they got close enough then I will say to them "Go to hell"). Yes I can hold a grude that long but granted this doesn't apply to everyone back from High School so I suppose I would try to get reacquaint with them as long they are affiliated with my best friends (since they would worm back into my life which I don't want).
Other than that it's abit of a mix bag since there has been several people I have drifted (some Uni classmates and roommates) but when I do converse we got little in common. We are friends but not on a personal level like my best friends. I guess that is the reason while I drift away from them as I don't care too much to try to stayed in touch with them.

 

[Ljs1121]

I've never really done it.

My main two best friends in life have grown up and found their own people that they like more than me and I've found my own people that I prefer to them. At some point, it might be nice to see either of them again, but it's not really important to me at the moment.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Thankfully I'm still young enough that I'm still in contact with pretty much everyone that I still want to be. I'm very wary of that happening though, the friends I made in the year before going to university are the closest and best friends I've had in my life, I'm dearly hoping everyone makes an effort to stay in touch.

However, there is one person that I miss, and that's one of my exes. She did break up with me, and for a long time I resented her for it, but I've gotten over it since (and realised that she was pretty justified in the end). I regret breaking off all communication, but hey, at least I've learnt that lesson now. I would send a her a text or something, but it would be pretty awkward, and I'd hate for it to be taken in the wrong way (I miss her as a friend, I wouldn't have any intention of being in a relationship with her again).

 

[bojackx]

Well, if you don't even acknowledge each other when you see each other, it doesn't sound like you were the closest of friends to begin with.

I have this one friend, who I've known for over a decade now, who I've hung out with on and off throughout. Right now, we're super close again since all my other friends went off to their individual universities, but it's never like we forgot about each other's existence. During one of the gaps where we wouldn't hang out, we'd always stop if we passed in the street and catch up for a couple of minutes. Maybe that's just what happens with bestest buds, but whatever.

Though there is this girl I used to talk to, and a couple of years ago we had fallen out and stopped talking to each other. I don't really want to be good friends again, but at least say hi if we ran into each other. I've thought about going up and telling her we should stop ignoring each other, but I'm pretty sure she still hates me.

I'm not entirely sure where I was going with that, but basically just strike up a conversation with this person and hope for the best. If it's massively awkward and stays that way even after several long chats, I'd give up and move on.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

Well, if you don't even acknowledge each other when you see each other, it doesn't sound like you were the closest of friends to begin with.

I have this one friend, who I've known for over a decade now, who I've hung out with on and off throughout. Right now, we're super close again since all my other friends went off to their individual universities, but it's never like we forgot about each other's existence. During one of the gaps where we wouldn't hang out, we'd always stop if we passed in the street and catch up for a couple of minutes. Maybe that's just what happens with bestest buds, but whatever.

Though there is this girl I used to talk to, and a couple of years ago we had fallen out and stopped talking to each other. I don't really want to be good friends again, but at least say hi if we ran into each other. I've thought about going up and telling her we should stop ignoring each other, but I'm pretty sure she still hates me.

I'm not entirely sure where I was going with that, but basically just strike up a conversation with this person and hope for the best. If it's massively awkward and stays that way even after several long chats, I'd give up and move on.

Well, we were really close friends. We'd been friends for, like, three years, and always went to the park together, and tell each other secrets. Sometimes I blame myself for us drifting apart, because of the fact that I stopped sitting next to them on the bus, and months beforehand, I'd told her twice after a few arguments that she was oversensitive (which was remarkably hypocritical of me to say). Sounds pretty silly, but I tend to do that to myself.

The reason we don't say a word to each other anymore is because...it's just that we're both quite shy people. Another friend that I've kind of drifted away from still says hi to me and I say hi back, but that's because she's more confident than the other girl.

 

[DugMachine]

If a friend and I drifted apart they weren't very close to me to begin with so I really have no reason to hook back up. I will acknowledge you if I see you in public though, it's just common courtesy and it's not like I hate the people I drifted away from. But for the love of god, please don't walk up to me and start with high school stories and invite me to lunch, that's just awkward as all hell.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

I thought this was going to be one of those "haven't seen them in years and live hundreds of miles" away deals. You see this person in school? Just say hello, ask how they're doing etc. Might be nothing clicks again and you've lost nothing, but if you don't you'll never know and you'll probably regret that, maybe not much but it'll probably niggle at you like it's doing now. Once you leave school you'll probably never see them again so you might as well give it a go.

There were friends from school that I stopped hanging out with, some of them even managed to track me down after to invite me to birthday parties, engagement parties etc but I was too absorbed in my own stuff to give them the time of day, just like at school really. Probably shouldn't have done that.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

I tend to think that the friends that you may have had that drifted away for whatever reasons are no longer part of your life for a reason. The people that are currently in your life, or the ones that have been with you through thick and thin are the ones that count at the moment and there's no point glamourising the past. It is what it is and with that I move forward.
This is pretty much one of the main reasons I'm not interested in Facebook.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

A lot of my friends from school moved away for University, and consequently made lots and lots of new friends that they prefer to hang out with now. (So I'm the opposite from your story. =P)

I still see them for birthdays and such, but very rarely. Mostly because our interests clash now. They like going clubbing and drinking, and I like staying in and playing LOTRO or drawing.

It's sad, and yes there is the awkwardness that you mentioned, but it happens to most people eventually. The hard part is moving on without regrets!

Pretty much this. Most of my old school friends are now into the clubbing and hard drugs scene so I don't even bother trying to get in contact with them.

 

[manic_depressive13]

When I was in high school I used to consider myself pretty close friends with this girl. I enjoyed hanging around with her and we made each other laugh. By our senior years we didn't have any classes together and we started seeing each other less and less. She hung around with a different group of friends and she never really put in any effort to spend time with me now that we were in different classes, so gradually we stopped talking or even greeting each other in the hallways.

Even though I really enjoyed spending time with her in the past, I would probably resent her if she tried to rekindle the friendship. She's the one who essentially abandoned me and let the friendship drift apart. You don't get to ditch someone for lengths of time to the point where you're not famliar enough to greet each other in the hall, and then expect everything to just go back to normal at a whim because suddenly you remembered they exist.

Maybe I'm just a bitter person but that's how I would feel about it. On the other hand I met up with a girl I hadn't seen for three years because she moved overseas. It was nice catching up, but that was a different situation. It's one thing to ignore each other when you are in two different countries and another to do so while you are both attending the same school.

 

[In Search of Username]

I really hate drifting apart from people like that, but it always seems too awkward to try to get back in touch once you have drifted apart. Even though I want to, I'm never sure how it'll be received, so I never end up doing so.

 

[Stryc9]

Yea, I've done this before. I have a friend that until recently I hadn't talked to in over a year because of stuff. She recently contacted me and we met up for coffee and such, and now we're supposed to start a co-op game of Titan Quest together in about 45 minutes.

 

[Little Woodsman]

Well, if you don't even acknowledge each other when you see each other, it doesn't sound like you were the closest of friends to begin with.

I have this one friend, who I've known for over a decade now, who I've hung out with on and off throughout. Right now, we're super close again since all my other friends went off to their individual universities, but it's never like we forgot about each other's existence. During one of the gaps where we wouldn't hang out, we'd always stop if we passed in the street and catch up for a couple of minutes. Maybe that's just what happens with bestest buds, but whatever.

Though there is this girl I used to talk to, and a couple of years ago we had fallen out and stopped talking to each other. I don't really want to be good friends again, but at least say hi if we ran into each other. I've thought about going up and telling her we should stop ignoring each other, but I'm pretty sure she still hates me.

I'm not entirely sure where I was going with that, but basically just strike up a conversation with this person and hope for the best. If it's massively awkward and stays that way even after several long chats, I'd give up and move on.

Well, we were really close friends. We'd been friends for, like, three years, and always went to the park together, and tell each other secrets. Sometimes I blame myself for us drifting apart, because of the fact that I stopped sitting next to them on the bus, and months beforehand, I'd told her twice after a few arguments that she was oversensitive (which was remarkably hypocritical of me to say). Sounds pretty silly, but I tend to do that to myself.

The reason we don't say a word to each other anymore is because...it's just that we're both quite shy people. Another friend that I've kind of drifted away from still says hi to me and I say hi back, but that's because she's more confident than the other girl.

Okay, I actually wasn't going to post anything about this because my experiences with reconnecting with old
friends have been radically different from the situation you described, but now that you say this....
Find a time when you can walk up to her and ask for a moment of her time. Take that moment, and tell her
that you have been re-examining your life/past lately and you feel that calling her oversensitive was very
hypocritical of you (be sure to phrase this in such a way that she understands you blame only yourself).
If she accepts your apology, then start acknowledging her when you see her, and look for an opportunity
to strike up a conversation. Even if she doesn't accept the apology, you will have *given* the apology,
which is definitely the right thing to do. Apologies are free, I don't know why people are so stingy with
them.

 

[Iyon]

My old friends and I have taken very different paths and I don't really think reconnecting would work out. I went off to university and they became drug dealing criminals and/or strippers. I doubt we still have many common interests.

They've made several attempts to get back in touch with me before but every time it turned out they just wanted something from me and didn't care too much about actually becoming friends again.

 

[Rose and Thorn]

All the friends I have left behind, I have never had the desire to befriend again. I am not friends with past friends for a reason.

There is one person, a brother to me that has drifted away, but I do not think it would be awkward if we spoke once again. We would most likely embrace each other and catch up, even though I haven't seen him in 2 years. Ahh I miss the bugger, we usually go long amounts of time without seeing each other, but each time I do see him, the length between gets larger and larger. We grew up together and he was my first friend, our mothers were even friends and we all grew up in the same house.