Googling Old Friends
Posted by g0vang0@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 22 comments
Out of all the old friends i have been desperately trying to reconnect with, i have only found one that was still alive.
I don't know why i keep doing this - it just happened again today, where i found out my friend had died almost 10 years ago, and right in the next town over. One friend i tried to contact from college had been brutally murdered decades ago. It is a constant shock that these people are gone, and why do i keep trying to locate ghosts of the past.
KombatBunn1@reddit
Lately I’ve found myself missing the friendships I had ten to twenty years ago. I’ve tried searching for a few online but mostly they’re either not on social media or not worth the trouble of reconnecting.
AccountantMelodic862@reddit
I Googled a high school boyfriend to find he’d broken into a house, stolen their guns and drugs, was later found by the victim, and killed and dismembered and buried in their yard.
And I used to be upset that he dumped me.
KombatBunn1@reddit
I made the mistake of reconnecting with a high school crush of mine. Was not a good idea..I noped out real quick.
g0vang0@reddit (OP)
Holy shit that’s a wild discovery!
jk_pens@reddit
This Christmas my 84 year old mother told me a story she’d never told me before about her 3rd grade crush. She knew his name and some other details that let me find him on the interwebs. He had passed away back in 2009. I couldn’t tell if she was affected by this info or not, but for some reason it made me sad.
I occasionally try to look up folks I knew BITD and most that I can find seem to have led mundane lives. I wonder if any of them look me up.
MaximumJones@reddit
I thought everyone did this back in 2010 on Facebook then deleted our accounts because we finally remembered why we had not talked to those assholes in over 30 years? 😳
pinballrocker@reddit
This is the way!
RCA2CE@reddit
It’s funny to me that for like 10 years people have been saying Facebook is dead, other platforms have come and gone. Data says 72% of internet users have Facebook and 69% of those use it daily.
So all those people over the last 10 years that said they deleted their accounts and don’t use FB - they were bullshitting
MaximumJones@reddit
I think you are probably right about that. FB was a drug to most people.
g0vang0@reddit (OP)
these aren't high school people, but people i was actually friends with. each one is a gut punch because these were people i have been looking up for years, and when i finally get results, its an obit.
MaximumJones@reddit
Ah ok, I misunderstood your post, my bad.
All of my actual friends have my personal cell phone number and we talk regularly (including my two besties dating back to elementary school).
In reality, I can count on one hand those who are my friends for life. Three of those five were in the trenches with me. I understand what you mean, I don't want any of them to ever die.
DreisersGhost1900@reddit
I'm sorry this is happening to you. It's damn hard to lose the people you still want in your life. But looking back at the past & past relationships is a pretty natural instinct, I think... especially when the present might not be so great. I tend to go in cycles: not thinking about old friends for a long time, then looking them all up over the course of a few weeks. Not exactly sure what drives me to do it.
g0vang0@reddit (OP)
Yeah I don’t know why either- we know it’s not going to work out for the best but do it anyway…?
pinballrocker@reddit
I could care less about old friends. Who cares if I knew them for 4 years in highschool 40 years ago? So much more important stuff has happened with newer friends and loved ones.
dazedUNDconfused42@reddit
Twenty years ago I did the same thing. What an over rated mistake.
indefiniteretrieval@reddit
all the people we used to know.... they're an illusion to me now
Dan-68@reddit
I do that on occasion to see who I have outlived.
NecessaryEmployer488@reddit
Be suprised how difficult it is finding people especially over the last 8 years. People have dropped from Facebook and LinkedIn. All the political crap on facebook people don't post.
RCA2CE@reddit
I spoke with an old friend from 30 years ago the other day. Our families are going to get together and party soon. It was really cool actually - seemed like we didn’t miss a minute. I’m super happy we connected and we are going to have a really good time when we get together. Tickets and hotels are bought, events planned - there will be alcohol
The-0mega-Man@reddit
You're not alone. Ex girlfriends, guys I worked with, people I grew up with... All gone or can't be found.
twirlingmypubes@reddit
There's only one that like to find -- Connie, aka Chiquita Banana. Just want to see if she's still dtf
ConstructionThin8695@reddit
For me, it's a coin toss between Anne Bolyen and Catherine Howard. Bring publicly labeled a whore, dragged through a trial, convicted and then waiting for you execution. Add in knowing you don't deserve it and praying you'll be saved only to have to take the long walk to the block. It would be days or weeks of pure terror.
Jane Seymour and Catherine of Aragon are in my 2nd group. Agonizing child birth, then slowly weaking. Did she think she might pull through or did she know she was doing? How lucid was she at the end? Catherine was put through hell for years. Rejected and isolated. Separated from her only child. Her crime was not producing a living son, which was beyond her control. Slow death from cancer. She might have welcomed death in the end.
Catherine Paar. She escaped the monster and married her love. Who turned out to be a sleezeball. Did she ever admit it to herself? Another victim of childbed fever. Anne of Cleves. I believe another victim of cancer, so not a good way to go. But she probably had the most years of happiness till then.