It’s common to have a number of different friends as you go through life. It’s quite normal for these friendships to change or fade as you move through your different phases of life. However, it can make you feel bad if you completely lose touch with one of your best friends.
But you don’t have to simply resign yourself to feeling bad. Nor do you have to continue missing that person.
As long as it was due to simple life changes, and not necessarily some traumatic event or betrayal, why not try to find that old friend and rekindle that relationship? By using one or all of the following tactics, you can try to reconnect with the best friends you had when you were younger:
- Talk to mutual friends
- Go through your yearbooks
- Check with your parents
- Search social media
- Use a people search tool
Ask Mutual Friends
Sometimes you fall out of touch with someone simply because things changed without either of you noticing. In that case, you might still be in touch with other friends from that time in your life. Especially if this was a best friend from school, there’s a decent chance that all of your pals were at least acquainted with each other.
Talk to some of your friends with whom you do still keep in touch. See if they have any leads. It could be as useful as them being in direct contact with your old friend. Or it could be as vague as them knowing the state where your friend moved. No matter how extensive the information is, it can still be helpful.
Look at a Yearbook
A yearbook can be a very useful tool when you’re trying to look for friends you knew in school. If you’re lucky, your old friend may have written a phone number on the inside of the yearbook. Even if that number is no longer functioning, it can at least make for a good starting point.
Take the time to browse through the yearbook, and see if there are any other clues. They can include the name of a college to which your friend may have wanted to go or an indication of your friend’s career path. You might find other people your friend mentioned or other potential leads.
Talk to Your Parents
If this best friend was around when you were a kid, it’s likely that your parents had at least a passing knowledge of him or her. Depending on your situation, your parents could have even been friends with your best friend’s parents.
If you get lucky, you may be able to find your best friend by first finding out if your parents keep in touch with your best friend’s parents. Even if your parents don’t have any information to give you, they might be able to direct you to someone who does.
You can also reach out to other adults who you and your best friend knew at the time, such as teachers, coaches, bosses and other supervising positions.
Search Through Social Media
Social media is a great tool in many cases like this. There are so many people who use social media these days. Your old best friend probably has a social media account on at least one of the most popular social media sites. Around 178 million Americans currently use Facebook in some capacity, including a majority of people in nearly every age group.
Though it’s the most widely-used one, Facebook isn’t the only social media site that can help you in your search. For example, people aged 18-24 use Snapchat and Instagram at around the same rate as Facebook. So if you’re in that age range, consider looking around those sites.
Use a People Search Site
A people search site is one of the more unique ways to find someone from your past. And it may also be one of the most effective. With this tactic, you use whatever information you already have to find a person in a vast database.
With this kind of site, you have a variety of ways to potentially find someone. Do you have an old cell phone number? You can perform a reverse phone lookup to see if your friend, and their current contact information, is associated with that number. You can also perform a people search by name to try and find them and related information about them.
Conclusion
Getting back in touch with a friend can be great, especially when that person used to be your best friend. It’s worth it, just to be able to reminisce and catch up. Using a people search site or any of the other approaches highlighted here may help you get that great experience.
Image attribution: Mirko – stock.adobe.com
