Catching up with old friends?

General Discussion
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I recognise that these seems to have been partially covered in other posts, but not quite what I have meant.

One of the curses of old age is that one increasingly tends to look back on a life rather than look forward to the rather truncated future one. After all at about 80 years old it is logical to recognise that 10-15 years of future doesn’t quite equate with 80 years of past?

Like several others here I have spent most of my life as a ‘foreigner’/expat call it what you will. I have, again like others, spent time in several countries where I thought I had made good friends. But life being what it is, holding onto friends from a distance and over time is not easy, and inevitably relationships can wither and die, or at least change.

I don’t suppose it is an original thought, but I was looking through an old address book and reminding myself of the many wonderful, interesting and fun people I had met and worked with. People I had regarded as friends, and supposed they would always be that. So this week I have started trying to re-establish contact with several- using mainly Skype as I know many would not be users of Facebook or Twitter, and in all probability Survive France.

To say the least it has been a dispiriting exercise. For the most part even though they have been listed on Skype and even acknowledged they were the person I was seeking, not ONE has followed up on my subsequent ‘catch-up, informative’ posting. Not ONE?

In all I have tried maybe ten of the people who at one time or another were close to me. Now I don’t have any illusions about my own personality which can be abrasive, but these were all people who had gone way beyond that consideration - or so I supposed.

Has anyone else gone down this path with the same or different result?

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My bravado hides a shy interior and I am extremely nervous of renewing friendships… but only because I worry that folk will not remember me with as much affectionate-friendship as I remember them…

Having said that… I love it when someone taps on the door… and suddenly there is an old friend… or, at least, someone I have not seen/heard from in years…

We swiftly seem to fall into the old conversations… and it is fun… on parting we vow to meet again… and some we do and some we don’t… that is life.

I think you should continue… if folk choose not to take up the offer of renewing friendship… that is their choice … for all those who ignore you… you may yet remake a really good connection… :relaxed::relaxed::relaxed:

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Yep - its really the only reason I stay on Facebook - I have re-connected (is that even a word?) with many friends makeing the spam and b/s all worthwhile.

Most of my older friends are in Oz so that requires a visit but I have found the interwebs a great way to make that happen. Not everyone can make it, but a catch up with just a couple of old friends is well worth perseverance.

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Probably your friends signed up for Skype years ago because of children and grandchildren. They maybe hardly used it then and don’t use it now. I remember finding a friends name on friends reunited, by that time she had stopped using it and I was never able to make contact.
If you google someone’s name you can often find them.
I wish you luck but remember sometimes memories are better left preserved in nostalgia.

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I freely admit I’m useless at keeping in touch with people (even family) and consequently many friends/acquaintances have given up trying to retain some sort of contact. It could be a male thing and it’s something I’ll maybe regret when I’m older but for now it doesn’t bother me.

My mother is 84 and has been able to maintain contact with friends that she went to school with over 70 years ago, sadly she is now down to the last two and the spectre of her own mortality upsets her at times and she often questions why she’s still here and they’re not.

I’d say to Norm, you’ve tried and it’s their loss.

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I’m about the same age as you, Norm, 82 next month. I read your appeal with interest and a certain fellow-feeling, because I’ve also become aware of my own sense of used-upness, relative irrelevance to the concerns and interests of others, and nagging need to be noticed. All quite normal, Norm, IM still garrulous and often querulous O. :joy:

Where I possibly differ is that I don’t see this phase of life in any way as a curse, but as a new emotional, intellectual and social territory to explore, and with enhanced curiousity, relish, and wonder. That can’t be engineered, because like most shifts in perception it comes uninvited, and after a period of incubation, just sitting on feelings and thoughts, like a hen sits on eggs, occasionally moving them around carefully so as not disturb them, just to give them enough instinctual attention and permission to develop in their own way.

Loneliness then doesn’t come into it. A lot of my old contemporaries are dead. I occasionally commune with them and re-awaken briefly what we shared, including the shortfalls in our expectations of each other. Many others have said tacit goodbyes and moved on, having changed or turned their attention elsewhere. To meet old still-breathing acquaintances after a long absence can be, and often is, a poignantly disappointing experience, but it can also be briefly and happily bright, before it dies with a little puff of lingering smokiness.

Old age is a period of involution, and of preparation for death. It is therefore quite unlike other life experiences which are less invested with the growing awareness of its finiteness, not just as an idea, but as a new way of being.

Cheer up, old chum. These can be the best days of your life.

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Beautifully said Peter

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How interesting Guy, as my own long-term friends are also from my days (years) in Australia - and couples still. Just out of interest (self) I put my list together and came up with 5 couples from Australia, 2 from Germany, I from Hungary, 1 Welsh, 1 Russian, 1 Estonian, 1 Italian, 2 expat Brits (1 in America and 1 here in France). None in the UK apart from my elder brother.

Never done this before, and pleasantly surprised to realise that 15 couples is not a bad list is it? These are all people I am in contact with in high frequency - at least once a month.

I am also starting to feel an affinity with many here on SF, which is also exceedingly pleasing!

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So, Stella, your bravado hides a shy interior, and that self-revelatory comment is as surprising to me as it will be charming and helpful to others, I think. We have to let the chips fall where they may. Not much sense in trying to push life around. And life is always liable to surprise us with unexpected gifts, just when we thought the goody-bag was empty.

I’m beginning to mimic Marje Proops, anyone remember her? :thinking::upside_down_face:

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My secret is out… :upside_down_face: and, yes, I do remember Marje Proops… big glasses and a smart cigarette holder… always gave sound advice, though not always what the person wanted to hear… :rofl::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I am really wondering ifI should try to understand my oldest friend - i.e. myself!

I don’t think any of us can really see how others see us. Everything gets filtered through our own often biased self-perception - maybe the safest place to be?

For instance, I KNOW I am witty, handsome, charming, good-humoured, caring, considerate, fairminded, etc.

I really don’t understand why others don’t see this! Pillocks!

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