How much contact do people realistically keep with old school friends?

[GirouxSein]

I bumped into someone I was very close to at school and it was friendly but slightly awkward. We did the whole “we should meet up sometime” thing and then nothing really came of it.
It got me thinking about how many people actually stay in touch with school friends long term. I’ve drifted from most of mine and sometimes wonder if that’s normal or if I’ve just let things slide too much.

Two close friends from school. A few others who I’m close to but don’t speak to regularly. My best friend I met as a young child and we’re still best friends now but never went to school together

I keep in touch with one person from school. She was lovely back then and still is. We’re not close but keep each other updated about the big things in our lives. My friends are all from uni and we see a lot of each other and text a lot.

I’ve got a few on Facebook, we moved around a lot, so I went to several schools, so lost touch with a lot. I’ve gradually found people on SM which is nice

None. We moved when I was 7, 11, 16 then I left home to go to university and didn't go back. Still in touch with a few I did further studies with.

1 good friend I still see regularly & another I see now & again, both from high school. My husbands main friendship group to this day is his primary school friends & they are all now in their 40s

I left school 40 years ago. I'm in touch with approximately approximately 30 of the girls who I was in 6th form with on Facebook out of a year group of about 60 girls. I know that 4 of my former classmates have died. I don't have any contact information for the other 26.
I haven't seen any of my own clique from then for about 10 years.

I'm friends with 5 of my secondary school friends. We weren't all in the same form at school but shared a common interest or 2 - live music, getting stoned and drinking cider in the park. We have a WhatsApp and message every week, sometimes daily. We meet up at big birthdays, Christmas, and several times throughout the year. Some of them live closer together and there are sub groups of closer friendships. We are there for each other but all have other very good friendships from other stages of life. I wouldn't say we are all soulmates but always have a great time together with lots of fun. I expect when we are out of the little kid stage we will see each other more (11 kids between us from 12 to 6 month old).

I think we are all quite loyal, sociable people who enjoy having fun and being silly. Our last Christmas party lasted 9 hours and we all rolled home rather worse for wear after playing lots of silly games and drinking cocktails. When I mention this set up to people who ask a lot are surprised. My husband and mother in law for example have no friends from school!

I don't think it's that common these days. I am not in touch with anyone from school. I am only Facebook friends with one person from 6th form and one person from Uni. My husband is in touch with a few friends but we rarely see them. He might exchange texts at Christmas, we took one to the rugby cos we had a spare ticket, if we visit his parents we might arrange to see them at the pub. That's about it.

My older brother still keeps in touch with a few of his schoolfriends. They were at his wedding, around 16 years after leaving school, and his friends from sixth form were the best men. My brother was very much the social butterfly and the cool kid.

I was the weird sibling that he never admitted to having! I got bullied a lot, so was as far from being cool as possible. I'm also an introvert, and I've moved around and rarely go back, so perhaps that's partly why I don't speak to anyone from school. I also hung around with a lot of girls from a stricter culture, who seemed to drop anyone not of their religion after school. Sixth form... I spoke to a couple for a few years after, but that's dried up as they have been in relationships, married, and one has a family. I speak to one person from university and one from college, and that's it, but I'm fine with that.

My best friend has been my best friend since age 8 . We are 59 now .
Not a moment of doubt that she will always be there for me and I will be for her . We are great pals .
we both have lovely husbands and families but are there for each other when we need to be .

I am in touch with a couple of people from when I was in 6th form but none from when I was actually in school. This was before mobile phones, social media etc. I think it’s a lot easier to keep in touch now. I only live a couple of miles from my old school, but even if I did bump into anyone I doubt if I’d recognise them after 40 years.

I have one good friend I've known since I was 1 - 51 years. Most of my other friends come from school. About 10 of them, I've know them all since year 7. We see each other regularly.

I do live in London though and none of us have moved away.

I am 56 and meet one friend once a year plus about 4 phone calls a year. I see another friend every 10 years.

In my 50s, when we meet up it is (strangely) as if no time has passed. I have a handful of people I meet up with several times a year (usually around a continued shared interest) and one friend with whom I am increasingly close. We've known each other 51 years, both going through different life challenges but have reconnected on a very deep level - I believe our past has made this much easier.
Also met up (a few years ago) with a friend from sixth form who I hadn't seen for 30 odd years. After about 15 minutes we had totally reconnected and his wife and my husband are firm friends.
Sometimes I think early connections are the bedrock of our personalities.
I didn't have the greatest time at school. Was bullied and somewhat of a loner... but very little of that seems to matter. I consider myself very lucky.

Early 40s and in regular contact with two. One lives near my parents, and I lived in the same city as the other for a while, which has helped. Occasional contact with a handful of others.

I’m in my 60’s and in regular contact with my best friend from primary school. We found each other through Friends Reunited about 25 years ago and met up for the day, it was like picking up where we left off. I also meet up with a group of friends who I went to junior and senior high school with. It’s amazing to think that we have known each other for over 50 years.

Only through facebook, nothing deep. I maintained friendships with some until 30s when family life was the final nail in trying to socialise across a region. None of us settled in our home town (too bloody expensive).

The last time I saw anyone from school was a few years ago for a funeral. Some of those classmates went back to primary school years. While we'd only been fb friends in the last 20 years, it felt important that such a large chapter of his life was represented and he was a good lad well worth honouring.

My deepest friendships were through a university society.

Neither DH or I have kept contact with any of our school friends, though we still see several uni friends 50 years later.
DS and DD, however still see school friends regularly, and DD married one.

None at all, from either school or uni. I've moved around too much to maintain close friendships, and I've worked the all consuming corporate jobs, so it's not a surprise.

That sounds really reassuring, actually. I think distance and life stage make such a difference, and the years with young kids seem to break a lot of routines.

That sounds like a really lovely balance to be honest. Close enough that the connection is still there, but without it being the only friendship anyone relies on. I think shared history and humour go a long way, especially when life is busy with small kids. It doesn’t surprise me that people are impressed by it though — I think that kind of long-term group friendship is less common than it used to be.

None at all really. Mid-40s here and still live in the same area, although many of the people I went to school with have moved away.

One lives over the other side of the world and last time she was back home, she did look me up which was lovely, and we met up for a coffee. I hadn’t seen her for maybe 15 years. She’s a very outgoing chatty person so there were no awkward silences or anything!

I’m in my 30s and absolutely zero. I’ve lost touch with everyone from school and also university. Those friendships were all superficial and I was a very different person back then / not in a good place mentally.

I have lots of great friends, gained through previous jobs and through hobbies/interests (mainly raves and festivals).

No desire whatsoever to get back in touch with anyone from school, nor has anyone reached out to me.

I stayed in touch with two.

One for 5yrs until she moved away and we lost touch. She never gave me her contact details for the new place and phoned a wrong number and left a message for me at a totally random house, which I obviously never received. She was chaotic and moved often, I called her old house when we lost touch but her family didn't know where she was either. We were best friends all our school days and I still miss her.

We found each other through Facebook after a decade, about 15yrs ago, she'd apparently been looking for me for a while but I wasn't on it. We messaged a bit at first and met up once, when I donated something to a cause she was collecting for, she was still in my area but we never hung out again or swapped numbers.

I moved away shortly after and when she stopped posting life updates on Facebook and just using her page to share lost keys/cats/phones and crimes from her town, I came off Facebook, since at that point she was the only reason I was still on it and I wasn't getting any updates. So now we're not in touch again. I Google her occasionally and it'll sometimes bring up some snippet of news about wherever she's currently working.

The other one, we were friends for over 20yrs. It was a weird friendship. She always included me if there was a group get together with other old school mates, even if she wasn't the one organising it. So in that way she made the effort.

She was a gossip though, our friendship was originally formed by mutual dislike of an incredibly annoying person at our school. We weren't bullies just vented to each other and also found we had other common interests so became friends.

I was going through a tough time in adulthood, she was gossiping about other friends to me including passing on some incredibly personal information about one's tough time and I didn't want her talking about me behind my back in that way. So I distanced from her by not providing information, which wasn't difficult because we'd both moved away from our hometown in our 30s and now live miles apart, but it left our conversations feeling awkward. She wasn't there for me, she'd always been a fairweather friend and it was something I accepted in her, but I wasn't willing to be the subject of gossip.

She took to only calling me when she was bored off work for extended periods anyway, which pissed me off because I felt used. We'd been so close, but I found out about her second pregnancy when she announced it on Facebook. There was a time I'd have been the first person she told, even before doing a test.

I called time on the friendship when she came for an event in the next town over, found time to also drive 40 miles to the coast for a day at the beach, but at no point had thought of catching up with me, her old friend who lived a 20min train ride from where she was staying and would have happily travelled there to meet her for an hour or something, if she was busy. Found out she'd been in my area when she happily told me next time we spoke. I decided I was done, next time I got a new phone I didn't give her the new number, we hadn't spoken in a year anyway. I rarely think of her now.

I never tried to keep contact with any of the others, although I was part of the wider friendship group we weren't close and they weren't in the habit of contacting me outside school.

I've no hard feelings with any of them. It's just life and fate really. People go in different directions. I don't think it's realistic to keep in touch, unless perhaps you all live in your hometown all your life and you're close.

I have 2. We live in different countries but see each other every few years.