Wow people are harsh here! I think it depends. Agree would be v annoying for old friends to get back in contact just to sell you stuff on MLM. But there are other possibilities why someone might want to revive a friendship.
I have had a number of friendships fall by the wayside somewhat, after a combination of being in an abusive marriage, child custody court issues following my child being abducted by his dad, struggling with bipolar depression postnatally, serious family issues (like my brother collapsing and dying age 37 out of the blue), and a stressful demanding job which I have to keep doing as a single parent to pay the bills... It started out as a combination of not living in the same geographical area as friends due to work and marriage, and got worse as my ex slowly but subtly isolated me from friends (saying we didn’t have the money to go visit my friend for the weekend and I should prioritise my child etc), and I became more ill (including a period of postnatal manic psychosis) leaving me initially embarrassed and struggling to explain to friends why I hadn’t been in touch. Kept thinking things would settle quickly and I’d get back to normal and be able to apologise and explain, and that my friends who are kind understanding people would get it and we’d be close again. 13 years later, I’m unfortunately still struggling with the fallout of the initial problems and also have new ones like my brother’s death and constant court cases, not to mention the endless grind of trying to make ends meet as a single parent and the small matter of working in the NHS during a pandemic. The longer we haven’t been close, the harder it gets to approach reviving a friendship, especially when as you all say, it’s upsetting if someone does this then can’t keep it up and I haven’t felt my life has been free from chaos for long enough for me to trust myself to be able to maintain a revived fragile friendship. But I do really want to and was starting to think about approaching them in the New Year, using the excuse of the pandemic as a reason for wanting to reconnect (it has been terribly lonely and I have realised anew that I don’t have enough friends and really miss my old ones).
There is part of me that thinks it’s not totally one sided, and that some of these friends should have tried harder to stay in touch with me too, especially when they are aware via social media and family and friends about some of the difficulties I’ve faced if not all. There is also added difficulty from being geographically distant from many of them and so perhaps some of the friendship lapsing was not either of our faults but just practical logistics. At the same time, I feel it was definitely me who let things lapse initially and declined invitations etc out of embarrassment and so it’s up to me to do the work of trying to repair the relationship.
Anyway this thread is making me feel I’d best not bother with plans to try to rekindle some of my old friendships! As people just won’t understand or forgive. I won’t blame them for that as I do feel I let them down by allowing my ex to manipulate me into placing less emphasis on our friendships but I genuinely miss my old friends and the pandemic has definitely brought that home to me in a big way and I’m very lonely.
Just to give an alternative viewpoint. There could be genuine well intentioned reasons to want to reconnect. And I wouldn’t say Facebook is a great indicator of how someone’s relationship is going necessarily. At one point my marriage looked picture perfect on Facebook too and I would get comments like “So envious of your perfect marriage” etc. Totally your choice but if this was someone who was a good friend at one point maybe consider giving them the chance to explain and apologise and try to rebuild the friendship. The pandemic may have made them realise that they are terribly lonely and need friends. You don’t have to be one of them if you don’t want to but it doesn’t mean it’s not a well intentioned overture.