To ask you to reconnect with that person you’ve drifted away from?

[officiallybringing]

I’m not talking about people you had a massive falling out with or estranged family members, unless you want to of course. But everyone has that person you used to be close to that you’ve drifted away from. This is your sign to send the message to reconnect. We can discuss the outcome of sending that first message here

Quite.

Why don't you do it first and tell us how it went?

There are some right miserable people on this thread! I would love it if someone I had drifted away from got in touch. So often it’s just a result of circumstances or timing that it happens.

No. I don’t want to.

I’m not miserable at all. I just have no inclination to contact anyone I’ve drifted apart from.

Then why don't YOU get in touch with THEM?! (These old friends from years gone by?!) And leave the rest of us 'miserable,' and 'cold-hearted' people to live our lives in peace, with the people we have in our lives now, who are important to us... Instead of railroading us into contacting some randoms from the past who we don't even know anymore, and will probably think 'WTF?' when they get a message on Facebook from someone they haven't heard from since 2009?!

That’s such a lovely story! So glad you’ve got this friendship back.

It is isn’t it, I didn’t expect this reaction at all. I didn’t realise so many people are this stubborn and transactional about friendship. So glad to hear your story and hope you have a lovely time.

You say its not transactional but come on, surely you would agree that a friendship cannot survive if only one person ever makes any effort? I dont expect all of my relationships to be exactly 50/50 that would be silly but if a relationship is 99% me putting in the effort and they contribute only 1% then its a parasitic relationship, not really a friendship.

As I said before, I am not chasing people who cant be arsed to reply to me, it makes me feel really shit

What's stopping you getting in touch with them?

You still haven’t shared your own stories of reconnection, OP.

Indeed. I reconnected with an old school friend (I'll call her Jane) via Facebook after 40 years (she left school when we were 16, I didn't, neither of us had phones in the house and so didn't keep in touch) and we're still in touch - it's nice.

But someone ('Diane') I'd been really close to at school and for a couple of years beyond got in touch with Jane and asked her to ask me to friend her on facebook. I declined - Diane had cast me off the last time we met (age 20) in favour of her new friend and my memory of that clouds everything.

I got in touch with an old friend, we've now drifted apart again. Our friendship was great when we were at the stage of life when we met, but our lives have changed and apart from old memories we have nothing much in common anymore. Somethings are best left in the past and that can include friends we once had.

Look, if you want to get in touch with someone, do so. There’s no need to wait around hoping or expecting that they will do so instead. Make your apologies and try to make up if you want. But understand that they might not want to, as is their right.

Woah! What an over the top, bonkers, reaction!

An old school friend did reach out a couple of years ago and we have been good friends ever since. It prompted me to get in touch with a couple of other friends and again, we have become good friends again.

Some of us actually like people! They have dropped out of our lives due to kids or work taking over. I don’t think the OP was making an outrageous suggestion and your response is extreme.

Weird OP. Reminds me of motivational sessions we used to have in work back in the day, where we had to contact someone right now! Take action! Discuss what actions we were going to take in future!

I’ve got in touch before with a couple of people that have drifted. Generally you have a nice chat, then just drift again. A couple of people also got in touch with me who I really didn’t want to hear from, so had to nip those in the bud pretty quick.

I agree, some of the reactions on this thread are bizarre. People really seem to want to get aggressive over the suggestion that some people out there may have drifted apart through no fault of either party and that reconnecting is some kind of absurd suggestion. I would hate to live a life where I want to go out there and get so aggressive and threatening over this kind of post and just let rip the most vile behaviour. I really think some of the responders here need to have a good hard look at themselves and when they’re going to sleep tonight ask themselves if they’re proud of how they behaved

OP are you going to send them to bed without supper to think hard about their behaviour?

Your tone is incredibly strange. You are not everyone’s parent or group therapist. And you are yet to share your own reconnection story, which is strange given you were so keen to hear others.

I agree. It looks very much like the OP sees herself as the aggrieved party here.

It’s a little unkind of me to say this, but I wonder whether some of the aggressive reactions suggest that their old friends didn’t so much drift off but left with real reason to do so.

I thought it was a lovely suggestion, OP. As I say, I’ve had it done to me and done it myself. It’s brought a little more joy and connection into my life. Surely a little more joy and connection can only be a good thing. Have a lovely evening.

I actually thought u meant the person you once was?

Exactly. If the OP had said "has anyone reconnected with someone they've drifted from- how did it go?" or "anyone have any advice about how to reconnect with old friends" she would have got an entirely different response.

People are reacting "negatively" as you so put it because your tone comes across as scolding, patronising and is pretty tone deaf to the reasons people may have deliberately "drifted" from others. PP have explained this to you and instead of saying you understand their reasons, you keep wanging on about how sad and negative people are - you've even had a post removed which I presume was more rudeness.

Perhaps next time you want less "negativity" try not to sound like you're giving the rest of us a lecture eh?