I’ve had a lot of thoughts to blog on since my last — the Beijing Olympics, the underage gymnasts, the election, the Democratic Primary — but I haven’t blogged on any of them. Obviously. Instead, I’ve been thinking about friends and keeping in touch. I quite frankly say that I don’t have any friends. None. And to my knowledge, I don’t. I have acquaintances, I have co-workers, I have relatives…but friends? People whom I would invite over to hang out…or conversely people who invite me over for anything? No. None.
Yet, I ran into an old ex-friend on the internet last week. Maybe it was just this week, I forget. We were close college friends, there was a situation, and we haven’t been friends since the 1990’s. Running into his web persona was… something. I don’t know, not really an epiphany, not that strong or relevant. Not even a sub-epiphany, if such a thing exists. Just a “something.” It kind of brought back the memories of when we were friends, and stayed up all night drinking beer and launching matches across my apartment.
It made me think of all the people I’ve lost touch with — and I suppose this being my 20th year out of high school helped bring it to a head — and I’ve been on a kick lately to catch up with all of those people who I used to know, and have let fade in the rearview mirror for a decade. Or two.
Maybe the pre-cursor to this “something” was the realization that there’s not going to be a 20-year high-school reunion for me. There was a five-year, and I shined it on even though I lived 5 miles away from it. There was a 10-year, and I lived in another state and could’ve gone, but my “I didn’t like those people then” side out-voted my “I wonder what they’re up to” side and I didn’t go. I regret that decision, I should’ve gone.
When I graduated from high school, that was the end of my contact with pretty much my entire class. All the people who I’d spent the last twelve years of my life with, who’d picked on me, who’d laughed at my jokes, who’d asked for the answer to #12 — cut off like flicking a light-switch. There was no “keep in touch” from me, no “give me your number in college” from me. No, my attitude then was 100% “good-bye, good-riddance.” The same holds true with my graduation from community college three years later, and from the university four years after that. I don’t have old college buddies that I keep up with. I just don’t. I guess other people do.
So, I don’t know, “something” has been giving me the urge to find old classmates on Myspace, on Facebook, on Classmates.com. I’m finding some — finding 74 people in the infinity of the internet isn’t really as hard as I thought. I’ve sent out a couple of “what have you been up to” messages but gotten no replies. I can’t say I’m surprised, really. I haven’t ever been a close kind of person, so this reconnecting thing isn’t natural for me. I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the people I’m trying to reconnect with thought I was an asshole 20 years ago and suspect that I’m still one now. I kind of am, actually.
Oh well. I’ll see what falls out of this. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and all that.
