The one where I meet again with old friends

For how often I use them, it's ironic how much I hate social apps. Why? Well, there's nothing social about them anymore. It's just memes and some bragging here and there. Maybe it's just me not wanting to connect? Or maybe I'm not able to do it in the way the apps set me up to do it. Giving a like to a photo doesn't mean "Hey, pretty cool. Where's that and what are you up to?"

Then again, if I received a comment like that I may forget to reply.

Anyways... Lately I've been trying to change. I'm trying to give it a try, harder, and doing my best to get outside of my comfort zone and reach out. The reason for it is simple: I've been giving that advice to some friends and it feels pretty hypocritical not to do it, too. Like a "put your money where your mouth is" kind of deal with myself.

So far, so good

I don't know what I was expecting, to be honest. Well, nah, to be honest I know what I was expecting: I reach out, we chat for a while, conversation dies and we move forward again. A kind of normal exchange for the situation, right? The usual "Hey, let's meet up! It's been a while" with no dates or real commitment that you throw in conversations when meeting someone after not seeing them for a while. "For sure, let's do that", you'll respond and then say goodbye without exchanging contact information.

But no, I got a response that led to us reaching out to the whole group of friends from high school, creating a group chat that was –for the first time in my life– really active and engaging, making reservations for a meet up and actually going to meet after around 15 years of not seeing each other.

In no way was it perfect. It was kind of awkward at first, but things started flowing after chatting for a while and catching up. To my surprise, I remembered way more from high school than I give myself credit for and way, way, more than my old friends. Kudos to me, though, 'cause I've been feeling like my memories are fading and my brain is starting to fail me, but maybe I'm still better than average at remembering stuff. Unsurprisingly, at the same time, high school was the most fun I had in school for me and maybe not so much for them? I don't know. We talked about fun moments and friends from back then, encounters with classmates the last few years, a little bit about our lives now and enjoyed some drinks and food.

After all was said and done, I felt as if I had recovered one of those nuclear friend groups that I missed and didn't notice until that day. The group chat has settled down a little bit, which is to be expected because our friendship lives from past memories and not so much from our current lives, but we're still pushing through and we've been talking about when to meet up next.

On writing about it

The moment I thought I needed to write about the experience, I noticed I really didn't know how to start. I'm a pessimist –way worse, I'm a realist– person and my gut tells me that keeping the group together again will take way more energy and time that I –as a self-declared introvert working hard to be more outgoing– will want to put into. Hell, even if I do my best, nothing guarantees that the rest of them will put in the effort to rekindle our friendship. I think that's okay, though, as I have learned something from this experience.

I digress, so back to the topic... I didn't know what to write, so my first instinct was to look for quotes about meeting old friends again. There's always something to learn from the learnings of others. After looking for a few minutes –even going to page 3 of the Google results– I came across this fascinating quote:

It immediately clicked for me. As obvious as it is, I still forgot: even if we were friends back then, we're not friends right now. We were lucky and things went right for us when we met, but there was always the possibility of it going the other way around. What if we ended up hating each other during dinner? I'd like to think that having a friendship is like they say for bicycles and once you learn you never forget, but that implies that people don't change, which I'm not sure to be true.

There's no word for what you are when you meet up again after 15 years, but I know for sure one thing:

As I got out of my car and walked across the parking lot, my hands were shaking. I was anxious and nervous. I got into the place, asked for the name on the reservation and the host started walking me to the table. As I was behind her, it suddenly hit me. "I'm meeting them again, finally", I thought to myself, and smiled. Holy shit! I started to realize that I'd missed them so much. I wasn't really anxious or nervous anymore, I was so fucking excited.

So, yeah, there may not be a word for us, yet, but I'm looking forward to becoming best friends again. At least I know now, worst case, we will always be old friends and there's nothing wrong with that.

Here's my promise for you: I'll give it my best and I'll see where it takes us. Maybe I'll write about you guys soon again, but I won't leave "until next time" to fate again.