Have You Ever Renewed a Relationship with a Friend from the Past?

Like the title of this post? Readers of this blog, unlike many others, know that “relationship” is a very big word and is not limited to romantic relationships. So I’m wondering: Have you ever lost touch with a friend, then renewed that friendship somewhere down the road?

It happened to me soon after Singled Out was published. I was giving a talk about the book at the local Santa Barbara Book and Authors Festival and there in the audience was a friend from my graduate school days! She had recently moved back to Santa Barbara, and saw my name in the Festival program. During my first year of grad school, I lived in a dorm (seriously! In my defense, it was a beautiful one) and so did Karen. When she showed up at my talk, we had not seen each other in nearly three decades. Now we’ve picked up where we left off, having dinner, going to movies, and going for long walks, only this time in Santa Barbara, California instead of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

A few days ago, as I was flying back from the workshop I gave to the polygraph examiners, I sat next to a woman who was flying to Santa Barbara to spend some time with a friend from her past. She knew her friend from college, but had lost touch. Then, in one of those weird random events, they ran into each other at a festival (what is it about festivals?) in a completely different state. Now they stay in touch. In fact, my seat-mate (is that a word?) was leaving her daughter and husband behind for a few days, to have some time alone with her friend.

Here’s another reason I’ve been thinking about this topic. Over at Psychology Today, we bloggers have gotten a heads-up that one of the featured topics sometime this week (to be highlighted at the top of the blog page) is “Reunited Love.” I looked at the posts collected there so far (backstage – they are not posted yet) and of course, they are all about old flames. I think it would be great to remind Psych Today readers that there are many varieties of love, and many kinds of valued reunions with people from our past.

In fact, I think that our reunions with friends from the past are likely to be far less fraught than our second go-rounds with old flames. Often with friends, we simply moved away and lost touch. There was no dramatic break-up, no hostilities or recriminations. The friendship can pick up where it left off.

So do you have any stories to share, or any thoughts about the experience of reuniting with a friend? If so, please include in your comment a note about whether I can mention your stories or observations in the post I’m writing on this topic for my Living Single blog, to be included with the highlighted posts on “Reunited Love.”

I so wish your comments would show up immediately, without waiting for me to approve them, but when I last tried that, we got invaded by hoards of spammers. I’ll try to check fairly often so there won’t be too much of a delay.

On another topic, I’ve been posting updates about the Singlism book to the Singlism Facebook page. The latest is a wonderful review from Erin Albert, who is herself an author of a thought-provoking singles-relevant book I reviewed here.