Do you stay in touch with any of your grade school friends?

I'm in a different province and have a different last name (married) so I don't think my old school friends would find me on facebook. I've not found any of the girls I used to hang with back in school. Sometimes I wonder how they are doing.
 
yes and no would be my answer. I do keep in regular contact and see two friends but outside of that only superficially on facebook these days. In three years it will be my 20 year high school reunion (god I feel old typing that!) so if something ever happens for that then I might reconnect but who knows really.
 
:D Kimberly, I laughed when you described your 40,000 strong hometown as tiny. My hometown only had about 4,500 - 5,000.

I joined the army straight from school. That's a whole different life, so I lost contact with all my old school friends. When our 10 year high school reunion came around I was too shy to go by myself. My Dad (who was still a teacher there) said my friends asked after me. I had good friends through primary school and high school, but didn't feel the need to keep contact once I moved away. I only keep touch with a few Army friends now too.
 
I have a few neighborhood friends that we follow each other on the socials and comment every now and again but we don't speak outside of that. It's fun to see their families grow, and their lives change over the years, but we lost touch way before adulthood so...
 
I still keep in touch with two of my neighborhood friends. Louise lived next door and I have known her all my life. She married the brother of my first cousin's wife, so I have seen her at family events. But pretty much now we keep in touch via Xmas cards.

My other friend is Cindy. She doesn't do social media, so we email each other. Her family moved into the neighborhood, across the street from us, when I was five. We would stare at each other, too little to be crossing the street by ourselves to make a proper introduction. When we started first grade, we found out that we were in the same class, and we were best friends since then. Cindy and her boyfriend Ed were at our wedding, DH and I were at their wedding. We socialized up until they had a little girl and then life got too busy.

Everyone has moved from our neighborhood, so we don't see each other IRL...
 
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While I grew up in Chicago, I still think 40,000 is big. Currently I live outside of a small but growing town, population was just about 1500 when we moved here. My closest neighbors are birds and squirrels and chipmunks.
 
Yeah, 40,000 is not a small town. My town is around 9,000. Heck, my county only has 45,000 people (in 402 square miles)!

Perception can definitely be different based on personal experiences.
 
I can barely remember grade school let alone keep in contact with anyone. LOL I have some extended family that still live in my hometown and I'm thankful every time we visit that it's a large city so I can avoid all the fake conversations that happen with people I haven't talked to in over 30 years.
 
I guess it seems small since we now live in a city of a couple million. :) They just got a huge new shopping center in 2019 with a Target, Old Navy, Dicks, Pet Smart and Hobby Lobby....The one mall is declining but holding on. JCPenny left, Sears left...It is quiet and quaint. A lot of places still prefer CASH no credit cards. The movie theater didn't take credit cards till just a few years ago. It is a sweet little town but happy I left...not much growth. :)
 
I'm Facebook friends with several but none that I have contact with outside of FB. I grew up in a town of about 10,000 so we went to school from elementary school through high school together. (There were five elementary schools but one middle school, junior high and high school for the entire town.) I went to our 10 year reunion and really enjoyed it. I wanted to go to our twenty year reunion but it wasn't an option. By our 30 year reunion, I realized that my views on life are so different from my childhood friends that I did not want to go.

My sister is the exact opposite. She has a friend from elementary school that they visit each other regularly, they live about 8 hours apart, have done some vacations together and are active parts of each others lives more than 40 years later. I think it's awesome.
 
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Sadly, I haven't stayed in touch with any of my grade school friends that aren't family. I was thinking about some of my friends from high school the other day and hope I can find them on social media. It would be fun to see them again.
 
It's interesting how we all have such different perceptions of what is considered big/small.

My zip code has about 50K people in a 3 mile radius. I went to HS in a rural area with a fraction of that density (only 2,350 people) while living in a town of only 200. Many of my HS friends are still super close knit because they all still live in a quaint community and have known each other since they were babies. In comparison, there are people that live down the block from me that I will never ever cross paths with ... all that is to say, I definitely think circumstances play a big role.

With my kids, there are very few friends that have attended the same elementary, middle and high schools -- and the public high schools all have over 2K students, so many of them don't know each other.
 
HavaDrPepper said:
The only reason I got on FB 14 years ago was to see if I could reconnect with a college friend. I had been in her wedding in 1979 and we wrote letters for a few years but when her DH was stationed overseas (Army), we lost touch. I found her within 24 hours of joining FB. Eventually her DH also joined and I became FB friends with him as well. The 3 of us were in the same classes in college as we had the same major. It was one of those where classes were only offered once a year so you spent all 3 quarters (at that time) with the same people.

Sadly, she passed away a couple days before her 64th birthday following her second bout of breast cancer. Because of jobs, we were never able to physically meet up and that makes me sad. Her DH actually messaged me to let me know the day after she died. He and I still keep in touch.
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I'm sorry you lost your friend, but thankfully, you did reconnect. That's nice that you still keep in touch with her husband, too.
 
bcgal00 said:
I'm in a different province and have a different last name (married) so I don't think my old school friends would find me on facebook. I've not found any of the girls I used to hang with back in school. Sometimes I wonder how they are doing.
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It makes things more difficult when you move.
 
littlekiwi said:
yes and no would be my answer. I do keep in regular contact and see two friends but outside of that only superficially on facebook these days. In three years it will be my 20 year high school reunion (god I feel old typing that!) so if something ever happens for that then I might reconnect but who knows really.
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:D:D you made me laugh re: feeling old.
 
jacinda said:
:D Kimberly, I laughed when you described your 40,000 strong hometown as tiny. My hometown only had about 4,500 - 5,000.

I joined the army straight from school. That's a whole different life, so I lost contact with all my old school friends. When our 10 year high school reunion came around I was too shy to go by myself. My Dad (who was still a teacher there) said my friends asked after me. I had good friends through primary school and high school, but didn't feel the need to keep contact once I moved away. I only keep touch with a few Army friends now too.
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It's all a matter of perception, isn't it? We had about 50,000 in my hometown, yet we considered it "small".

That's so cool that you went into the army! If I had it to do over again, I think I'd do that, too.
 
Kiana said:
I have a few neighborhood friends that we follow each other on the socials and comment every now and again but we don't speak outside of that. It's fun to see their families grow, and their lives change over the years, but we lost touch way before adulthood so...
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I think everybody is so busy now that it's hard to stay in touch other than on FB. At least, we have that.
 
mcurtt said:
I still keep in touch with two of my neighborhood friends. Louise lived next door and I have known her all my life. She married the brother of my first cousin's wife, so I have seen her at family events. But pretty much now we keep in touch via Xmas cards.

My other friend is Cindy. She doesn't do social media, so we email each other. Her family moved into the neighborhood, across the street from us, when I was five. We would stare at each other, too little to be crossing the street by ourselves to make a proper introduction. When we started first grade, we found out that we were in the same class, and we were best friends since then. Cindy and her boyfriend Ed were at our wedding, DH and I were at their wedding. We socialized up until they had a little girl and then life got too busy.

Everyone has moved from our neighborhood, so we don't see each other IRL...
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That's nice that you have 2 friends you've stayed close to - especially since one is in your family now. I'm sure I've seen both of these "girls" in some of your layouts.
 
mcurtt said:
While I grew up in Chicago, I still think 40,000 is big. Currently I live outside of a small but growing town, population was just about 1500 when we moved here. My closest neighbors are birds and squirrels and chipmunks.
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We live out in the country now but there are only small towns around us. They're definitely "country" towns and one, in particular, is fun to go walk around - they still have an old fashioned downtown area with sidewalks.
 
SeattleSheri said:
It's interesting how we all have such different perceptions of what is considered big/small.

My zip code has about 50K people in a 3 mile radius. I went to HS in a rural area with a fraction of that density (only 2,350 people) while living in a town of only 200. Many of my HS friends are still super close knit because they all still live in a quaint community and have known each other since they were babies. In comparison, there are people that live down the block from me that I will never ever cross paths with ... all that is to say, I definitely think circumstances play a big role.

With my kids, there are very few friends that have attended the same elementary, middle and high schools -- and the public high schools all have over 2K students, so many of them don't know each other.
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I'm loving seeing the different perceptions too, Sheri. :)
 
iScrap said:
I can barely remember grade school let alone keep in contact with anyone. LOL I have some extended family that still live in my hometown and I'm thankful every time we visit that it's a large city so I can avoid all the fake conversations that happen with people I haven't talked to in over 30 years.
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:D:D
 
Kimberly27 said:
I guess it seems small since we now live in a city of a couple million. :) They just got a huge new shopping center in 2019 with a Target, Old Navy, Dicks, Pet Smart and Hobby Lobby....The one mall is declining but holding on. JCPenny left, Sears left...It is quiet and quaint. A lot of places still prefer CASH no credit cards. The movie theater didn't take credit cards till just a few years ago. It is a sweet little town but happy I left...not much growth. :)
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WOW! That's a big city! It sounds pretty nice, though.
 
scribler said:
I'm Facebook friends with several but none that I have contact with outside of FB. I grew up in a town of about 10,000 so we went to school from elementary school through high school together. (There were five elementary schools but one middle school, junior high and high school for the entire town.) I went to our 10 year reunion and really enjoyed it. I wanted to go to our twenty year reunion but it wasn't an option. By our 30 year reunion, I realized that my views on life are so different from my childhood friends that I did not want to go.

My sister is the exact opposite. She has a friend from elementary school that they visit each other regularly, they live about 8 hours apart, have done some vacations together and are active parts of each others lives more than 40 years later. I think it's awesome.
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I agree with you about the time span - last time i went back, I didn't really have much in common with anybody. That was the last time. I figure if I want to stay in touch I will, but don't need a reunion to do it.
 
keepscrappin said:
Sadly, I haven't stayed in touch with any of my grade school friends that aren't family. I was thinking about some of my friends from high school the other day and hope I can find them on social media. It would be fun to see them again.
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It really IS fun finding old friends. I've enjoyed finding a few of them.
 
I have four friends from elementary school that I was pretty close with who I still keep in touch with. I met each of them in 4th or 5th grade. One of them I haven't seen in person since my wedding, 24 years ago this month. One of them I am pretty close with, but haven't seen her in person since the summer before my senior year of high school. I don't really know how it happened that we drifted apart around then, but it did. We reunited on Facebook many years later. I had first found her mom on Facebook and we chatted. When I went back home for a visit, I stopped to see her mom. The friend lived in another state by this point. We reconnected not long after and we keep in touch pretty regularly.
 
Sherri Tierney said:
I have four friends from elementary school that I was pretty close with who I still keep in touch with. I met each of them in 4th or 5th grade. One of them I haven't seen in person since my wedding, 24 years ago this month. One of them I am pretty close with, but haven't seen her in person since the summer before my senior year of high school. I don't really know how it happened that we drifted apart around then, but it did. We reunited on Facebook many years later. I had first found her mom on Facebook and we chatted. When I went back home for a visit, I stopped to see her mom. The friend lived in another state by this point. We reconnected not long after and we keep in touch pretty regularly.
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I just love hearing these stories! I agree, we often just drift apart. For me, the drifting apart has come from moving to different states. That's the good thing about Facebook, though - it has united lots of people and many of them have gone on to meet IRL.
 
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