It's something that has happened to all of us. You're sitting in your living room or standing in your kitchen and you're thinking to yourself, "I wonder what so-and-so is up to these days?" Life is busy, and it's easy to lose touch with pals when things are going well. And before you realize it, the years have passed! However, the good news is that you have an abundance of resources at your disposal to locate and reconnect with former pals. You may easily get in touch with them and revive your friendship, whether it's to bury the hatchet or simply because you miss them.
Finding Your Old Friends
1. Look for old pals on social media to see whether they're still there. To see what comes up when you type their name into the search box of a social networking site, go here. Using the search results, look for your buddy and make a mental match with their profile image to make sure it's really them. Find out whether they're friends with them if you have shared acquaintances since this can assist you in narrowing down your search.
Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook are all excellent tools for finding someone, especially if you have mutual friends with them.
In addition, LinkedIn may be a valuable resource. Some people may not be active on social media, but they may still have a professional profile on LinkedIn that you may use to locate them if you know where to look.
You should browse through their profile on social media if you do manage to locate them online before reaching out. If they've lost someone during the pandemic, for example, how you contact them may be affected.
2. Using a search engine, look for their name. To check what comes up when you search for your friend's name on Google, do a basic search for their name. Perhaps you will come across a social media account, a business profile, a website, or perhaps a news item or something that makes reference to them. Using the information from the survey might assist you in tracking down your buddy.
Suppose your buddy was interviewed about their business in Scottsdale, Arizona. You may use that information to determine where they are located.
Keep trying if you don't succeed in finding them after a thorough search. Others do not maintain a significant internet presence.
Searching for them should be done using many different search engines. Searching on Google, Bing, or Yahoo may provide different results.
3. Ask mutual friends or family members for their contact information. If you have any mutual friends, reach out to them to see if they have any information on your friend's whereabouts or if they have a phone number, email address, or other means of contacting them. Try contacting any of their family members with who you are acquainted to see if they can assist you as well.
For example, if you know their parents' home phone number, you may try calling them. Perhaps they are still using the same phone number, and you will be able to locate your buddy this way.
4. Check out the websites of alumni associations. If you and your friend went to high school or college together, it's possible that they gave their contact information to the alumni organization for your school. Look up your acquaintance on their website to check if there is a phone number or mailing address listed for him or her there.
Give them a call to see if they can guide you in the right way if they aren't mentioned on the site or if your alumni association doesn't have a website. If they don't have a website, try calling them to see if they can point you in the right direction.
5. Make use of a people-finding website. When looking for someone, people search websites make use of public data and information such as a person's name, age, address, and phone number in order to assist you in your search. Lookup a person's search on the internet and create an account or register with the company to take advantage of their services. See what results come up when you search for your buddy on their website to see if there are any that you can utilize to assist in locating them.
Sites such as intelius.com and peoplefinders.com demand a fee to utilize their services, but they may prove to be valuable resources in your quest for a partner.
Some websites, such as pipl.com, wink.com, and zabasearch.com, are completely free, although their search results may be limited.
Military.com's free "Buddy Finder" tool, which contains service records that can assist you in locating your friend if you served in the military together, is a valuable resource.
6. Send an email to your buddy to see if you can get in touch with them. If it's been a long time since you've communicated with them, or if you don't want to come out as overly aggressive, send them an email instead. A simple but pleasant message encouraging people to interact with you may be typed out on a computer. Make sure to provide contact information so that they can get in touch with you, or offer them the opportunity to respond through email.
In this case, you could write something along the lines of "Hi Chris! It's been a while since we've seen each other. The other day, I had a fleeting thought of you and I wanted to reach out to you. Please let me know if you would want to talk and catch up at some point."
If you and your buddy have had a disagreement, sending an email can be a convenient and private method to send them a message that allows them the option to react or not.
Be patient as you wait for a response, and avoid sending numerous messages in succession if at all possible.
Sometimes all you have is an email address to go on, so give it a go! It could be worth it!
