I am not sure where I originally heard this little tid bit, and I am not going to claim it as my own. The friend hack that has best worked for me over recent years is:
Whenever you have a thought about someone, such as a memory, laugh or random admiration, you should immediately text them and tell them.
Now it might feel weird to text your old buddy out of the blue and only say “I admire you”. If I got that specific text I may just think this person is crazy and maybe there is a reason we drifted apart.
However, if you take this and elaborate a bit more, you can make someone’s day and possibly a meaningful re-connection.
So something more along the lines of “Hey Jimmy! Hope you are well. I just came across this photo, and just wanted you to know I thinking about you. Miss you man.”
Now Jimmy is thinking about that fun time you had together 10 years ago and how much of a bummer it is that you have drifted apart. At a minimum, he is going to say “Great to hear from you! What a good memory. I hope you are well.”
And if not, so be it. You tried.
In this modern world, where we are so “connected” through social media or other means, we forget about people. We stop connecting because we see their update in our feed or we just get busy. As this happens, we don’t really notice because we can see Jimmy’s posts, and answer his notification announcing his birthday.
Then 10 years down the road we lift our head up from our phone just to realize we have no one around us.
I sense that many of us are living out this exact situation. I sense that because as a run of the mill guy myself, I lived this. Then I heard the above advice and decided to start intentionally reconnecting.
In fact, I recently had this exact situation play out in my own life after I put this in to practice. Here is a text exchange I had with a long lost buddy from college, who I use to do regular annual skiing trips with.
We hadn’t seen each other since this wedding 2013 (pains me to think it had been 10 years). He took a job straight out of college on the west coast, and I drifted around the country chasing my career and wife to be.
But as one’s photo album does, it showed me a reminder of the past. And with my recently acquired manifesto to reach out no matter what when thinking about someone, I did.
I reconnected a 10 year old tie. One that may have at the time felt like, “why would he want to hear from me. Maybe we drifted apart for a reason.”
Now more than ever, people are craving that long lost connection. Rekindling memories of more fun times, and “when life was easy.”
The first place to find friends and connection, is by reaching out to people from your past. You will be able to rekindle friendships, find business deals, or just close chapters of your life.
So I encourage you to take up this practice:
Whenever you think of someone, or of something you admired about them, drop what ever you are doing and try to make contact.
Be intentional about your relationships, because if not you, then who?