Long time, no see. Tales of Re-acquaintance

TankHammer

With all the talk of relationships up ins lately it's been making me dizzy. But let's talk about the non-romantic, non-carnal relationships for a bit.

Two days ago I got an instant message from someone I had not heard from in 3 years time. This guy lives in Arkansas and we became internet friends when I was in middle school and the net was young. We met on an internet message board about pokemon and other such interests and really seemed to get along. He was a good social outlet for my awkward young teen years and would share our absurdest humor, stories about life and all that rubbish.

So I haven't heard from this guy since the last spontaneous "Hey, how's things been going!?" talk we had early in college. The last time I was in regular contact with him I was in high school and was dealing with a lot of social issues stemming from virtually all of my friends going to another school and essentially ditching me. For a time, though we had never met, you could say I considered him my best friend.
He asked me how I was, asked about college and if I had graduated, I let him know that I still had to make up a few points in my GPA but I'd served my 4 years dutifully. I find he's graduated community college and works with computers. That's cool. The topic shifts to my life, which leads to my girlfriend. I talk about her at length as I often find myself doing. I halt myself and ask what his status is with the opposite sex. He doesn't have a girlfriend. It turns out he's never had a girlfriend. He's 21 years old. He's more than halfway to the 40-Year-Old Virgin. I throw some pointers out but he seems disinterested like he's given up on women.

This hurts me because I used to be that guy, but I used college as a medium to break out of my shell. Josh hadn't done that. It kind of depressed me. It's one of a few things we talked about that made me realize how much happier I am now than I was just a few years ago and how sad I feel for him still being the same guy roughly that I talked to in my awkward years.

I've had a theme of reunion this year and in some cases it seems people have been in stasis over the last 4+ years, others it turns out grew up so much faster when I wasn't looking. It's been a surreal experience. I've got this dread in the back of my brain that I'm going to run into that ex-girlfriend from freshman year of high school but I would hope she's dropped her obsession after 8 years.

So reunions, re-acquaintances, catching up on old times. How about that huh?

Jimbo the Impressive

Basically, once I fall out of contact with somebody, I never see them again. I don't know why.

dush

one time i didn't jerk off for a week

then i jerked off

how's that

Stale

I ran into a couple people I hadn't seen for the better part of a decade. It was kind of awkward as we are totally different people now, then before.

Larlar

Jimbo the Impressive wrote:

Basically, once I fall out of contact with somebody, I never see them again. I don't know why.

Because you're a cold, unfeeling pigeon.

Jimbo the Impressive

Larlar wrote:

Jimbo the Impressive wrote:

Basically, once I fall out of contact with somebody, I never see them again. I don't know why.

Because you're a cold, unfeeling pigeon.

I was thinking it's probably because I basically don't leave the house any more than I have to and thus minimize the chances of meeting such people. That would explain it, too, though. But yeah, anybody whose friendship I really want to keep I get things like AIM address and stay in contact online and over the phone and make a point of IMing or emailing them once a week or so. More often than that, usually.

Callius

There is a person that has fallen out of my life that I wish would enter again, but I'm somewhat glad she hasn't.

Air

at the start of my second year of uni i saw this guy from my high school and we talked for like 20 minutes or so and he told me how he went to a different uni for first year and had just switched over to my one


and the whole time i was thinking 'what the hell is your name'

mrpaku

Callius wrote:

There is a person that has fallen out of my life that I wish would enter again, but I'm somewhat glad she hasn't.

i have five of these right now at this point in time

JohnHam

come on kantankeris why do you bring up my issues in a forum come on

i traded you my charizard

lostwords

When I worked at the mall during my college summers, I would always run into people from high school. Dudes I had barely one conversation with during high school all wanting to talk for hours about their boring ass lives. Usually, after the first five minutes, I would just say "uhh, thats nice, gotta go poo" and make my escape, never looking back.

Don't look back in anger.

I heard you say

Callius

mrpaku wrote:

Callius wrote:

There is a person that has fallen out of my life that I wish would enter again, but I'm somewhat glad she hasn't.

i have five of these right now at this point in time

Yeah well, y'know. It happens.

Still, I'm glad I didn't bone her.

Zephos

i hate it when people i didnt like in high school come when i visit home.


"HEY MAN WHATS UP, HOWS IT GOING, I HEAR YOU ARE IN CHICAGO NOW?"


yes, i see you are still working at taco bell, awesome, please dont fart on my gordita, goodbye.

mrpaku

hey i'm the same exact dude i was in high school

wanna come over and get shitfaced sometime and pretend like we used to hang out

Zephos

the worst actually is my ex-girlfriends little sister.

my ex, whom i dated for 2 and a half years or something, a few years after we broke up, she died in a car accident after some drunk fucking idiot clipped her and killed a few more people too.

we weren't terribly close at the time it happened, but i had finally called her after so long not too long before it happened to try and make things right. (nasty breakup)

at any rate, her little sister (and her cousin for that matter), figure i was pretty much the best time in her life and always thought that we would get back together, so her little sister has this sort of weird attachment to me.

its just terribly terribly awkward to see her, because she wants to hang out and stuff, i'm 22 and she's 16 or 17 now.

/grouphug or whatever.

venting a little

suttbecks

I found jesus recently

trentsteel

There are message boards where people talk about Pokemon? That aren't little kids?

Jennifer

Callius wrote:

There is a person that has fallen out of my life that I wish would enter again, but I'm somewhat glad she hasn't.

that is really fuckin cryptic man. really cryptic.

redimpulse

Most people I've known or cared about are at least 500 miles away.

I doubt I'll see them again. And this is okay.

TankHammer

trentsteel wrote:

There are message boards where people talk about Pokemon? That aren't little kids?

There are. But that wasn't where I met him. As you can tell by reading the post, I was a little kid at the time. I was all about some Pokemon back in the day. Game was more fun than a motherfucker.
Basically this forum I was on was as much about Pokemon as SE++ is about Penny-Arcade.

Jennifer

I have friends all over the world. I will go a long time and not converse with them and then out of the blue I will.

Most freinds I keep in regular contact with.

naporeon

Jennifer wrote:

Callius wrote:

There is a person that has fallen out of my life that I wish would enter again, but I'm somewhat glad she hasn't.

that is really fuckin cryptic man. really cryptic.

Sure. If by "cryptic," you mean, "totally goddamn universal."

trentsteel

Kantankeris wrote:

trentsteel wrote:

There are message boards where people talk about Pokemon? That aren't little kids?

There are. But that wasn't where I met him. As you can tell by reading the post, I was a little kid at the time. I was all about some Pokemon back in the day. Game was more fun than a motherfucker.
Basically this forum I was on was as much about Pokemon as SE++ is about Penny-Arcade.

Well, all right then

taoistlumberjak

Here's a good example of this
I was working this helpdesk for Siemens. I hated my job.

There was a job opening at the high school I graduated from (7[!] years ago), for a PC tech.
I applied.
I got an interview.
I got the job.

Now I see all of my former teachers, and I'm just now starting to not be weirded out by that.

However, my job is so awesome and rad that I can get over the weirdness.

Quadrophenia

Usually if I lose contact with someone, I don't really care if I ever talk to them again and I actually prefer not to. If I lose contact with someone, it's usually becuase I've lost interest in them. Of course there are exceptions to this but it's mostly that I just don't really care enough to talk to the person.

Callius

naporeon wrote:

Jennifer wrote:

Callius wrote:

There is a person that has fallen out of my life that I wish would enter again, but I'm somewhat glad she hasn't.

that is really fuckin cryptic man. really cryptic.

Sure. If by "cryptic," you mean, "totally goddamn universal."

Yeah, it happens. It was intense, but it happens.

I feel bad about the last bit of it, I really due, as I'd love to have her in my life again. But, you know, that kind of intensity really disrupts your every-day life.

Hunter

I remember when Cal used to send me random pictures of titties as pm's. It was like a random treat during my day. A treat of bewbs.

mrpaku

due?

Callius

Hunter wrote:

I remember when Cal used to send me random pictures of titties as pm's. It was like a random treat during my day. A treat of bewbs.

I don't recall that, since I have a day-job that won't allow tits.

It's a travesty, and I've fought the system as far as it will bend... so far I've only gotten J-Idol pictures.

Hunter

Callius wrote:

Hunter wrote:

I remember when Cal used to send me random pictures of titties as pm's. It was like a random treat during my day. A treat of bewbs.

I don't recall that, since I have a day-job that won't allow tits.

It's a travesty, and I've fought the system as far as it will bend... so far I've only gotten J-Idol pictures.

You only did it once or twice. It was just a good memory and I haven't seen titties in over 10 hours so my focus is shifting.

Callius

Hunter wrote:

Callius wrote:

Hunter wrote:

I remember when Cal used to send me random pictures of titties as pm's. It was like a random treat during my day. A treat of bewbs.

I don't recall that, since I have a day-job that won't allow tits.

It's a travesty, and I've fought the system as far as it will bend... so far I've only gotten J-Idol pictures.

You only did it once or twice. It was just a good memory and I haven't seen titties in over 10 hours so my focus is shifting.

Funny story: My desktop at home is a Met-Art picture of glorious proportions.

Natasha's mom had to use my computer the other day for something. Natasha had to frantically rush to the computer before her and throw up a browser window before she was assaulted with ta-tas.

Monkeybomb

My old college roommate was definitely the best friend I'd ever had, and still is up to this point 6 years later. We've stayed in somewhat tenuous contact (I'm very bad at this) and he just recently touched base after about a 6 month silence with a short one-line e-mail a few days ago.

I wrote him back all, "Yeah, hey buddy! How you doing? You still with that girl?" etc. He didn't write me back so I tried again with some of the needling humor we used to use on each other, trying to get him riled up. Still nothing.

I think my best friend ever actually doesn't want to talk to me or is dead.

naporeon

Callius wrote:

naporeon wrote:

Jennifer wrote:

Callius wrote:

There is a person that has fallen out of my life that I wish would enter again, but I'm somewhat glad she hasn't.

that is really fuckin cryptic man. really cryptic.

Sure. If by "cryptic," you mean, "totally goddamn universal."

Yeah, it happens. It was intense, but it happens.

I feel bad about the last bit of it, I really due, as I'd love to have her in my life again. But, you know, that kind of intensity really disrupts your every-day life.

Oh man, I wasn't digging at you. I was just saying.

But you know, in my entire life, I can only really think of two people this would be true for.

mrpaku

i had something like that, monkeybomb

my best female friend from my old college called me up after i got single and spent two months calling me almost everyday, catching up, telling me her shit, talking about moving up here so we could hang out more

then i invited her to a halloween party up north, she said she might come, and three phone calls later i still haven't heard from her

what the fuck

Sheri

Since high school, my parents have split up and moved -- Mom to Florida to work for Disney, Dad to a town an hour+ away from where we used to live. So one day last year Mom calls and is like, 'You're never gonna believe who I saw working in MGM.' After many guesses, I finally figure out it's my friend Becky, who was one of my very good friends in high school, and she's doing the Disney college program. I freak out, etc etc, but I'm still in PA at school, so it's not like I can see her. Come summer, I'm either super-busy or have no way of getting anywhere, and so I don't get to see her. This bums me out. A few days before she's supposed to go back home/up to school, I'm in MGM to see this cast musical performance. . . thing. Since it got out after the park closed, we had to leave via the cast exit. As we're walking, I glance up at the person in front of me, an dthe back of her head looks very familiar. I hang up the call I was making and I tap Becky on the shoulder. She glances back, goes, 'Hey,' then does the fastest double-take I've ever seen and fucking squealed. We only got a few minutes to catch up, because she had to run to catch her bus, but it was really cool.

tl;dr - I ran into an old friend at Disney World.

Callius

naporeon wrote:

Callius wrote:

naporeon wrote:

Jennifer wrote:

Callius wrote:

There is a person that has fallen out of my life that I wish would enter again, but I'm somewhat glad she hasn't.

that is really fuckin cryptic man. really cryptic.

Sure. If by "cryptic," you mean, "totally goddamn universal."

Yeah, it happens. It was intense, but it happens.

I feel bad about the last bit of it, I really due, as I'd love to have her in my life again. But, you know, that kind of intensity really disrupts your every-day life.

Oh man, I wasn't digging at you. I was just saying.

But you know, in my entire life, I can only really think of two people this would be true for.

Nah, I took no offense. It's probably one of those universal stories, you know?

Still, it's one that is horribly intense and leaves you with a "oh shit... what just happened?" sort of feeling.

Monkeybomb

mrpaku wrote:

i had something like that, monkeybomb

my best female friend from my old college called me up after i got single and spent two months calling me almost everyday, catching up, telling me her shit, talking about moving up here so we could hang out more

then i invited her to a halloween party up north, she said she might come, and three phone calls later i still haven't heard from her

what the fuck

Seriously.

I think the problem with my friend, or "brah" if you will, is the chick I referenced. She's not exactly 100% committed to their relationship from the sounds of it. As of our last contact, she was still very much interested in hanging out with a lot of other dudes, who she is "just friends" with.

Seems to me that she's always finding excuses to drive dude fucking insane with worry. This is after being in this relationship with my buddy for like 3 years. I've tried gently nudging him in the direction of getting the fuck away from her, but I can't really do anything besides offer support, you know?

lostwords

women :roll: m i rite?

Monkeybomb

Wait, I've got it!

I need to drive over to Massachusetts and bang his girlfriend! That way I can prove that she's bad for him!

It's foolproof!


!

naporeon

Monkeybomb wrote:

Wait, I've got it!

I need to drive over to Massachusetts and bang his girlfriend! That way I can prove that she's bad for him!

It's foolproof!


!

I, for one, can find no flaw in this plan.

mrpaku

rite

i think this was an intentionally malevolent thing since my ex-gf made me stop talking to this girl, so, she got back in contact with me so we could get close again and she could do the same thing to me that i "did" to her

hope she feels vindicated, i guess