Maintaining relationships with friends of bygone days

Like many of you, I have lived a relatively fast paced life with many twists and turns. I am a pretty active person so I have met many people of over the years. I do not trust many people for whatever reason, so in each place I have lived I usually become good friends with only 1-2 people. But the problem is I have lived in many places and I find it very hard to keep up with many of my good friends. I feel pretty guilty about it to be honest. I am a busy family man with goals of my own. I was listening to a cheesy 80's song this morning and many memories flooded my mind....of friends of bygone days. It kind of hurts to know that more than likely I will never see them again and that I am so darn busy that it is hard to keep up with their lives.

I am just rambling now. Any of you feel the way I do? And if some of you guys are great at keeping up with old friends, how do you do it? Thanks all.

 

I'm been out of college 5 years now, and it seems each year that passes, my group of friends see each other less and less.

The first year, we would all get together at someone's house for a weekend every month. Everyone would come. Some would fly in, others would drive up to 6 hours. We all made sure we made it to the weekend party. But slowly but surely, we all started getting married (only 1 single left), having babies, building houses and just become too busy with everyday lives. Now we all still try to get together atleast once a year, usually at New Year's or 4th of July or something, but even then, not everyone is able to make it. It's sad, but I guess that's life.

 

Seems like the 3 or 4 that I remained friends with within a few years out of HS, are still around. There's different times of the year that I see others. (hunting season, river lot season, etc) I do sometimes just make random calls to see what some of the old buddies are up to. When ya stop running the bars, ya find out who your real friends are pretty quick.

I've got 1 or two that I know I could call in the middle of the night, tell them I need them asap, and they won't call back to ask why. I feel lucky. Good friends, truly good friends are hard to come by.

 

Hooker, that seems to be what is happening in my life as well. About 10-15 of my friends are going to meet up for the second straight year in Ocean City, MD next month. We are going to make it a tradition....drinking some beers, hanging out with the guys, and watching NCAA basketball.

 

Not trying to brag here but I have an exceptional group of friends in this regard and are truly blessed. Our GFY camp consists of one guy I went to Kinder garden with and two others that I went to middle school with. We have known each other forever. I also still have at least 5 other friends that I went to high school with that don't hunt.

For some reason I never picked up on close college friends. I was there to get in, get my education and get out. Perhaps, having such close friends from High School prevented me from developing strong college friendships.

Here is our group of guys and my closest friends at Grouse Camp.

 

Brad, that is really cool. I am envious.

 

It's just really hard for my group of friends to get together all the time because we all live in different cities. Like really, I don't think there is 2 of us that live in the same city. Most live within 3-4 hours of each other though. But others live all over the world, like Bahrain, London, and Tokyo. That makes it really hard to hang out.

When we graduated, we had these grand plans to buy a remote camp on a lake somewhere together by the time we were 30, but now I think we've pushed that back till about 50, but we still plan to have it one day.

 

I've re-connected with a lot of old friends with facebook.

 

Its still easy for me, given my age and the "facebook" lifestyle. Ill check back in 40 years

 

I hear ya there Brett. It seems though good friends will always be there for each other while others will not. "Good friends" are hard to come by.

 

I keep in touch with some old friends with Facebook. I live with in 30 minutes of all my closest friends but still don't see them all that often. We try to get together for a cookout or a ballgame once a year, though.

 

same prob here too! biggest thing is that so many of my friends are into different things so tough to get us all together or even to meet each other for the first time. most of my friends are just struggling to get by so travel is not really an option. best thing i can do and have done is keep each one of them alive by telling all kinds of stories of each of then, so that maybe one day when we can all meet it'll be like, "hey now a face to go with all the stories i've heard!"

best thing about friends though.... it doesnt matter if i/you talk to them once a day or once a year, they know how i/you feel about them and they will be with me/you until i/you or they die.

shadow.... what was the song???????????

 

close friends like people you hang out with and have over to your homes, or just friends from old highschool days that you have not seen in 5-10 years. big difference to me.

I am 48 years old and three of my close friends passed on in the last few years all sudden death's and my best friend was shot and killed during a break in at his shop just this past forth of july, When you get old enough to look at the obituary's first when opening the newspaper you start to think why ad new or more friends when they are just going to die.

There are lot people i am friendly with but i dont try and have them hunt or hang out with me i guess time will heals all wounds, But close friends or best friends no.

some hang out with at the lake with,some i race boats for 20 years with and some i work some jobs with but i dont know if i can get to the best friend thing again.

 

Without facebook, I wouldn't know what a lot of my college buddies are doing...and many of us live in the same town. Its a population of over 600,000, but still, its not like we are in different states. We are just at different points in our lives. Most of my friends that I see on a regular basis are hunting or fishing buddies. Outside of that, there has to be an effort made to hang out.

 

Yes, I feel the same way you do. I miss that days when a small group of friends (guys and gals) would get together every single weekend, even if it was to just to hang out for a bit. Seems like life pulls us in different directions.

 

All the forms of communication seems to result in less face-to-face meetings. It used to be "lets grab a beer somewhere and catch up." Now, you already know whats going on in their lives through chat, text, and facebook.

 

I agree...and true as ever when they say people are more connected than ever - but that "real" connection has been lost. You cannot beat an actual voice-to-voice or face-to-face...that is really the only true way to understand a person's emotions, and get the "full story."

I'm lucky - never left town for college (and wasn't involved with college life really)...some of my friends I've had since Kindergarten, and the rest since highschool...obviously marriage/kids have slowed us down some - but that common bond of Hunting/Outdoors/Kids is why we still get together so much - and are able to include our families. The ones that have drifted are the ones that I don't have much in common with anymore.

Hooker - keep the dream - I love it!
Brett - family first - you're doing that right!

 

I have a core group of friends, we make it a point to get together at least once a qrt. We have a Golf Trip, Poker Parties and hunting trip we do every year. We also get the wives together for dinner.

I don't see a soul of my friends I had in college. Life got busy, we all married and moved.

 

Times change and so do people. Just because my friends and I don't talk as much as we used to doesn't mean I wouldn't jump in the truck right now and drive 3-4 hours if they called saying they needed a helping hand.

 

Our fast paced lives make it hard. I have 3 close friends from way back. I tell everyone I've known them since they were in diapers... and I have. We managed to stay in touch and close for the past 65 Plus years. Even when we were at opposite ends of the world. When we were all in the states we always tried to get together for a few days of hunting or something. I see one of them every day now that I moved back to NY where they live. We hunt, golf, ice fish, take fishing trips to Canada... whatever. Another of them lives about 2 hours away. He called me last week and said we haven't been together in a month, I'm coming up. He came up for a couple days, drank some beer, ate my venison and told old stories to each other until our sides hurt from laughing. I think our friendship will last. LOL

But, like you, I made some good friends over my lifetime that were very special. Yet, I don't know where many of them are now... but I really don't mind that. It's what it is. Then there are some that I wish it weren't such a chore to go see, distane is a killer. And then I have friends that I kick myself for not picking up the phone more often or at least once and calling.

When I left the service I did not maintain contact with anyone. I never contacted or heard from anyone in the service for 30 years. Then one day out of the blue my old commanding officer in Vietnam found me. I was on a hunting trip with my highschool lifelong friends. He called my wife, they'd never met, and told her it was General Graves and he was looking for me. That phone call lead to a series of reunions and get togethers. Now 42 years after I left them, I have a whole lot of old friends back from my time in Vietnam. We meet, we hug, cry, laugh, tell tales and would do anything for each other. They were ignored for 33 years and now they're as close as my gradeschool friends. I still have to remind one here and there that I'm Dave, not Captain or Lt. Their wifes all call me Dave. LOL