Keeping in touch with old friends

[MedicinaeDoctor]

How many of you keep in touch with old and close friends from high school, people you've met during extracurriculars, and so on? How often to do you talk to them and hang out with them?

I've made some pretty solid friendships over the years, but I find myself talking to those who are physically close to me (and perhaps not as emotionally) over friends that I was much closer to in the past. My conversations with old friends usually are a few "catch up" conversations via gchat or fb chat about once every few months. Sometimes, I'll get food or party with them if our schedules coincide and if they're close by.

I know this is normal, but I just wanted to see how most of you handle similar situations. I recognize that we are all busy and can only talk to so many people.

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[CodeBlu]

I talk to like 4 or 5 people from high school.

5-6 from college that I maintain friendships with.

The rest of the people I talk to are co-workers or childhood friends.

 

[SexyDoctor]

Probably never..I see my high school friends when we all congregate back home during the winter/summer time. People I sadly don't see anymore, I don't hang out with again.
Sad but true!

 

[cowme]

You will talk to your high school buddies less when you goto college. You will talk to your college buddies less when you goto med school. You will talk to your med school buddies less if you leave to another city for residency. Any truly important friends you make, you will make time to see on vacations. But it gets much harder to keep regular contact with them.

 

[mauberley]

I stay in touch with quite a few high school and college friends and try to visit them when I can, though I dare say I've drifted apart from a large majority of formerly close/good friends. Facebook makes it incredibly easy to at least remain peripherally aware of what's going on with them (when people do post, anyway) and there is a decent conversation kept up through status updates and comments. However, my primary friend circle will always consist of be those I see day-to-day.

 

[whatsupdoc49]

who needs friends anyway

 

[Tapepsi]

Barely anyone in high school and a decent number from college which I'm sure will change once med school starts. I mean let's be honest here friends are people we enjoy spending time with in convenient places at convenient times. Only really close friends are ones that we go out of our way with to make time for.

 

[MedicinaeDoctor]

who needs friends anyway

i can't tell if you're serious..?

 

[NickNaylor]

Friends sorta become like your old "prized" possessions that you keep around because you don't want to throw them away. Eventually it doesn't become feasible and you can't keep them around. I'd say I actually only stay in touch with a handful of high school friends regularly.

Why this wasn't posted in the lounge, I don't know.

 

[Onres]

You will talk to your high school buddies less when you goto college. You will talk to your college buddies less when you goto med school. You will talk to your med school buddies less if you leave to another city for residency. Any truly important friends you make, you will make time to see on vacations. But it gets much harder to keep regular contact with them.

That's depressing.

 

[tman5890]

How many of you keep in touch with old and close friends from high school, people you've met during extracurriculars, and so on? How often to do you talk to them and hang out with them?

I've made some pretty solid friendships over the years, but I find myself talking to those who are physically close to me (and perhaps not as emotionally) over friends that I was much closer to in the past. My conversations with old friends usually are a few "catch up" conversations via gchat or fb chat about once every few months. Sometimes, I'll get food or party with them if our schedules coincide and if they're close by.

I know this is normal, but I just wanted to see how most of you handle similar situations. I recognize that we are all busy and can only talk to so many people.

I've had the same thing happen to me. Haven't found a way around it.

 

[Doc of the Walk]

Lucky for me, I live in a big college town, so most of my close friends went to the college along with me

 

[TheMightySmiter]

If someone isn't important enough for you to keep in contact with when you move/start college/start med school, they probably weren't that close a friend anyway. I am only in contact with one friend from high school, but she was my best friend then and is honestly the only person from HS I really care to maintain a relationship with. There are about five or six people from college that I keep in contact with, because they were some of my best friends and I don't want to lose that. There aren't many people that I didn't keep in touch with but wish I had.

 

[two thirty]

I'm a junior in college, and only regularly talk to two of my high school friends. I'd still call one my best friend and try to see him whenever I can.

I don't know what post-college life is like, but there are several people I'm sure I'll talk to regularly when I'm in dental school. I'm friendly with a ton of people here though, and I'm sure I probably won't speak to 90% of them after I graduate.

 

[NightGod]

Twenty years out from high school, I have two friends I regularly keep in contact with from those days. One lives only a few miles away and I see almost daily-we hit the gym together, hang out some weekends, go a yearly guy's vacation with another friend of ours and I still call him my best friend. Another I see a few times a year, even less now that he and his wife finally had a baby. There's maybe another dozen I'm "Facebook close" with. Beyond those, everyone I'm friends with I've met in the last 10 years or so, the rest have drifted in and out of my life.

 

[ywlke]

i can't tell if you're serious..?

The sad thing is, even if he/she isn't serious, there are people in this world that do believe that seriously...I pity them.