Using Online Sources to Find Friends
Look them up using social media. Search for your friend on Facebook or another social networking site. Just type their name into the search feature and see what you come up with. You may have to scroll through quite a few options while you look for your friend. Look at the pictures on each account to figure out if it is your friend or not. If your friend has a very common name (like Sarah Jones), there may be multiple people that show up when you type in his/her name. You'll have to do some more digging to find your friend. Consider typing in the name of the high school that you both attended, or the city that you live in to narrow down the searches. You could also spend some time browsing the friend lists of some of your other high school classmates on Facebook to see find other friends from high school.
Search their name in an online search engine. Sometimes, if you're lucky, simply searching your old friend's name on Google will bring up some surprising links that may help you track down your old friend. Just type in their name in the search box and skim through the results. This might include a professional website with contact information or links to various social media accounts. However, this might be difficult if your friend has a very common name. Try searching for their name along with another identifying term, like the name of your high school.
Use people-finding websites. There are many websites out there that specialize in finding your old high school friends and acquaintances, so try using a few of them in your search. With a bit of luck, this kind of website will help you find your old friend. Websites like this typically search recorded phone book information, court records, criminal records, and other official types of documents to find the person you’re looking for. They will usually provide you with the person’s name, age, city, and a list of some known relatives. Sometimes you can also get phone numbers and addresses, but you may have to pay for this information. Some examples include whitepages.com, peoplefinder.com, or Pipl.
Using Other Methods to Find Friends
Verify your friend’s name. Memories can fade over time, so make sure you double check your friend’s name and any other relevant information before you begin your search. Bring out all of those old high school yearbooks if you can't remember the full names of your friends. When trying to find your high school friends, it's considerably easier if you know both their first and last names. Also, by looking through your yearbooks you might remember another friend that you'd like to get together with sometime.
Ask other people for information. Consult other people who might have known the person and ask if they have any information that might be helpful for you in your search. Ask people you know from high school that you still keep in touch with if they know how to reach your other friend. Perhaps they will know if your friend got married and changed their name, or if your friend moved to another city or works at a certain place. These are all important pieces of information that could help you find your friend. Try asking your parents or other family members if they remember anything else that might help you find your friend from high school.
Use any old information you already have. If your old friend ever gave you their home phone number, their cell phone number, their email address, their home address, etc., consider calling them, emailing them, or going over to their house to see if they'll respond. Although most times your friend will have moved out of the house that they lived in during high school, talk to their parents or the current owners of the home and try to find out where your friend lives now and if they'll give you any updated contact information.
Hire an investigator. If you are desperate to find a friend from high school and none of the other methods have worked, you could consider hiring a private investigator. A trained professional may have better luck tracking someone down for you. This will cost money, so keep that in mind before deciding to go this route.
Reconnecting With High School Friends
Send them a message. If you find your friend on a social media platform, consider sending them a message. This is a very common way to contact a person these days, so don’t feel too shy about it. Remind them who you are (be wary of assuming everyone always remembers you) and tell them that you are interested in catching up some time. But remember that Facebook has a feature that filters out messages from people not on your friends list and sends them to a separate “other messages” folder. It may take a while for your friend to see the message because of this if you don’t add them as a friend first.
Invite them to meet. Tell your old high school friend that you would like to meet up to catch up and see how things are since you both left high school. Invite them to coffee or lunch, or to your home if you feel comfortable with that. If your friend lives too far away to meet up, consider calling them or Skyping with them. Or you can just catch up with some messages or emails back and forth.
Plan a fun event. Consider planning an outing for you and several of your old friends from high school. This could be a fun gathering for all parties involved. Ask some of your other friends from high school if they would like to meet up and then mention it to your old friend once you have found him or her. Making it a group event may also take away some of the pressure when you see your old high school friend for the first time.
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