I have a friend who Ive lost touch with.
Prior to that we would see each other once a year. Kept in touch on fb mostly.
They had a rough trot with break down of relationship, kids choosing to live with other parent, they shifted around a bit, some health issues, deleted their Facebook and disappeared.
So recently I found them on Facebook but under a different name. We had a mutual friend, their nephew. We have no other mutual friends on fb wheras when they had their original one with their real name, we had quite a few. So i would assume they have deleted the original one and started a new one with the new name.
They have posted on a community page in the town they are near a few times. They have mentioned a few things that can give away the location of where they are living.. its a remote area and on a particular property.
Now I am actually on my way to a town where we are attending an event. We will be about 30kms away from this person's location.
Would you go there and see if they are home, or even try and reach out to them on fb to see if they'd be up for a visit?
We did not have any issues to cause a breakdown in friendship. I think they just had too much bad things happen and disappeared to get a fresh start or heal.
Knock on a lost friend's door.
Knock on a lost friend's door.
Posted in:
Life Lessons
13 Replies
I'd leave a letter. Tell her you miss her, leave your phone number - then leave it in her court.
Knocking on her door is a bit invasive, especially if she hasn't explicitly given you her address and she seems to have gone to pretty great lengths to break away from the person she used to be.
I know I'd be pretty taken aback of someone I hadn't spoken to in a long time showed up at my door.
I wouldn't just rock up but reach out to see if they would like to catch up. After my break up things got really nasty with my ex and his family, alot of things I was doing on fb got to them and they would twist and turn everything to suit themselves. So I did a massive clean out, I had zero trust in anyone that was mutual friends with my ex or his family so they all went. It is also a very lonely feeling when you are going through such a hard time and you have nobody reach out to you. You have a really good look at who has your back and who doesn't. So yes, reach out but if she's hesitant then it could be her trust of people in general that's taken a hit.
No I wouldn't. They may have some mental health issues and having you show up unexpectedly wouldn't be good. They may have a setback in their recovery. They've gone no contact with everyone for a reason so leave them be.
Showing up at her house without notice is poor form, even under normal circumstances it's the polite thing to do to let someone know you're popping in but this isn't even normal circumstances. You don't know if you'd be welcome, you don't know where she's at mentally/emotionally or how she'd react to your presence.
Send her a message via her new Facebook account. Let her know you'll be in her area and invite her to meet you somewhere local to have a coffee or if she's not up for that tell her she's welcome to message you for a chat.
If you don't hear back, you know exactly where you stand without ambushing her at her door.
I would be horrified if someone just rocked up on my doorstep like this.
Send her a Facebook message, asking how she is, if she doesn’t respond you have your answer. If she does then you can open up a convo that may or may not lead to her wanting to catch up in person.
Message her, do not just rock up after a long time out of contact and after a move and name change, that’s hella intrusive.
Message them on fb or just turn up there and surprise them and tell them how much you missed them.
Have you spoken to their nephew? They clearly have gone to great lengths to hide away and I wouldn't be messaging them or going to their house. Maybe send a message to the nephew just asking if they're OK first
NO
No. They don't want to be found.
I am that friend. Please respect their privacy.
Same, I’ve changed my name and moved and if someone knocked on my door it would trigger a massive anxiety dip and probably a panic attack that would knock me for a good long time.
And that’s not to say she doesn’t want to see you personally - just don’t shock her, go gently as she’s clearly going through something.
I've deliberately stopped posting and responding to comments. Then I started filtering people out. I just found that i was better off on my own and apart from going to work, i am almost disappeared. Once my child turns 18, i am going dark. I just find a lot of people upset me and the remaining don't understand or say my life style choice of wanting to be semi off grid is toxic. It's not like I'm preparing for the apocalypse because we didn't get zombies so COVID was sort of a disappointment. The best thing to come out of COVID is space and the only good thing about getting rid of a social media is that it's no longer filling an emotional void. If people really want to know, they can call me but i am pretty sure that I'll go dark there too and only trust a few people with an emergency source of contact.
That person obviously wanted to leave behind all her past life for a clean slate. Because my ex has controlled my life, used our child and the courts to prevent me from moving forward, it's like i have been held hostage sometimes serving an 18 year term.
Now i don't trust people and anyone who does try to get too close, i run. I'd much rather disappear and not be found, ever.
Same about the feeling that your information is a weapon that can be used against you, so it’s better just having no one know.