How long have you known your freinds?

[Maggot]

The down side of moving around so much is that I have no "lifelong" friends, and in fact the concept is one I struggle with. I can barely remember the names of people I went to various schools with, and I expect they have long since forgotten me. Of the few I remember, I have no idea where they are or even if they are living. One such case, a kid I knew in tenth grade, I looked him up unsuccessfully until I ran across a mutual running buddy who told me he'd been killed a couple years after I left town 25 years ago. Now that I've been in one place a couple decades my friends here have their own childhood friends that they get together with, but it still kind of weirds me out that a person can just run into someone they grew up with, while shopping or going to the store. I just have no frame of reference for it.

On reflection I think it does real damage to my forming longterm friendships now, because I never cultivated the ability to retain people in my memory for longer than a year or so, and now when I actually CAN run into people years later I don't remember them and it pisses them off...

Thats rather insightful, it helps me understand people better.