It’s natural to fall out of touch with people as you grow up. You’ll part ways when someone’s family moves, when someone goes to a different school than you, or when you graduate. All sorts of reasons exist that explain why you might no longer be in contact with childhood friends.
However, if you’re like most people, you probably think about those old friends sometimes. Trying to get back in touch with a friend you last talked to many years ago can be difficult, but it’s not impossible. Here are some easy things you can do to get closer to that old friend.
Use Social Media to Find Childhood Friends
There’s no denying that social media is a bigger influence on our lives than ever. If you’re looking for someone who grew up with technology, there’s a good chance he or she on one of the popular social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Facebook, the world’s largest social media platform, has over two billion active users, which works out to over a quarter of the world’s population. You can use Facebook as an easy way to collect data for this.
You may be able to find your old friend directly. Or, if that doesn’t work, maybe you’re friends with any other people who would’ve known your lost childhood friend. Look through their friends list. You may be just one person apart and not even realize it.
You can also look through experiences that you shared with your friend, or that you know your friend has taken part in. For example, if you lost touch after high school, you can look up the school on Facebook, and then look through people who’ve stated that they went to that school. Get creative; you never know what you’ll find.
Look for Childhood Friends on Search Engines
Do you remember your friend’s full name, especially nicknames or middle names? If you have a full name for the person you’re looking for, you can look through search results on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and so forth to see if you can find anything.
If you’re fairly young and grew up using the internet, you may want to search for some old usernames you remember him or her having back when you were still in contact. Many people stick with the same usernames across multiple platforms.
The best advice to take away from looking for a childhood friend on search engines is to use search criteria that’s as specific as possible. Do you remember a specific nickname your friends called this person? Try looking up that nickname. What was the name of the town where the two of you met and became friends? Search for a name in combination with the town’s name. Having other associated information you can look up can really help narrow down your results, which can be especially useful if your friend’s name is fairly common.
Try to Find Friends Using a People Search Engine
While using Facebook and Google can be a good start, you may run out of leads. Your friend may not be using the internet at all, or may just have his or her profiles locked down so completely that you’re never going to be able to find them. That’s where a dedicated people search engine can come in useful.
Going this route, you can use the people search to find contact information only using a first and last name (and a city and state, if you know them). Input your friend’s name, then the city and state you knew each other in, and see what comes up! If you have an old phone number for your friend, you may be able to use a reverse phone lookup to get identifying information.
Conclusion
Finding childhood friends can be extremely satisfying. And then being able to catch up and reminisce with someone you never thought you’d see again can be a gratifying and even fun experience. Fortunately, you have a number of options available to try and find someone from your past online. Happy searching!
For more information about ways to find old friends, family, or others from your past, read up on our people search tips on the PeopleFinders blog.
Image attribution: WavebreakmediaMicro – stock.adobe.com
