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Sadly, the scene from "Rocky" is correct. They don't remember YOU, they remember the REP. And it works the other way as well. People you remember, you remember the rep unless you were close friends. So poking around in the past usually does you no good. Did you really know the person, or did you just know the reputation? Maybe the person changed, maybe they didn't. If the person was successful, and achieved more than you, would you be jealous? And if the person had fallen on hard times, and was down and out would you feel superior? I tend to agree with other posters. Leave the people in your memory as you knew them, and be content with that.
A stranger can turn into a friend as easily as a friend can turn into a stranger.
People come and go in life.
And so on...
Seriously, the only people in life who you can really count on are your mother, father, spouse, and children, if you're lucky. Nobody else matters that much.
My only serious friend in high school won’t communicate with me. I did track him down to some place in Kansas. Either he’s in trouble with the law, or he’s holding a grudge from the time he visited me in college, 49 years ago(1970).
He stopped by on his way back from a college in Western Pa, and actually asked me if I had any dope(marijuana). I told him that I did(back in the late 60’s everyone I knew smoked and usually had some). Any ways, I reminded him that he needed to drive another 40 minutes and meet his Dad for dinner(his mother had died when he was in grade school), and is he sure that he wants to be stoned for that. He says that her never had any dope he couldn’t deal with.
I guess he never had anything good.
After that, I could never get him to communicate with me again. And it's the same 49 years later.
Back when you could search on facebook for people using variables, I found a bunch of people from my high school class. Almost all of them were part of the IN crowd that I was not part of. I remember their numerous times of excluding me. I don't hold it against them; they and me were just kids and kids do that.
I assumed that as adults they would be adults. Guess what, they were the same. After an initial contact, they went back to the same kinds of behavior with vague insults, and up front ones.
One girl I knew fondly from 7th grade got involved with thespians(PLAYS), and left me in the dust as she became a famous high school actress. I found her 45 year later and tried to start up a conversation. I found that two of her kids and my two kids actually went to the same obscure Quaker college, and my kids knew them. I found that her brother works in a famous Laboratory in downeast Maine, and lives in the same town as me, and that she often visits him.
But she cut me off early, and said that we could never be friends because I was not in her social group because her husband is a college professor. Yeah right! My uncle was a high ranking education dept official; my son was a college professor for awhile, and I could introduce her to a number rather famous people, and 1%ers who’s name everyone in America would recognize.
I didn’t bother; she was the same snob she was in high school.
I wonder what would happen if I contacted the girl who sat next to me in biology class for an entire year in 11th grade. She did because a FAMOUS ACTRESS, married a producer, and lives in a mansion now in Hollywood, CA.
I have never been to a High School reunion. They invited me a couple of times, but I never went. I don't have any fond memories of high school, and I did not see any reason to go. As for other people later in life, some I remember fondly. Others, not so much. And people change. The person you knew is gone, and sometimes it is best to leave them as a memory. As another poster said, do you really want to see what life has done to them? Some people might not want you to see them either.
Back when you could search on facebook for people using variables, I found a bunch of people from my high school class. Almost all of them were part of the IN crowd that I was not part of. I remember their numerous times of excluding me. I don't hold it against them; they and me were just kids and kids do that.
My high school experience was similar, and when I saw them all on Facebook (and all still friends, of course), I was reminded of why I abhorred my high school experience so much, and how I'd love to never see any of those people again (and why I dreamed of blowing that pop stand the entire time I was there {and did, quickly}).
You know the ones that were in your life for a very short period and then drifted away or disappeared? They were really great coworkers, family friends, classmates, etc you wished you could have cultivated a deeper relationship with. Who were they and how did they affect your life? What would you say to them if you could see them again?
The people I care about are in my life already. Those co-workers from past jobs...I still maintain close friendships. If they are no longer in my life, there is a reason for that.
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