Have You Heard From Anyone Surprising Lately?

To everyone who is waiting to hear from a friend and hurting that they haven’t done so – perhaps your friend doesn’t want to burden you with their stuff, and they’re waiting for you to reach out so they can ‘unburden’ without feeling as though they are imposing in your lives. That’s how I’ve been feeling in the last few days. I’ve been in contact with numerous friends over the lockdown period, but my daughter got sick (not COVID thank goodness) a few days ago and life has been hard since then. I would really like to reach out to friends right now but don’t want to burden them with my stuff, unless they genuinely want to know. So I’ve been waiting and waiting to hear from someone, but everyone has gone quiet this week! I finally got in contact with a couple of friends this morning to ask for a Zoom call tomorrow because I just need the sanity of speaking to a friend, but it was hard to reach out because I know that the call is going to involve a lot of me talking about my stuff and I don’t want to burden them with that. I’m looking forward to it so much though!

Just last week a guy I have liked for the past two years reached out… We work in the same industry and bump into each other every few weeks. Despite a couple of heated moments at parties and best made plans we’ve both bailed on plans and then blown hot and cold on each other. We usually iMessage but I am on lockdown abroad so my texts aren’t working, but he reached out on another app for the first time which makes me think he put a little effort into it… I smiled from ear to ear for hours after texting, and am trying to build up the courage to suggest a zoom soon… time will tell!

My ex’s Mom!
Not only did I hear from my ex, who has text me FOUR times during the quarantine asking if I’m okay and then asking for favors and sending me recipes he thinks I might think I like. What!
Our breakup was terrible, he cheated on me with multiple people after we had bought a house together, so I have no desire to ever speak to him.
And then his mom adds to the texts saying she’s worried about me during this time and always wished I was part of the family. So inappropriate. I didn’t respond to any of it.

I think this post is what made me Google my 20+ years ago ex who was really hard to find online- I’d found him on Twitter about 10 years ago. This time I found him on Facebook. We were good friends as well as dated but split and moved away from each other before the internet was a big thing. I don’t want him to think I’m stalking him, so I messaged our mutual friend so she can friend him first!

I studied abroad in high school, 15 years ago. My host family and I keep in touch, but usually email 3-4 times a year, for birthdays and holidays, although I have gone to visit them a few times. My host mom emailed me in early March, and we’ve been exchanging emails every week or two since then.

With my kiddo home from daycare, we have a lot more art. So every week or two, we collect a few pieces and mail them off to someone new. She also loves saying and singing happy birthday, so we now send videos whenever a friend has a birthday. These things I hope we continue to do when life changes later.

Two things happened:

1st- I finally put my foot down to this guy who was clearly just “breadcrumbing” me. Pre-covid, he’s that guy you date, exchange messages with and video call regularly then would just disappear. Then would return again with that “i miss you” text but then would flake the last minute once you agree to see each other. I realized he’s not worth giving my attention to, pandemic or not.

On the other hand, I heard from a guy I used to date last year. We only had few dates but worth remembering. Our first date lasted for 10 hours! It just fizzled out and found out he got back with his ex. I took it lightly because honestly, I’m still head over heels with “breadcrumbing” guy at that time.

Now, second guy reached out to me and found out he just broke up with his ex. I know reader, this could be a potential rebound lol but his consistent good mornings and exchanging of voice messages are the little things that help me get through quarantine. And we already planned on seeing each other hopefully once this quarantine is over. I have no heavy expectations with this one but I really appreciate his role in making my days a little more bright. :)

Yes! I live in NYC (aka the epicenter), so I think for people I know who don’t know any other NYers, I must have come to mind when the pandemic began to explode. The weirdest to reach out was this Australian man I spent a few wild and lustful days and nights with when I was backpacking through Europe six years ago in my 20s. Those days are up there as some of the most fun and carefree of my life, but I hadn’t spoken to or seen him since! He reached out to see if I was okay (and also clearly to flirt). I love the life I’ve grown into since then, but it was a very flattering and enjoyable conversation for much-more-settled-down, pregnant, married 32-year-old me. :-)

Back in December, one of my best friends from college was dealing with a divorce and I didn’t really know how to show up for her. I had my own stuff going on and she lives in a different country and the time difference created a break down in communication, leading to a “friendship breakup” and her declaring that I’d never hear from her again and that we weren’t friends anymore. I asked if we could schedule time talk but she declined. I was so hurt but wanted to give space. I emailed her this week to she if she was okay in this pandemic and she responded and asked how I was too. I don’t know that we’re friends again, or that we’ll talk about December. It was just good to hear from her.

One of my best friends from High School and I had a ‘falling out’ in our early 20’s, over 10 years ago. It wasn’t a fight or anything, we just drifted away and got over each other. At a wedding years ago we spoke and it was nice, but she made it clear she had no interest in a friendship. She haunted my dreams all the time as she had been a good friend for such a long time and I never really understood what happened. She’s a nurse in a moderate sized city and has diabetes and I know her boyfriend is a nurse too. One night I just got over my pride and messaged her and we went back and forth for hours. She told me how much she enjoys seeing pictures of my family, asked that I say hi to my husband for her (whom she’d met maybe twice) and I told her to say hi to her parents for me. We decided when this mess is over we’re going to get together for drinks. It’s easily one of the best things that has come from this mess for me.

I got a text from someone who has ghosted me not once, but twice. This time I didn’t respond, though I considered texting a screenshot of our last conversation where I said I was good with second chances but bad with thirds ?

I’ve lived in London for the past 5 years, and as the years have gone by some friendships from home have waned due to the time and distance. I hadn’t spoken to a friend in 2 years and then saw his sister’s name in an article (she’s an infection disease expert) and I reached out to him and we’ve both been so happy to be talking again, realising how much we had missed our conversations. It’s such a delight to remember how we’ve touched each others lives, and finding each other again.

Not a surprising PERSON, but surprising COMMUNICATION…

Almost a year and a half ago I moved from my home city to another city to do a PhD. Since we’re in the mindset that we’re only here for the duration of the PhD, we’ve tried to maintain relationships back “home” through calls, texting and a few weekend visits a year (it’s only a short flight).

Since everything suddenly went on Zoom due to lockdown – and the state borders closed here in Aus, so we can’t travel – I’ve been connecting with friends and family back home in completely different ways. It never really occurred to me before to video chat or send things in the mail, but we’ve been Zooming while baking, playing games online, streaming free theatre performances at the same time and discussing them. and I’ve received heaps of unexpected care packages or online-ordered gifts. We’ve also reconnected with old friends who moved away from our hometown and we haven’t seen in person for years – suddenly we’ve realised socialising online is an option. I don’t know why we didn’t all interact like this before the lockdown, but I guess the whole thing gave us new ideas. Unexpectedly, friendships have deepened, especially the long-distance ones that “shouldn’t” technically have been affected by lockdown.

Wow, 14 years ago?! That’s wild.
I had a guy I went on 2 dates with months ago text me, then friend me on Snapchat (which I declined) and on House Party, which is a video chat app, so that was SUPER random.

One thing that’s happened for me is that I’ve taken stock of my current circle of aquaintances and noticed that there are a few people I actually really *want* to be friends with, and was for some reason overlooking — maybe because they’re colleagues and it felt awkward to make the leap from working together to having a real connection? It’s not a matter of them having failed to make the friend-grade until COVID-19 changed my perspective, it’s more like I didn’t have the courage or clarity to take those connections a step farther. I’m still a bit unclear on how to move forward, since a couple of them are married men and it always feels a bit socially in appropriate for a single woman to strike up a chumminess with a married man. I wonder if any CoJ readers have any perspective on this…

My husband spent a year in Montana on exchange from Australia when he was in high school. Given that his workplace is so quiet as most people are working from home, there aren’t many people for him to talk to on his breaks, so he’s taken to giving his old friends and host family a video call instead. Usually the timing works out that he’s having a coffee, and they’re in the middle of making dinner – it’s been a fun way for him to connect with people from 20 years ago and thousands of kms away.

One of my college roommates called me out of the blue the first couple weeks of the stay at home order- we follow each other on Facebook and exchange brief messages occasionally but we haven’t talked on the phone or in person in a long long time. She has a 9 month old baby and just moved to a new state after living overseas for almost a decade. She said between the isolation of being a stay at home mom in a new place and coronavirus she was just feeling so lonely and she wanted to connect with old friends. I thought it was so sweet she reached out and we’ve talked on the phone a few times since then and often text. It’s a nice thing about all this- having a moment to consider the people that have touched your life in some way.

I’ve only heard from one guy, someone who once had a crush on me years ago when we were both married to someone else.
As far as someone I want to reach out too….. no exes for sure, only friends! Now I am disappointed that no one else has reached out to me! haha

It’s interesting seeing who I’m talking to! Beyond my family, I’ve been talking much more often with one of my close friends who lives across the country– our relationship’s been slowly rebuilding after conflict a year ago and further back, but it suddenly feels much closer! I’ve also realized how close I’ve gotten with two NYC friends who I’ve kept in good touch with, and somewhat reconnected with a close friend who’s drifted apart. And my high school friend group has checked in several times! But meanwhile my book club, who I’d been hanging out with a lot socially this year, hasn’t been in touch at all. WEIRD!

I’ve had a couple friends reach out who I lost touch with and I have to say, it’s been lovely! But this comment isn’t about them. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit I’m one of those people who have slid into someone’s DMs in some sort of hopeless romantic mid-COVID crisis! A friend posted their wedding photos from months ago and in them were some pictures of a guy I was friends with in college. There had been a moment in those first weeks of our freshman year when we had a sort of spark outside a party one night, but neither of us ever acted on it. I went on to date his friend for a few months, and we lost touch. In a moment of hysteria and weakness, and after much text-screaming with my girlfriends, I sent a message to him.

We hadn’t spoken in maybe 7 years and are both in our mid-20s now. He’s moved countries and we’ve both grown up. We didn’t even have each other on social media! He answered with a hello and I drafted a list of 6 replies ranging from “Haha hope you’re doing well!” to “Sometimes I think about our Sliding Doors parallel universe.” I asked him if he wanted a regular reply or a chaotic reply on a scale from 1 to 7 (Reader, I have no answers as to why I did this. Does your heart ever ask you to do something absolutely absurd and irrational, and once every decade you give in?). 7 would be that I showed him a screenshot of all the replies, but I didn’t tell him this.

He chose 6, and so I told him, “Sometimes I think about our Sliding Doors parallel universe.” And we talked for a bit and had a nice, warm conversation and said our goodbyes. Talking to him had been so easy, so cozy and kind. I moved on, wistfully but surely.

Ten days later, he messaged me. He’d watched Sliding Doors so he’d understand what I was saying. For a couple weeks we just joked back and forth, recommending movies for each other and discussing them now and then. And then the other day, something cracked open. He told me he’d had a crush on me in university but pushed it aside because we were both dating other people. I told him the same. He said he watched Sliding Doors so he’d have an excuse to reach out to me again.

Now we talk into midnight hours, stuck in this strange place of warmth, yearning, and distance. Sometimes I feel so sad thinking about how doomed whatever this friendship is! We’re so physically far from each other, I can’t even imagine when it’d possibly be safe to visit him. But I also think about how I would have gone the rest of my life without speaking to this guy again if we weren’t in this pandemic. It’s all very strange, haha! So I daydream that we’re in the brunette Gwyneth Paltrow timeline, where she and James sort of cross paths throughout the whole movie, never quite being in the right time or place for each other, and then finally meet as the movie ends.

Reading these comments of how much people enjoyed hearing from friends who have lost touch, I’m hereby committing to reach out to somebody in the next few days that I haven’t been in touch with, just to say ‘Hi’ and let them know I’m thinking of them. (I still need to brainstorm who!) Anybody else want to commit to join me? :)

Caroline, yes! I have found myself reaching out via FB to colleagues or old college or high school friends (I’m 45!), and texting random friends in my phone contact list. I think it’s so great that we as humans still feel the need to connect with each other and take care of each other. I get super anxious grocery shopping, but I see the same cashiers and bagging folks I’ve seen for 15+ years at my stores, and it makes me even more thankful for them. People are so important, around us and in our past, even if they are strangers or remote or middle school friends from long ago. :) Thank you, this hit home for me!!

Today my best friend and I were talking about an article on Man Repeller about wanting to feel hot again during quarantine. She feels hot when she looks androgynous. I shared the most hot I ever felt was when learned that the tall, dark, and handsome guy in our friend group had always had a crush on me. I’ve never been so flattered and so not single.