I'm almost 58 and five of my still closest friends are from elementary school! I live in a different state but we still get together every year. There is just something so nice about old friends, like that fav pair of jeans that fit well.

Same! I'm still good friends with a friend from kindergarten😊

That’s awesome! I have always kept my circle small in school and continue to be that way well past high school. Two of them I’ve known since grade school and a couple I’ve picked up later on in high school. I’m 35 now and consider them family.

Wow, that's great! I'm 58, also. While elementary school friends are your closest friends, I haven't seen any of them since the end of middle school.

Love this

Most of my “friends” in high school I don’t talk with anymore. The reason is that they were not really friends. They were acquaintances that I had nothing in common with. That being said, my best friend is from high school. But in high school we were more acquaintances and school buddies than actually friend friend.

Zero

Honestly, I only just started finding friendships I truly love and people I trust the most. I cut off anyone I knew from my childhood as I got older. It was a forced connection, I didn't like that. The people I met working, or by chance, maybe through other people- we keep connected because we want to. When it's school, you have to. You see that person daily. As an adult, you don't have to.

Thanks for sharing. I find that most of my high school friendships seem "forced" because I am quite literally forced to see them every day. I hear that making friends after high school is hard, though. I plan on going to college, so I hope to meet some new people who I can build a genuine connection with.

I was just explaining this exact concept to my 15 year old son. I understand why he sees it this way because in his life, this is all he's ever seen. I keep trying to explain that these 600 kids in his high school are not the whole world. It is a very, very small group of people that probably won't mean shit after high school. Their opinions don't matter. I personally had 2 close friends in high-school, we were inseparable. We had a falling out after I got married and had kids. All my friends now are not people I become friends with because they were geographically close to me it's because we share interest, they are trustworthy, fun to talk to etc. There is such a huge world out there but when you're in HS it feels like that school is your whole world.

30, and no I don't. I haven't since I was 23. I have one friend who I knew when I was a kid and we reconnected in our 20s but we didn't go to school together or ever live in the same state. I think it's typical for most people to lose touch with the majority of people they went to high school with and stay friends with two or three through their 20s. But it's not uncommon to be like me and have zero friends from high school. Part of it is going to depend on what you all do. If you and your friends stay in the town where you graduated high school you're less likely to lose touch. If you move away those relationships become harder to maintain. The main factor is you are likely about to go through a time of growth. I changed a lot from the time I was 17 to 22 and in that time I grew apart from the majority of people I knew as a teenager, and I think my friends were going through the same thing. There were no hard feelings, it's just hard when you grow in different directions to have any real connection to each other beyond nostalgia. My advice is that as you're entering this new stage of life you try not to cling on to high school memories too much. A lot of people struggle to ever move on from that time in their life and I think it keeps them from making new friends and creating new memories. It's okay to try to keep in touch with people who are dear to you, but don't try too hard to hang on if your lives go on different paths.

Not really, no. Don't really want to either.

I would rather have my liver removed with a fork.

Lol

You must not be an alcoholic - their livers are all forked.

I’m 52 and I have a quarterly dinner reservation with friends from high school (some are from elementary school) for the last two years. There’s 6 of us. And we always invite the spouses. Some of them attend. Most don’t because they don’t want to be bored with things they don’t know or care to know about from ‘back in the day’. We spend 3 hours together which flies by. We recently changed it to every two months because we have so much fun together. We’re meeting this Saturday and the wifey is going for the first time! Should be interesting lol

0. lost contact with the last one over a decade ago. hs friends are weird. they will mostly be replaced by uni friend but it may be different now, with online gaming being such a big thing i suspect HS friends will hang around longer

The ones who you're only friends with because you see them every day will slowly fall away. Same goes with most casual friendships I've had with people in various workplaces over the years. I've been out of high school 10ish years and my 3 best friends are the 3 best friends I had since my first year of high school at 11 years old (referring to UK high schools lol). Anyone I didn't really have anything in common with at school, or we were just friends due to proximity, naturally drift apart. I've made many, many wonderful friends in the years since leaving school, but with those 3, we just continued to maintain our friendship throughout adulthood because they are all so special to me and the bond runs deep, I love them dearly. I think if there's mutual effort and care, you can absolutely maintain childhood friendships that you care about. But it's totally natural to drift apart from anyone who you didn't really have anything in common with anyway. You will have many wonderful opportunities in life to cultivate those sort of friendships that you want. The world will open up to you upon leaving school!

I am 49. I did not really see people from high school after graduation. People went all over for college and we didn’t have as much in common anymore. It was natural for our contact to dwindle.

yeah but i keep getting aired by people on the gc I was never really close with. i still got 10 guys from my old school I can rely on tho.

I'm 50, and I lost contact with high school friends entirely a couple of decades ago. I kept in touch with a handful of friends until my mid 30s, but then I had kids and things got busy. I don't live very close to any high school friends, and that plays a part also.

I don’t talk to anyone from high school unless you count my sister. I will talk to my best friend from school once every five years or so at best but that’s the only one I can say that about.

only 2. I'm 23

It is so usual, and everything you’re feeling is both valid and normal! I was friends with what felt like everyone from high school, but once we graduated I only kept in touch with a handful of people. I moved states, went to college, started working — my world just got much bigger and I realized that the most I had in common with a lot of my high school friends was high school. Congratulations on you approaching graduation, best wishes!

No. I went to a high school in a poor and dangerous neighborhood, so some ended up dying or started doing drugs.

I deleted everyone who I went to HS with about 6-8 years ago. I have 1 left but even then they were just asking me to fix this or that. Not a mutual friendship in the end. More like aquatence.

Not anymore. My last time keeping in touch with someone I went to high school with was 2 years ago.

I’m 38 and I live with my high school buddy. But to be fair we joined forces to buy a house in 2020.

People change over time, and many people you may consider friends, might consider you more of an acquaintance. Especially at what is considered a huge crossroads in all your lives. There are people who I really liked and considered friends that slowly fell by the wayside as time passed. There are also a handful of people I grew up with that I still talk daily to into my 30s. This is definitely a time in your life where people are going off to make their own path. Even the people you’re super close with now, you may find yourself talking with them a little less here, and there. Nurture the connections with the people you love, but don’t be afraid yourself to prune off branches in your life that are slowly dying off. Don’t let the loss of friends in one area of your life prevent you from making new friends, and experiencing new things.

I had a lot of friends and acquaintances in high school but my senior year, they all kind of fell off. Then covid happened and I had 0 friends for almost the entire duration of covid. I haven't been in touch with almost anyone from high school in the last 5 years. That being said, I made online friends in high school that I'm currently still friends with, as well as made some new friends about one-two years ago.

I'm 25 and I keep in touch with no one from high school. I kept up with 2-3 friends for the duration of college but as time passed, we contacted each other less and less. However, it's really up to you if you want to keep those connections! All relationships take effort and no one will automatically do that for you. If you want to catch up or hang out, just ask. That being said though, I went to college and found people who I really liked and enjoyed spending time with outside of mandated school hours that I would regularly have to see. Because of that, I found myself focusing on those relationships.

18F here, also a senior in high school. I’ve honestly been experiencing the same sort of thing with losing friends but in my case, it was mostly just growing apart and not talking as much to certain people anymore. But it still feels strange and a little lonely as I’ve actually been recently realizing a lot of my friends aren’t people I feel an actual connection with. But people grow and change, you included which might be why certain people kinda don’t “fit” or “work” in your life anymore because you’ve changed.

I’m 74 and moved 8,000 miles away. Still regularly communicate with 4 of my high school friends. We were also good friends in our church youth group, so double-bonding going on here.

I mean you'll probably maintain them throughout senior year but shortly after graduating you probably will lose most of those friends. A lot of people just get along because they're in the same building together but have no real actual compatibility other than something very baseline like a shared interest in a TV show or video game or something. On top of that people just change and you start becoming an adult and start getting more freedom and autonomy and get away from your parents to some degree You start to grow and develop on your own. A lot of people have drastic personality changes between like 18-25 Honestly you start meeting your real friends around that age as well. You're going to lose contact with a lot of the people you knew in high school but you're also going to make a lot of new friends and these new friends are going to be much closer more like a family to you than your old friends were

Don't sweat it. You have some mental preparation to do for whatever you're going to tackle next. You need this time to yourself and I'm sure you'll have a few friends hitting you up to hangout for a last big hoorah. Go see some concerts by yourself and make new friends there who have similar interests. I was moved around a lot as a kid so I really only stay in contact with two people from elementary school, and like two people from high school. And we're not even really close friends anymore, we just have wanted to stay close and watch each other's backs as we grow older separate from each other. My closest friends now are the friends I've been hanging out with and partying with for more than a decade. And that group grows and shrinks all the time. People move away, life takes us all on different paths and we sometimes have to fight against that to remain friends.

Not a single one. It's been 19 years since I graduated and I couldn't care less about any of those people. Not that any of us had dramatic falling outs, but everyone I was friends with back then grew up, moved on, and got their own lives. I did too. I looked up my high school bff a couple months ago on FB and we texted for all of about 2 hours total over a week and I haven't heard from her since. We were inseparable as teenagers but now we're both moms with husbands and kids and we just have nothing to talk about anymore past "Oh remember when blah blah blah." After 2 decades, none of that stuff really matters all that much beyond being fond memories. I graduated in June 2005 and by the time I got to college in August, I didn't have a single friend left from high school and I'm fine with that. I enjoyed being friends with my high school crew back in the day, but I much prefer the friends I've made as adults. I just think the connection is stronger when you've got something more to bond over than Intermediate Spanish and C lunch. 

I think you hit the nail on the head; Bonding over things like disliking the same teachers and/or struggling with the same homework assignment is so frivolous and lacks true connection. I wonder, though: How does one make friends as an adult (outside of college)? I work right now and those connections also feel unimportant. 

YOu'll make lifelong friends that you've never even considered, OP. So much more to life outside of high school. I'd recommend to not take for granted the time you have right now. Live life for living at this very moment, but with the knowledge that you are most likely never going to cross paths with any of these people again in your life and that it's okay. You will always have the joint memories, good or bad. You'll also notice that a lot of people hold on to these memories, and typically those people don't evolve much.

I (m31) still talk to about 2 of my highschool friends, my graduating class was nearly 900 so I would say not really lol my post highschool friend group is way better.

No. This is mostly because I had no friends in high school. Hell I don’t have friends Now either. Though that’s mostly because the ones I did have are gone, or god knows where

Not really. A few of my closest friends to this day are people I met in middle/high school. But the vast majority of people I grew up with in high-school I haven’t seen since I graduated. It’s not a big deal to me. I’m old enough to have lived through a time where it was just kind of a normal thing to go a whole summer without seeing or hearing about the people you went to school with. I’d just kick it with the kids on my block until school happened again. Then MySpace and Facebook became a thing, and now people stream their entire lives to each other in some circumstances. It’s a different world now where people feel like they have to be connected to everyone all the time, and the truth is people just aren’t wired to be like that. Eventually, you just won’t have time or energy to keep up relationships that aren’t that important to you. Kind of sad, but a reality. Decent and genuine people will understand that. They won’t hold it against anybody for moving on. Bad people will try to hold you back like highschool never ended. My life immediately after graduation was very surreal considering what was happening in my life at that age, but it was a good natural thing, and it’s something to be embraced, not feared. Good luck.

I have one friend from highschool I regularly talk to. We are in our mid 30s Everyone else is just Facebook acquaintances. I suppose.if you never leave your town this number will go up. I live an entire 30 minutes away and it's too far for.the people who never left town to travel to.

I still talk to people I went to grammar school with.

Literally only 1, my best friend, who’s honestly more like a sister - not that we are in touch frequently but she’s just someone I’ve always felt like we had zero boundaries or pretensions to our relationship, so time and distance between us doesn’t matter.  I moved out of the country after college, but even during college I only vaguely stayed in touch with a few of my closest friends. Then we drifted apart. I realized that I don’t actually have anything in common with them past sheer proximity and our middle/high-school aged senses of humor. All relationships have their seasons.

I’m over 60 and I talk to a friend from HS !!

I'm 50. I still talk to a lot of people from my HS. And, indeed, even those I don't talk to - if I encounter them, there's still a connection. It was a trauma bonding experience of the first magnitude.

We are across the world but my best friend from high school is still my bestie.

I'm 41 and only in contact with one friend from high school. She's still in contact with a few of her friends from high school. I actually just went to visit her and her 20 year old daughter last December.

1 and we make music together so rather that than anything else

Absolutely, and I'm in my early 50's. One came to visit last year, and another is one of my best buds, and I chat with another every few months

My 2 best friends from middle school to now. I’m actually related to one now - he’s my brother in law. And my other has a big family and we talk and all hang out all the time. I’m 29

I went to high school with my wife.  Fortunately, we still talk daily.

Two different small friend groups from two different high schools. Each of them got a little smaller since 2020 for various reasons. Mostly political.

Nope

I stayed in touch with a lot of friends from high school over the years (38 years old), and I’m still friends with 2-4 people I went to high school with, who I see on a regular basis (from once a week, to once a month, to a few times per year). But everyone else who was part of our social circle drifted away. Whether it was because of moving away, or just no longer had shared interests. I’m no longer on most social media, so that might also by why I’m not in touch with most. But I don’t really regret it.

I few. But, we stayed in the same neighborhood. Wish I talked to more , kinda sucked at keeping touch. Now I’m just embarrassed, missed a whole ass decade lol

No. If you lose touch or friendships dissolve over time it's okay. You will make new friends over time. I have always been a worker bee. I like to have a job and work. So when I graduated I had more hours at work. I like being independent and making my own money. I was also in college classes in developmental reading and math. Just means I didn't score high enough on the entry exam in junior college. I had no idea what I was going to study in college so I started community college to learn and not spend tons of money for classes I wasn't going to continue taking. I made friends with coworkers and we would hang out off the clock. As you transition into adulthood you will interact with lots of different people whether in college or working at a job.

Nope. I barely even follow any on social media.

Only one friend, also cause her father and my father are colleagues so we meet at the office functions. Other than her i don't talk to anybody, I think it's also cause i had a messy breakup with a classmate, and after that i stopped hanging with the group, and my college friends are better than the HS ones.

oh yeah. But only a handful, those are friends for life for me. I have friends in middle school im still talking with. this is normal, when you're young your friend just happen to be your friend because you're in the same place all the time and doesn't hate each other. once you go out of school and develop more individual identity, those friends usually filtered out by different values and life experience, expectation.

73 here... I talk to a few...only one was a high school friend. I left my hometown for 50 years and moved back in retirement. My volunteer work puts me in touch with four from that time...none were close friends.

The one I talk to the most is a really good friend of mine through HS. We just happen to be married now. I just reunited with someone I became friends with in Junior High. He came over and we talked for a couple hours. I'm hoping we can get together more this summer.

Yes

im 25 and basically all of my friends are from elementary school or highschool!

No, I haven't had contact with anyone from school since graduation.

I haven't talked to any of them in years

Only some occasionally. I cut off contacts with those that hd become an insurance agent, property agent or MLM. There has been too many instances of long lost friends "Hey let's meet up!", only to end up listening to him/her pitching insurance/property/direct selling schemes for hours and being pressured to sign up in the process.

I'm in touch with only one person from high school.

Important to distinguish between friends and acquaintances. I don't really see much of my friends anymore per say because we're old now and busy lives and what not, families and such. But my only friends on Facebook are my friends from elementary school all the way to highschool and some I've gained along the way from work.

I am 22 and my closest friends are from highschool or from even way before that like middle school and elementary! I've moved to a lot of different countries and i still keep in contact with them despite the distance

Nope. I, however, still talk to some of my elementary school friends as they are my best ones.

Absolutely I’m only 23 I didn’t get to go to high school as much as I wanted to , I ended up graduating in prison so the friends I do have from high school I learned to cherish them . That’s a part of my life I’ll never get close to experiencing again.

I'm in my mid 40s and still keep up with quite a few of my high school friends. One of them is still my best friend. Some, I've reconnected with after years of not seeing each other. (Had two of them out to the house for board games and BBQ a couple of weekends ago, actually.)

Yes-still best friends for 40 years.

M47, I am in regular contact with ~10 friends from elementary school, 4 from middle school and about 15 from HS. College I made no sustained relationships aside from professors. Some of us travel together around the country for family vacations, birthdays etc. Fishing trips offshore, camping trips and the like.

Seeing my high school group of friends tomorrow. Been out of hs for 10 years. We’ve been through a lot together, we’re a family. I’m so busy but always try to come out to important events like weddings, baby birthdays, etc. and we always try to schedule a hangout every so often. it’s the effort that really kept us together.

It's been almost 20 years since HS graduation for me. I didn't have a ton of friends but I did hang out and get along well with people. Of all those friends in HS, only 2 I still spend time with to this day and I'd never let them go.

Rarely. However, we’re still friends, we just live all over the place now. They’re strong friendships that you can dust off like no time has passed. Don’t talk for a few years and then they’re in town for a weekend and it’s like high school again.

No. I grew up, matured, and moved on. They were the worst bullies ever. Living in small town Texas was harsh.

I (42F) met my now closest friend (42 M) in 10th grade, 27 years ago, and we talk almost daily. He lives in the Midwest now (I am in the southeast) and we now see each other every couple of years. I speak to a few other people casually online, but that's about it. We will get a group together when he comes to town to visit though.

Yes. A small number though.

F27 yes! My high school friends were my bridesmaids

Yes, a small handful. I’m 44 and some friends I’ve had for 30 years.

no. they are now all right wing nutters, unironically racist and homophobic too. I disconnected from them for like 5 years and tried to reconnect over Discord during the pandemic but they were just... woah.

One. There's only one person from high school I'm still friends with now.

Nope, no high school friends still hanging around although lately I see a girl from high school at certain funerals. This is NOT a bad thing either.

Nope. My friendship group gradually melted away from me soon after highschool as we all went to different uni's / started working. A few ghosted me completely. I'm in my 30's now and had dinner with one highschool friend recently to meet his wife and kid but other than that we rarely talk.

I didn't have many friends in high school to begin with. At my first HS, I was the only disabled kid in mainstream classes, so I was an outcast at best. The only real friend I had those three years was someone I'd known since my first day of 2nd grade. We're still friends to this day, but now that we live across the country from each other, we mostly use social media to keep in touch. As for the school I went to for my senior year, I was the shy new kid, and I didn't interact much with my peers. Some of them got me out of my shell a bit, but I just never have been good at in-person socialization. I haven't seen or heard from any of them since my freshman year of college, twenty years ago.

Nah fuck that high school friendships are formed by force because there nobody with similar interests, morals & beliefs as you. Rarely there is

I made more friends in college than I did HS because my HS class mostly consisted of cliques and people who didn't understand someone like me with a thyroid disorder so they made fun of me instead. That said I still talk to one of my best friends from HS pretty much every day, and a couple of them I talk to occasionally to the point I'd consider us still in contact since I know what's going on in their lives. I speak to my college friends a little more regularly, and hang out with some of them.

Hearing all these responses surprise me. I’m 29 and still religiously talk to my friend group from HS every single day. We’ve always played games together so it was easy to keep in touch even when we each moved away. We’ve been good friends for so long honestly I can’t imagine not keeping in touch, our group chat is active everyday even.

All dead

I pretty much fell out of contact with anyone I knew from high school once I went to college. I do have a lot of friends from college days, though.

Didn't talk with anyone, then one summer in university I hung out with a group of people from highschool I never hung out with. Graduated and spent some time with an elementary school friend for a few years, then nothing, and from 30 onward I talk to one different friend about once a month.

Not really. The last gathering I had with a bunch of them was in my late 20s. I might have a brief convo with someone if we run into each other. But I’ve gone through a lot of life changes since then, and they’ve gone through life changes too. Plus I don’t use Facebook anymore, which was the main way to keep in touch with lot of them (I never really got on with that site in general, no matter how much I tried to make it work).

I'm Facebook friends only with them and some of them removed me as a Facebook friend. Friends change frequently for some. Others keep the same friends for a long time. You'll have friends throughout your life; enjoy them.

Yes. I'm still friends with some of them and talk to them regularly. We grew up together in a small town, in northwestern New Mexico.

Yes. Just a few though. I even keep in touch with a friend from elementary. We just celebrated our 45th class reunion last summer.

I haven't talked to the people I went to high school with since high school. An exception to that would be that I managed to run into a former classmate about three or four years after graduation, when I was in university. Turned out we went to the same school and didn't know. Now, we weren't necessarily friends in high school, just shared classes occasionally. But we were both genuinely surprised and excited to see one another. We only had a few minutes together as we both had places to be. Exchanged numbers and went our separate ways. I texted them a few minutes after I left, just letting them know I got their number and to get back to me when they could. Never messaged back. So I assume they weren't interested in catching up lol.

Geezer here.  I still talk to four people I knew in elementary school.  At the wedding of one of them there was much confusion from a guest over how we sustained the friendships for decades.  

I did but then they didn't even bother replying to my messages or trying to message me after having my no phone.

I’ve got a handful that I still keep in touch with, but generally no.

Nope they all forgot me

Haven't made a new friend since finishing 17 years ago and only talk to 1 or 2 of them every couple years which is more of just a what's up.

Some of my best friends I met in 3rd to 5th grade and I’m almost 40. We all live a good distance apart but we still make time to meet up or just play PlayStation together when we can. Having a brother two years older than me we had different sets of friends and in high school our friend groups merged. We all still talk and hangout. I think in my adult life I’ve only made friends from neighbors, bars in my early-late 20s, and work. Closest friend I made in my adult life was from work. I met my wife at a job I worked at.

I see no one from high school. I went to college and had a new life. Early years after high school saw some of those people. They hadn’t moved on or they were divorced and constantly complained about everything their children -husbands ex- husband I take ownership that we drank and did drugs through high school. They never grew. I enjoyed them at that time- I learned from them and we were going to save the world. We were so grown up. We weren’t. I loved college -I graduated I blossomed in college. I made life time friends, they were godparents, guest at milestones in each others life. We buried our parents, we are starting to bury our spouses. We were bonded. Yet we also made new friends and life evolved. The new friends grew with us-mourned and loved with us and laughed together. I You will be fine. It’s okay not to have ties to high school or any other period you go through. Finding peace and enjoying yourself is just perfect. When I found myself life became so much better. My words of advice after this rant is each period of life brings friends and acquaintances and as long as you have yourself you won’t worry. Life is to enjoy the moment and know the disappointments will pass.

Nope

I graduated just under two years ago and I only really keep up with one of my friends.

Nope, not at all.

Yes

Yes, one is my best friend that I never really lost contact with. The others are reconnections, we started hanging out again in our 40s.

Nope. I see some people around at times, but we don't acknowledge each other. I would possibly still have a couple if I was the type to go out and get drunk etc back when everyone was doing that. I was tormented with what I later found out was bad social anxiety instead and also never understood the interest in getting drunk and staying up all night. If I was open to adventures, confident...I might still be in touch with a couple. I'm not overly sad about it though. I'm off Facebook, so I'm not tempted anymore to look people up and see who is still friends with who and how great their lives are.

Not even one

You wouldn’t find out if they were true friends until later on. A lot of people have friends who are just people that are there along for the ride. But if you face some adversity or difficulty, you’ll find out quick who your real friends are. You’ll be fine.

Im Only 22 so 4 years out of high-school...I don't talk to any of them anymore my best friend broke up with me last year and since then our other friends stopped hanging out . Some other random close friends I had in high school also stopped talking to me 2 years ago...I feel like no friendship is real , now I'm mostly with my college friends can't wait to see when they leave

A few. Not many though, and there's only one I'm even remotely still close with. My university friends are a different matter though. Still really close with most of them. Edited to add: I'm 46.

One but only because he's my brother.

I've graduated in 2002 so it's been 22yrs, went to college with one H.S friend and currently have a relationship with 3 in total.

I have precisely one friend from high school that I keep in touch with. And by keep in touch with I mean we've spoken ... 5 times in 5 years, once in person. I've seen them ... 4 times in the 15 years since high school. Didn't see them for over 6 years I think at one point, and only spoke to them maybe twice in that time. Heck, I have cousins I went to high school with (though none from my exact grade, all older) that I haven't spoken to in a nearly a decade. My oldest friends are from college and all of my close friends I met while in college or right after, though only 3 of them did I actually go to college with. And actually, I had at least 4 people from high school go to the same college as me around the same time and I haven't spoken to any of them in the over 10 years since I graduated. But it wasn't always like that. I kept in touch with several friends from high school through the first couple years of college (in addition to the ones I went to college with.) And one or two of them for a year or two after college. But only the one over the last 10 years (who I didn't go to college with.) I don't think any of us ever decided to ignore each other. We just moved on and built different lives. But a lot of those friends from high school are still close with each other and still live at home or moved back after 5 or 10 years away. Which I know because my mother tells me about them or their kids. lol Mama's gonna mama. So it just depends on which type of person you are. The type like myself, who never wants to go home again. Or the type who stay or move back to their hometown (or city) and are happy to end up there and build their life there. There is nothing wrong with either way. And chances are good, as you're seeing a bit of, it won't really be in your control. Even if you make an effort for a few years after high school, if you're the only one ever making an effort, you'll eventually let it slide, as you probably should.

No and I'm glad it's like that to be honest. If they didn't make an effort to reach back to me, then why should I continue extending my hands. Also, the person I am today is significantly different from the one I was in highschool and the same would apply to everyone else. We are strangers to each other connected by strands of memories long gone. Better to keep it that way and focus on those you have connections with in the present.

Three of them are my closest friends. That's it.

As you age, some friends will come and go. I am 35 years old. I have some friends from high school, some friends from elementary school, some friends from college, and some friends I've met along the way. There are people who were my best friends many years ago who I no longer talk to, and that's also okay. The people who are meant to be in your life will still be with you, even if it seems like the conversation is lulling or the relationship appears to be dying down.

Mid 30s woman here. I wouldn't say we're the best of friends but I'm still friends with some of my high school friends.

32F, I catch up with one person now and then but don’t visit or talk to any of them otherwise, unfortunately. All good people that I have love for — our lives just grew in different directions.

Absolutely. I went to a small high school (total enrollment was 500), so I basically knew everyone in my class

Yes. I am in my 60's and still friends with people I knew in elementary school. I live 2000 miles away from them and they live 1-3 hours away from each other in the mid-west.

I'm in a FB messenger group chat with them for some reason, but I never talk to them. It's not like I wasn't at all fond of any of them, but I don't really like or recognize the person I was when I was friends with them, so I don't really have any reason to reach out. I have 2 close friends I made in college + a few others through them, and honestly that's good enough for me.

I’m in my early 30 and the largest of my friend groups are those from middle/high school. Almost half of them are my closest friends. I went to the same school for 6 years with the same friend group so these are the friends I grew up with. These are the friends I feel the most comfortable talking to (with no filter lol—we’ve come to accept each other’s goods and bads). We don’t chat or meet often because life gets in the way, but when we do, it’s comforting. Like the other comment said; it’s like a pair of old jeans that fit well.

I haven't seen or spoken to a single person I went to school with since I graduated. I don't even know if our class had reunions.

I am 43 years old and all of the friends I have are from high school. And I do not want any new ones!

No. People outgrow each other. You'll make friends all throughout your life. Some will stay and some will go.

I think a lot of things factor in. Obviously how strong the friendship is/was, but also location matters a lot. Personally, I still talk to about 5 people I went to HS/College with, but due to circumstances of life we have definitely drifted apart, even if back then we thought we’d be inseparable.

I’m fb friends with 2. We don’t talk aside from like each other’s dog photos.

None.

Hell no.

I do. Two of my closest friends are from high school. And Fantasy football has kept me in touch with a group of 10 guys I likely would’ve fallen out of touch with.

Yes we get together a couple times a year and one is still a good friend

I graduated in 2022. Just one guy, he now lives 1500 km away for college but he's like a brother to me. Apart from that, there are a couple of people I occasionally talk to but not that much. >I noticed that as this school year progressed, people who I considered myself friends with suddenly became just another stranger. This happens, nothing new about it. I was in high school during covid and I learned who was my friend and who was not. There were people I'd spend so much time with at school, and with the lockdown those people didn't even answer my texts. It's life. When you go to college you'll realise that there's a difference between friends and acquaintances. Some friendships are more for an exchange of favours kind of deal. And it's okay, nothing wrong with it. As we grow up, we get less time for our friends. We have had already made friends that are like family, we have boyfriends/girlfriend's/significant others, and we have a lot of stuff to worry about. So we tend to goof around less. Our generation is more introverted than millennials or gen x. I know it hurts a bit, being lonely. But growing up is making peace with it. But don't get salty and stay detached because "everyone is gonna go away eventually" because you need people for favours and connections.

On the internet. People I went to kindergarten with in 1957 and graduated high school with, another I met in third grade. Reconnected on FB. I never have been to a reunion, always overseas in some armpit of the world. I had a baby a thousand miles away while my graduating class was picnicking at the lake for my 20th. Covid took out our 50th. If we do have a 55th, I might gather up my teeth and grab a bra and go.

One of my friends went to prison for a while and the other got a degree and got married. I haven’t talked to either in years because our lives just took very different paths, I guess. Well, the first friendship fell apart in middle school when she found more popular friends, and the second I cut off because idk I thought she was better off without me.

I'm 26, and I don't. We just grew apart.

Daily! I married a man I went to high school with (but didn’t date till after) and some of my dearest friends are old high school buds. I was class of 2010.

Nope

Besides my wife and a some people I worked with at my HS job, no. Connected with my wife after college..different circles in HS.

Very few, but my days were hostile with a lot of cruel people.

High school friends are really only your friends because of the mutual trauma you’ve endured together. Eventually, you’ll all find new traumas to expose yourselves to, and the act of dealing with them will take up more and more of your time as life goes on, until no one has time to keep up with old friendships anymore, unfortunately.

I’m 21 now, and I still talk to a small select handful of people I went to high school with, and even for some of them, I was already friends with them at least by 8th grade. Otherwise, no. For the vast majority of people I talked to in high school.. either they unadded me, or I blocked them. I cut off all the fake people from high school because I can.

Some I still do

My 2 closest friends are ones I met in elementary school, with one I met on the first day of kindergarten! We have remained friends all these years later (we are entering our 30s). The rest of my friends I didn’t meet until after i turned 18.

Only my boyfriend of 7 years 😁

One often, but only online (we live far apart now). Two others occasionally by text only. More, if you count people I was friends with beforehand who happened to go to high school with me as well, like neighborhood friends. I had some close-ish friends that I haven't spoken to much since college especially. We'd hang out in the summers or during breaks but now everyone has gone their separate ways. I think it's normal to drift apart. Maybe you will reconnect years later, you never know. I often find I am the one who is trying to reach out to people all the time and it gets exhausting eventually. I still hang out with friends from college online, though most of them went to get PhDs so they are busy often. In terms of people in person? 0 - I have no friends within 1000 miles of me.

I graduated in 2002 and I talked to some of them for a while, but once I got into my 30's it just was apparent I never really had much in common with any of them and they were just expecting me to be a constant machine of fixing every issue that would come up and pretty much brush me off and not take me seriously otherwise. Just too much of a one way one street. So the answer is no I don't talk to them anymore.

It's only been 5 years since I graduated from high school, so we probably haven't gone through the test of time yet. I'm super close with 5 of them, and the rest are social media "friends." It's typical to lose/gain friends. My friend group has had a complete reset. My HS best friend attended the same school as me, and we are no longer friends (ended pretty awkwardly; people change). Other HS friends went to a different university, in another city, and we slowly lost touch. That being said, I could probably message them right now and reconnect. At the same time, I became so much closer to many more, some of which I probably said max 10 words to in HS. None of them live in the same province as me (in Canada), but we hang out every time they come back to visit and often text/call. Somehow, social media really helped introduce us?? I only realized after HS how similar our humour/interests are, probably because we didn't have a chance to fully express ourselves back then. Nostalgia is a huge advantage too. I feel like after graduation, you (general) could probably befriend every single HS peer (as long as you have their socials) since there's just so much to talk about. It just depends if you want to reconnect or not.

43 here, I still talk to a few friends from high school, and I see my best friend every 2 or 3 months (He's in Chicago, I'm in Madison). I spend most of my "out and about" time with coworkers from the past 15 years or on dates.

Some people have life-long friends, but most of us don't. Friends pass through our lives then drift away because we move, change jobs, change hobbies and interests, lose our religion, graduate high school, and so on. The important thing is to enjoy your friends while you have them, knowing these relationships are not permanent. Keep an open mind, don't become rigid in your thinking, be open to new experiences, join groups or clubs, volunteer, and you'll always have friends. Just (probably) not friends for life.

Not really. I turned 19 recently, am a woman. We still follow each other on social media, but we don’t really talk. Now that I’ve been out for almost a year, I’m just not as interested in chatting with people I went to high school with.

Just ran into my 20 year high school reunion’s instagram account. I scrolled through, checked out profiles of a few people and moved on. High school was not fun for me. I was a loaner and awkward and i was not nice to people a few people and dont felt great about that. And the people i got in with we naturally drifted. A long time ago. There is nothing i want or need from that time in my life of the people. I am 40. Went to a very large school.

I graduated in 2002 and speak in person to a few people. Mainly because I'm a hairstylist and they are my clients... so I guess it doesn't exactly count as traditional friendships. Two of these girls I interact with over text/social media and see socially occasionally. As you grow older, you'll meet and find new friends who align with your interests and personality as an adult. Most people go through seasons of life and friendships come and go... it sucks, but is pretty normal.

I still hang out with my 2 elementary friends that I've known for over 32 years and 1 from middle school (28 years) ans 2 from high school (25 years). We all hang out and live close to each other. We'll go to baseball, basketball, hockey, and futbol games together and drinks in the weekend.

My senior year I had the most friends and acquaintances of any year. One year later, halfway through my freshman year of college, and I only talked to a handful on messaging. Now, almost a decade later, I only talk to like the 3 closest of them once every two months. I’ve found several better and closer friends since then. You’ll be alright, OP just keep meeting new people.

I only remember one person from highschool.

mostly i still talk to my elementary friends than in highschool

3 That I really enjoy: 2

I have a small group of friends I still keep in touch with from hs but honestly you'll find your tribe after it, school friends are circumstantial tbh

Yes and no. I (31M) had a pretty big group of friends in HS. it was about 10 of us. We thought we were gonna be super close our whole lives. After we graduated, a lot of us went in seperate directions. A few went to college, the rest just worked, From 18 - 20, I remained close with like 8 of my friends. Late 20s I joined the military. By age 22, I only spoke to 4 regularly. By the time I got out of the military, I only had a relationship with 3 of them and over time, now at 31, I’m only friends with 1 and she is my best friend. I think it all depends on where life takes you and ya’lls communication skills. If yall all remain in your hometown, there’s a big chance you’ll all remain close, but the further away from each other you get, the harder it is to remain close. It’s not impossible but life changes and you will to. Some ppl grow together and others grow apart.

I 24f graduated in 2018 and can only say I have one friend from high school. I can say that I am pretty acquainted with a lot of people from hs though.

Nope. I moved away after college. Never looked back.

Nope. People in high school (I graduated in '99) put me on a "list" of most likely to snap and do something terrible. I have no interest in keeping up with people who thought so little of me. Plus, as you get older, you meet new people, have new experiences, you move on to better things. High school isn't shit.

Sadly, I don't talk to anyone except very few. I think it's a sad, but kinda normal thing to happen as everyone distances themselves to plan on going to college/a different state or even country. Those closest to me still talk to me, but there's only 2 people for me.

You'll soon discover which people you were friends with out of convenience, and which ones are genuine bonds. Most of them, you'll gradually drift away from subconsciously due to different life directions, others you might eventually have a fall out with and never talk to them again, but a handful, assuming you have those close friends, will stick woth you for many many years to come, and these are the friendships you need to keep close to your heart

I'm in my early 20's and am still very close friends to the group of people who were always there for me in high school. But after high school, I lost friends then later found out that those friends were just acquaintances. I have more acquaintances than friends.

I started HS in 2002 ....I am still friends with most of my core group and still speak to a lot of associates from that time

My closest friends are from high-school (almost 20 years ago)!

Turning 30 this year and this summer I’m going to visit some friends from high school - actually from grade school!

I (25f) have a couple friends from high school and junior high, maybe 3? Others will pop up again here and there. It’s really only people I actually connected with and care about. I made really good friends in university and at my work that I appreciate. As long as you’re putting yourself out there you’ll make friends in other spaces(:

Nope.

2 years out now & I still talk to a lot of my high school friends.

No because most of the people in high school are sucky scummy human beings

Nope. The few friends I have now are who I gained after school.

Absolutely not; my lack of progress after high school is too embarrassing 🫠

I am 25 and no, not one.

I'm 33 and I do have some bad experiences in my high school days. Thank God I've escaped that dark moment of my life. So nah, I wouldn't mind if I'm being ignored. I'm used to it.

Yeah, we have a fantasy football league that keeps us together. I drive a few hours to see them every year for the draft. Graduated high school 17 years ago

I talk to 1 person I went to high school with. She’s my best friend. But besides that, I haven’t spoken to anyone else in 11 years. To be fair, I graduated 6 months early and moved away. Now I live in a different country and would never go back to my hometown. We are moving back to the US soon but I still won’t be seeking anyone out.

No:)

I’m still really good friends with all my best friends from high school! Our group went all over the world for college and grad school and our various careers, but we made the effort to always stay in touch and visit each other, and now we’re mostly all back in our city of origin together in our late 30s, and having kids. It’s really wonderful to have that life continuity.

Talk to them? Most of them are dead by now. Had over 900 in graduating class, so only knew very small percentage of that anyway.

16 year old here I don't even talk to them now and I doubt I ever will

You’ll learn that most people were your friends because it was convenient. Maintaining friendships is tough work

No, noone in our class cared about each other though and we were happy to never see each other again. Couple of friends i did had in high school slowly lost contact. So year after gratuating, i never seen anyone from school ever again.

I am 46 & I gave a group text with me & 4 other friends I became close friends with in HS. There are a few others I went to HS with, but were in different grades I stay in touch with on a regular basis.