Finding Long Lost Friends

Here are some ways in which you can locate friends that you may have left behind in your pursuit of life:

Mutual Interactions
It is best to get in touch with mutual friends or acquaintances. If that doesn't work out, the best way to locate them would be to try and get in touch with close family because, no matter how much people may lose contact with their friends, they never lose contact with their family members. If your family members knew or know the whereabouts of your friend's family, that would be the best way to figure out. Ask your mutual friends if they are in touch with that person's family.

Work Your Way
If you shared common colleagues or were colleagues at an office some years ago, try asking if other colleagues have kept in touch with him or her. If your previous boss knows the whereabouts of that person, you may have a better chance to know your friend's current location, especially if you were at good terms with your previous boss. However, not all employers are willing to share information, even if you were in their good books.

Let Info Flow
Even if you may not know the exact whereabouts of the person, collect whatever information you get about him or her so as to be able to track them – be it a marriage, the birth of a child, a change in job or a change in the area they may have lived in. Gathering all such information will help you get closer to the person or at least their close family, which would be quite an achievement in itself.

Online
Technology has brought the whole world into the palm of our one hand, making it possible for us to know everything about anything from the comfort of our homes. Online search engines have made it possible for us to even find friends that we lost touch with for years. Conduct an online search for the friend; it may not give you the address or the contact number but may give you other details that you could use.

Social Networking
Social networking sites have made it possible for many people to locate and find the whereabouts of friends that they may not have talked to since they passed out of high school. You could follow suit and try to locate your friends in the same way. MySpace, Facebook, Orkut and so on are regularly used by people – youngsters and older people to locate friends that they may have lost touch with for a long time and have been successful most of the times. Many people are subscribing to such sites to get in touch with old friends, which also signifies that you are not alone in your quest for your long lost friend!