Reconnect

Reconnecting with old friends is a nerve-wracking process. It’s a gamble on multiple fronts. Staring at that phone number, that empty chat box, that blank email, you’re weighing the pros and cons of exposing your new and true self to someone who knew you at your least developed. Sure, you were more “fun” back then, but you weren’t truly you yet. Your personality as a child was a half-formed homunculus of your favorite Family Guy clips and whatever running bits you and that friend bounced off each other ad nauseam. Still though, through the rose-colored fog of time, they were some of the best parts of your life.

Now though, there’s nuance to you. Fully-formed beliefs and opinions, a developed sense of humor, values that you hold near and dear. Through however much conversation could be had from reaching out on a Thursday evening, you’d have to bare that all to someone you cared for. Cared, past tense. Because now, much the same as you, that friend has lived the same amount of life. They’ve gotten every second older that you have, and changed with every new experience just like you. They’re, hopefully, terrifyingly, not the same person that you once knew at all. To say you care for them now would be untrue, because you don’t know them. And that’s the scariest part, isn’t it?

It’s the same as approaching a total stranger just because they have the same name as your friend. Sure, there are some memories to reminisce about, a fine starting point and a reminder that, “Hey, we used to really like each other.” But through the divergent evolution of two completely different lives, where have you both ended up? What if you’re… Incompatible?

“What’s the worst that could happen?” is a fair consideration. Rationally, the worst would be one single awkward conversation, after which you block each other and move on. But the retroactive damage dealt to your memories, the dashed hopes of a rekindled friendship, the unfortunate discovery that someone you had so much in common with as a child could end up nothing like you; these are painful. What if they fell down some alt-right pipeline and despise what you’ve become without even knowing it? What if they remember the ways you would confide in each other in the blue glow of the computer monitor at 2 a.m. and take this opportunity to dump 18 years of brand new trauma in your lap? What if all the ways you were so encouraging and inspiring to each other got smashed and mulled into a fuel they burned to turn themselves into something unrecognizable for a chance at fame? Or, some horrid combination of it all.

But the chance to relive one’s childhood is something so desired, so powerful, it’s been asked of gods by mortals. So you deliberate for hours about what your message should say. Sending someone a message is almost invasive in the cultural landscape of today, or at least it feels that way. You’re almost guaranteed to get their attention, a blessing and a curse. A push notification that demands acknowledgement, at the very least to swipe it off the screen or mark it as ‘read.’ By the mere act of hitting ‘Send,’ you’re asking something of them, beginning your interaction with a plea, asking for a favor. So you craft your apologetic olive branch with a neutral (but not robotic), friendly (but not too friendly), familiar (but somewhat disingenuous) tone. At the end, it’s twelve words long. You deign to hit send, condemning your long-lost friend to one more digital intrusion that vies for their limited time.

And then you wait.