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One way to replenish your stock of friends is to dig deep into your past. Rediscovering a friend with whom you have a shared history can truly be a treasure. Imagine reconnecting with someone who is familiar with the neighborhood where you grew up, your parents and/or siblings, or your old elementary school teachers. Or perhaps, it is a person with whom you shared some firsts: sharing a bunk the first time you went to sleepaway camp, a locker in high school, or the friend you made at your first job.

 

Be forewarned: What happens after you say hello, isn't always predictable. Sometimes, old friends are able to laugh together and pick up right where they left off. Other times, it feels awkward and there isn't much to say after you've exchanged a few pleasantries and memories; you wonder if it is really the same person you knew then. Yet, if you keep your expectations in check, the odds are that just succeeding at making the connection, even if turns out to be fleeting, will be well worth the effort.

 

After we found each other online, at one of my book-signing events in Maryland, I was left breathless when I saw my best friend Anita from my old neighborhood in New York showed up to meet me. She has a terrific memory and jogged my brain circuits with stories from our childhood that I had long forgotten (or perhaps repressed). Some time ago, I posted here about how finding a long lost friend was akin to Finding Buried Treasure. Then yesterday morning, I saw a wonderful article in the New York Times Personal Tech section, by Eric Taub, that added a few new tricks.

 

So here's my new and improved list on how to find a long lost friend:

• Try finding the person using Google by putting her first name and last name in quotes. See what comes up. If you know the city and/or state where she lives or last lived, you can refine the search by putting that after her name in quotes.

• Similarly, you can try Pipl.com. This is a meta-search engine that finds people using numerous public databases.

• Check out groups from your high school or college on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace.

• Search for former classmates on sites like Reunion.com or Classmates.com---or email or phone the alumni office of your alma mater.

• Let your fingers do the walking---use the white pages directory on switchboard.com.

• No luck finding her in a directory? Are her parents or other relatives findable? Chances are they may still live in the same town she did. Try finding their phone numbers or email addresses.

• If you don't know any relatives, you could try the friend-of-a-friend route. Do you know someone who knew her that you are still in touch with and who may be easier to find?

• Any clue to the kind of work she is doing? Perhaps, you can find her through LinkedIn, a professional association, or the human resources office of her former place of employment.

• Jigsaw.com is a database with 20 million business contacts, including addresses, titles, phone numbers and e-mail addresses. You can either subscribe or pay a $5 charge to find contact information for one individual.

• In my prior post, I mentioned that finding old female friends is far more challenging than finding males ones because of changes in surnames. Taub offered a clever suggestion: Search major newspapers for engagement or wedding announcements that may offer clues to your girlfriend's new married name.

• Finally, even better than digging: If you develop a blog, personal website, or other web presence, your old friends may come out of the woodwork looking for you.

I'd love you to comment here about any experiences you've had in finding a long lost friend!

The New Oxford American Dictionary chose the verb "unfriend" as its 2009 Word of the Year (WOTY) and defined it this way: "to remove someone as a ‘friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook." The word "has both currency and potential longevity," explained Christine Lindberg, Oxford's senior lexicographer on the OUP Blog.

 

The choice of this year's word is telling because the act of unfriending (or defriending) is part of the pruning process of maintaining a presence on social media, like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. It's easy to collect more friends than you want or need, including many contacts that may turn out not to be "friends" by any reasonable definition of the word.

 

Fortunately, if someone posts too often, bores you, lurks without posting, has questionable politics or ethics, says something caustic or insensitive, acts unpredictably, or even uses too many exclamation points, it's relatively easy to get rid of them electronically---with no more than a few keystrokes.

 

But dumping a true friend-online or off-isn't as easy because it raises the risk of collateral damage. When two people are really "friends," they're likely to have numerous connections. They may have common friends, live in the same neighborhood, share a workplace or livelihood, belong to the same community or organizations, or have exchanged information (including secrets and confidences) with one another.

 

So a word of caution: Even though a new verb has entered the common parlance, think twice before you unfriend. Doing it carries some of the same risks of dumping someone offline.

 

Click here to see the other words of the year.

1) Call, email, or get together with one or more of your best friends. Show and tell your friend how much you care. Don't wait until Sunday because by then, you may forget. Last night I attended a memorial service for a very dear friend (once my elementary school teacher!) whom I had known for most of my lifetime and I only wished that we had had one more hour to chat.

 

2) If you are a blogger, write a post about Friendship Day. (I'll be happy to help with a quote.) On this special day (which coincides with the pub date of my new book), write your own or repost one of my posts from www.TheFriendshipBlog.com (with attribution, of course).

Email me (Irene@IreneLevine.com) the URL of your post by Sunday midnight and my three favorites will receive 2 free copies of Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend (one for you and one for a best friend).

 

3) If you aren't a blogger but have a Facebook or LinkedIn page, please use your status box to remind your friends about Women's Friendship Day and cut and paste this note: "My friend, Irene S. Levine, has written a must-read book about female friendships. See: http://www.TheFriendshipBlog.com/book. Check it out."

 

4) If you Twitter, cut and paste this tweet: 9/20 is Women's Friendship Day. "Check out my friend Irene's new book on Amazon http://bit.ly/uZYj3 #BFF"

 

5) If you are reading this note, I hope that you are more than a virtual friend to me! If so, please email AT LEAST 5 of your best friends about my book, Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend (Overlook Press). All of us have suffered the pain, at least once, of losing a best friendship that we thought would be forever. After spending two years thinking about female friendships and surveying more than 1500 women from all walks of life, I've learned that falling in and out love with best friends is universal.

 

Like me, haven't you always wondered about these complex but vital relationships that are so essential to a woman's physical and emotional well-being? What makes some friendships stick and others fall apart? How can you make myself a keeper? How do you move on if you've been dumped?

 

Just forward this note: "Sunday is National Women's Friendship Day. My friend, Irene S. Levine, has written a must-read book about female friendships, Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup with Your Best Friend. See: http://www.TheFriendshipBlog.com/book"

 

As you know, it's hard for a small author to get the word out these days without the help of friends---so I hope if you'll help. This is a one-time request, either because you have chosen to be my Facebook friend, LinkedIn friend, Twitter follower, or blog reader.

May you always be able to celebrate the joy of having close female friends who make a difference in your life!

Warm regards,
Irene

David Spark, a new media consultant and producer, interviewed me a few evenings ago on the awkwardness of social network defriending (e.g, taking someone off your friends list on Facebook, Linked In, MySpace, or Twitter). Here is the link to David's piece called The Awkwardness of De-friending. (You may notice that the jury is still out on whether defriending is hyphenated.)

 

Since there are no commonly accepted rules on the etiquette of how to go about ending face-to-face friendships, imagine how murky the rules of behavior are in defriending in cyberspace. The act of defriending is as easy as hitting a key but your decision can have long-lasting repercussions, both for you and the person you defriend.

 

My advice: Before you defriend someone, face-to-face or in cyberspace, take time to think before you act. Depending on the nature of your relationship, social media defriending can be the emotional equivalent of being jilted or jilting someone else. If the friendship was once meaningful and you change your mind after you've defriended someone, your relationship will never be the same. Don't let your fingers work more quickly than your mind.

 

David also wrote a piece published on Mashable, 12 Great Tales of De-friending and another on his own blog When technology tells us we have no friends. You may want to take a look at one of my earlier blog entries too, Online friending and defriending patterns.

 

Have you ever poached a friend or had one poached from you? This is how it happens: Your friend introduces you to her friend and the two of you develop a friendship---independent of the friend who introduced you. If you’ve been there, done that, you’re a poacher. Or if you have introduced two friends and one of them snares the other for herself, leaving you in the dust, you’ve been poached.

Is it ethically wrong to become a ‘friend of a friend’ or is it a legitimate way to expand your friendship network? What are the rules and could they be changing?

CNN.com recent ran an article called, When social poachers snatch your friends, that posed both sides of the issue. Through one lens, poaching can be viewed as the ultimate betrayal, akin to “friend-napping.” Through another, it can be seen as a reasonable way of making new friends through vetted introductions.

A 2004 essay by Lucinda Rosenfeld in New York Magazine, Our Mutual Friend, expressed the jealousy and hurt the author experienced after she had been poached. When she learned that her two friends were planning a ski trip together---without her---she felt excluded (even though she had no interest in skiing). It harked back to the days of junior high school.

I’ve been poached, too. I had two close friends, let’s call them Marcie and Hayley, whom I decided to introduce to one another. I knew they would instantly “click” because they had so much in common: neither worked outside the home, both loved competitive tennis, and each had two kids around the same ages. It was a good hunch because they soon became best friends with each other as I drifted into the background.

Admittedly, the first time I bumped into them at Starbuck’s having coffee without me, I felt a bit strange and awkward, even hurt, but as soon as I regrouped mentally I realized that I didn’t have as much time or motivation to spend with either one of them as they did with each other. Now we get together as a threesome occasionally. Rosenfeld also found that being poached can be a blessing in disguise. Prior to the treachery, she had found herself in the unpleasant role of constantly ministering to one of the women who was needy and always crying on her shoulder. It gave her a way out.

With the booming popularity of social network sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, the ethics and etiquette of friend poaching may be turning upside down. In cyberspace, becoming a friend of a cyber-friend is not only socially acceptable, but is actually one of the raison d’êtres of participation.

Being poached offline isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either. Because friendships change over time, a friendship that is 'stolen' may have long been gone. It may offer the poachee an opportunity to change, take a break from, or get rid of a friendship that was draining, all-consuming, or toxic in other ways.

The corollary: Don’t feel guilty about poaching. Unlike family or marriage, friendships have no blood or legal ties; the good ones are totally voluntary relationships that enhance our lives. Feel guilty? Remember that your new friend has the free will to add, subtract, or realign her friendships.

One caveat: Friend poaching is unacceptable, and maybe even pathological, when an individual consistently tries to derail friendships and hurt people around her.

It’s so easy to make resolutions and so hard to keep them. Every year, women resolve to lose weight, reduce stress, work smarter, and improve their relationships with family and friends.

I thought a little more specificity might help clarify my Friendship Resolutions (and yours) and make them more concrete and achievable. Here goes:

1) Get real

Don’t expect all of your friendships to last forever

2) Don’t settle for one BFF

Surround yourself with a number of synergistic relationships

3) Get rid of toxic friendships

If a friendship consistently drains you, brings you down, makes you nervous, or makes you angry, it is not worth keeping.

4) Don’t be a toxic friend

Don’t be too needy. Listen as much as you talk. Don’t expect any one friend to fulfill all your needs.

5) Reach back

There is no substitute for shared history. With the internet and low-cost cell phone calls, there’s no reason to not reconnect with significant friends from your past.

6) Prepare for your future

Continually work at making new friends. As we grow and mature, we need to replenish our stock to keep our friendships fresh and vital.

7) Don’t be threatened by the internet

Virtual friendships on MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn don’t undermine friendships. Rather, they can enhance old friendships and create new ones.

8) Just do it

There is no substitute for setting aside time for your friendships and the payoff is worthwhile. Don’t just talk about getting together. Mark you calendar.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

When it comes to friendships, it’s not how long or how close or how good. Instead, the latest craze seems to be how many. No one is quite sure how many friends you need or how many you can have. Given the number vacuum, some members of social networking sites like Facebook, My Space, or LinkedIn are accreting new friends like young boys collects baseball cards---acquiring impressive numbers of online “friends” that approach the hundreds and thousands.

Such excess raises the question---How many friendships, real, virtual or a combination of the two---can any one person reasonably handle? It depends on who you are and what it means for you to befriend someone. Are your friendships casual or close? Are they intense or intermittent? Are they brief or long-standing?

Every woman I know has a finite amount of time for friendship (which varies based on how she chooses to balance her social needs with the rest of her life). Additionally, some women are naturally more adept than others in both making friends and keeping them.

British anthropologist Professor Robin Dunbar has conducted research that concludes that humans are functionally hard-wired to handle a maximum of 150 friends at a time. That number, 150, has been dubbed Dunbar’s Number. The term was popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book, The Tipping Point and has been cited recently in a spate of news articles.

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Carl Bialik (AKA the Numbers Guy) suggests that technology may actually enable us to expand the number of friends we can juggle simultaneously. He points out that social networking sites can help us maintain contact with people who are at the outer fringes of our circle of friends. Cell phones, emails, and IMs have similarly expanded our capability to reach out and touch someone.

“Prof. Dunbar isn't sold on the idea that social networks make his number outdated,” writes Bialik. “The research, he says, ‘made us realize people don't know what these wretched things called relationships are -- and that helps explain why we're so bad at them.’”