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> I just stopped having a filter. When I think of someone, I just fire off a message

This.

I'm spending the week in my hometown with my 9-year old daughter to give her the chance of some time with her grandparents. We live hundreds of miles (and several countries) away.

While walking along I mentioned to her that an old college friend of mine also lived in this town along with her husband and their daughter.

For perspective: way back then we shared a house, during that time we both ground through our PhDs in parallel, later she and her husband came to our wedding, we went to their wedding, all that stuff.

I explained to my daughter that we've not been in touch for the best part of 20 years and I was a bit sad about that.

my daughter: "did you have a fight?"

me: "no! of course not! why do you ask?"

my daughter: "maybe you should just write to her"

I would tell you to do the same, and I am freshly 47...

Kids see through our nonsense so clearly. Your daughter just gave you the permission you've been waiting 20 years for.

"Did you have a fight?" "No!" "Then write to her."

That simple. The fence only exists in your head. Twenty years of silence ended by one message. What are you waiting for?

I've got some sort of facial blindness. It's hard to tell exactly how it works because I've got a bunch of unconscious coping mechanisms for identifying people.

One of the times I got it comically wrong was in college where I made a friend for a semester because I thought he was someone I already knew. So I can absolutely believe that attitude and approach makes a huge difference because I've been in at least one scenario where falsely believing I was friends with someone was all it took to be friends.

Wow, this is incredible. You just proved that connection is 90% attitude, 10% history. You became friends because you acted like friends. Sometimes not knowing the "rules" is the superpower.

Or they would have been friends anyway and it was just a coincidence.

That's the secret with kids.

The "rules" don't really start, until we get older.

I grew up overseas (from where I am now -for some of you, it's probably home).

Most of my playmates were drastically different from me.

I've seen videos where adults try to act like children and even there where they're trying really hard they'll get it hilariously wrong.

A great example is that little children have no protocol, they won't walk up to someone and say things like hi, how are you, how's the weather, etc.

Instead they'll just walk up and either stay mute, or just talk directly about what's currently happening, without any introduction or pre-amble.

Now I want a college study about middle aged adults going up to people and saying “we’re playing pirates now!”

My coping mechanism for interacting with people who approach me is: 1. Act friendly and open when they start talking to me; 2. centre the questions on them, hoping that they reveal information that might clue me in on who they are. It's only in recent years that I've learned step 3: if I haven't recognised them in the first 10-20 seconds, mention that I'm face blind (usually as an apology) and ask them who they are. Most times that is enough to stop the encounter turning sour.

My coping mechanism for approaching a person I think I might know (usually in spaces where I wouldn't expect to encounter them) is: don't. At least not immediately. Rather, watch and observe (if possible) to see if the voice/gestures/body positions/etc firm up enough to bring the certainty levels up and the risk levels down.

I think I'd make a good spy, if only I didn't suffer from this face blindness nonsense.

I'm deaf-blind (as in, totally blind with cochlear implants) and a lot of what you're saying reminds me of myself. Any time I encounter someone new, I usually tell them right off the bat that I have major hearing loss, because it's like 95% certain that I'm going to mishear something they say and respond with something that doesn't make sense, and I figure that's the best way to try and avoid confusion. It's much worse if there's even a bit of background noise or echo, and more often than not I can't even tell someone is talking to me unless they go out of their way to get my attention, or we're the only people present. Totally relate to the 'asking questions to figure out who people are' thing, especially now; with the implants it's even harder to distinguish voices than it was with natural hearing. This has caused me to develop crazy social anxiety over the years, and I'm reading this thread with interest. Apologies if you didn't care to read all that, but I find odd social dynamics like ours super fascinating, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of info online about coping, or maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.

> The message doesn't have any warnings on it like "oh I know it's been a while" or "you might not remember me".

Yes. I do this too and wish more people would.

The qualifications, the "what have you been up to?"s -- such mind-numbingly boring conventions. Who wants to go through a "catchup" interview before talking about what's interesting. If that's the price, it's not worth it.

I can see this being good for social connections but for business it might be considered rude? Like an old boss, or employee?

Yes it’s not always appropriate. It’s for friends.

> The qualifications, the "what have you been up to?"s -- such mind-numbingly boring conventions. Who wants to go through a "catchup" interview before talking about what's interesting

If I think about someone, that's exactly what's on my mind and most interesting. What else would you talk about?

Since we're talking about people you used to be closer with — presumably the same kind of stuff you would have talked to them about "back in the day", when you were already continuously aware of what they've been up to because you were up to it alongside them / constantly making plans with them / hearing what they were doing from shared other friends / etc.

I'm thinking how it would work. What should I talk about - programming frameworks and techniques I don't care about anymore? Rock bands I don't listen to? Shared friends I don't know now? Current school/uni things? Magic the gathering cards? Anime? Rock climbing? I don't know about anything I have in common with my old friends. But maybe, just maybe, it we catch up we can talk about kids or best back pain medicine. Or rock climbing, because that's one of the few things I still do.

It's so easy to overthink the content when it's about the contact. What if it's just "saw this and thought of you"? Could be anything. The connection isn't in having the perfect topic, it's in remembering the connection exists.

I don’t know about y'all but most of the fun of catching up with someone you haven’t seen in a while is to catch up on the stuff that’s new, not the same old things we used to talk about in high school. We’re (hopefully) all progressing in life, wouldn’t you want to hear about that?

> What else would you talk about?

A shared memory, a common friend, perhaps one who's died, their opinion on a movie, a book you're sure they've read, some current event, a funny story they, specifically, might appreciate, etc, etc.

I appreciate your edit.

But like, "what have you been up to" is useful because it gives them a chance to mention something interesting that you can then have a conversation about.

I'd say it's a "know your audience" question. It can work well for more extroverted people that enjoy an opportunity to talk about themselves.

But it's also low-effort and asks the other person to do all the conversational work. For me, personally, if I saw an old friend's number pop up on my phone and magically knew "what have you been up to?" was going to be the first question, I wouldn't answer. Otoh, if I knew the opener was going to be "You're gonna love this story..." I'd be excited to pick up.

I'm autistic, and what you describe doing sounds impossible to me. I live in constant fear of inconveniencing others. I personally find it inconvenient when someone outside my close circle wants my time.

It's expensive for me to perform socialness, so I tend to assume it's not free for others as well and avoid placing that burden on them.

You're right, socializing has different costs for different people.

Some fences are boundaries, not barriers and that's ok!

Not every fence needs to come down. Honor what serves you.

I learned from my therapist to stop trying to change my behavior based on how I predict other people will feel. If someone has expressed a clear boundary that is one thing, but otherwise I will not assume “I texted too much already I don’t want to bother them” or “I shouldn’t say the thing that’s on my mind they probably don’t want to hear it.” I still need to keep track of when I am genuinely talking too much around people sensitive to that (I check in with people, and it varies per person based on conversational styles) but now I allow myself to express what I want to express and I have a lot less anxiety about what other people think. My therapist describes the tendency to modify our behavior based on the predicted comfort of others as codependency or people pleasing, which might be useful things to research. Changing yourself is not easy or trivial, but over the course of time, we can change and grow a lot in life. Doing so has been a decades long effort but I am so much better with social interactions these days, and it has been quite rewarding to get here.

I learned to do this a few years ago and it is easily one of the most freeing things I’ve ever done. Funny thing is, before I had thought of myself as someone who was just really empathetic and justified my behavior as being concerned about the well-being of others. But now it’s clearer to me that I wasn’t actually paying attention to how others actually felt but was mostly making a ton of assumptions in efforts to avoid my own discomfort.

Why not just start making conscious decisions?

Like "Here's my path to statistical victory/social success/meeting needs. Chances are, it'll be in some small degree inconvenient for others, it'll be rude to them, it'll make them angry, and it'll put a burden on them. Will it worth my chances on victory/social success/meeting needs?"

That's how I do it, but my needs socially are mostly already met, so the incremental gain for being outgoing serves no practical need, but has some notional risk and cost.

"Assuming rapport" is hugely important for developing and maintaining connections. People often are not sure how they feel about you or where your relationship stands, so they look for hints in how you feel about them. If you are polite and formal, you are telling them the two of you are not close. If you excited to see them and tell you about the hotdog you ate yesterday, you're taking the lead and setting a tone that's close and familiar.

We're basically wired to consider social cues and signals. Maybe 10% of the time we make a logical judgement of "I really do/don't want to be friends with this person because xyz" and the other 90% is just reading/sending vibes.

Thank you so much for sharing this! What you’re doing is honestly amazing. You skip the negotiation about whether we’re allowed to be human with each other. You just assume connection is the default.

The truth is that people mirror the energy you bring. Show up tentative, they’ll be tentative. Show up like old friends, and suddenly you are.

Just refusing to install the system default software that makes us all strangers. And teaching us that the only thing between us and connection is believing we need permission to care.

Wow. This is so simple it blows my mind. It’s obvious, now that I see it. Suddenly I simultaneously realize how much I make it suck to talk to me and how easily I could change that. Thanks for sharing.

I'd be deeply annoyed if someone I haven't seen or talked to in years did that to me.

Like dude... if I was important to me you'd have talked to me long ago. I am obviously not - that's totally fine. Then at least start with some minor small talk pleasantries before you get to what you actually want.

Would you say that, or would you play along? Would you hold your "deep annoyance" as a permanent grudge? If you'd play along and not hold the grudge indefinitely then from their perspective you'd appear just like the (in my opinion more reasonable) friends who appreciated it, and so it's probably better to assume that situation.

I forgive everyone once by default

but if I won't hear from him again for years and all of a sudden he texts me without any care then yea I'd hold that grudge and try to get him out of my life

I have a friend like this, the amount of times i thought "shit he's gonna get us killed" only to see him become a persons best friend is not small number of times.

My cousin is like this. He can make buddies with the car in the next lane while driving over a simple bumper sticker. I’m sitting cringing while they are exchanging numbers going 40.

Did you like you classmates. What if you didnt. One of the great freedoms is you can pick your friends.

Then you do not go to talk to them. You do not have to. But you can, if you want.

Can recommend this. I have terrible memory so I make it a point to reach out and text (or even sometimes call, if it's a special occasion!) whenever people come to mind.

It can mean the world to people sometime. If you've ever had anybody making your day or week by just reaching out, remember that you can be that person too!

It's so easy for people to drift apart. Many people in my parent's generation didn't do a great job keeping in touch with folks and end up lonely or isolated. Avoiding that is as simple as taking a moment to let someone know you were thinking of them.

That’s great and all until you have a stalker that uses your social network to figure out new and inventive ways to make your life hell.

I’ve had to stop telling anyone anything about where I’m going to be, where I’m working, or who I’m seeing or in a relationship with. Because people have gotten repeatedly stalked and attacked themselves in attempts to get to me, or ‘punish’ me for being happy.

I really wish it was paranoia or something I was imagining too.

This is tangible, easily actionable advice for a lonely society.

> The message doesn't have any warnings on it like "oh I know it's been a while" or "you might not remember me". I write to everyone as if we are best buddies who just had lunch last week. People I've known since the age of 4, to people I've known for four days. [...] If you just pretend you are best buddies, people play along and they end up quite comfortable quite quickly.

This can't be serious? My messages to my 'best buddies' are like "lunch?" or "https://some-link-here" or whatever. You're genuinely suggesting writing messages like those to people I met a few years ago who likely barely remember my face? Zero set-up, just "lunch?" or a random link with no context like I'd text my best buddy? Do you do that? I can't imagine this is a serious suggestion -- surely you're massively exaggerating -- so what am I missing?

I don't get why are you downvoted, because I feel similarly and I don't get it too. My only explanation is maybe other people communicate with friends wastly different than we do?

I suspect not literally this, but the point is one doesn't need to treat reaching out to an old friend with overtures and formalities. Probably you need a bit more context if you haven't seen them in years, but you don't have to make a big deal out of it (e.g. the 'oh I know it's been a while...').

One of the best comments I’ve read on HN in quite a while. Good advice for us all.

Agreed, there’s so much wisdom captured so simply in this comment. I’m still thinking about it.