> But if you're genuinely interested in finding someone, it's surprisingly easy to find them.

I had a really weird experience along these lines recently, maybe a year ago. I wasn't really looking for familiar faces, but I was browsing on the lobster site and came across a name I hadn't seen since maybe 2002? I was a member on a vbulletin (I think it was vbulletin or phpbb) forum they ran. I don't have a login over there so I wasn't able to ping the user so it's been on my mind as a bit of a missed connection

Of course now that I've remembered this, it has been surprisingly easy to find them and I might reach out. They probably don't realize how much of an impact they had on me when I was younger