Friends
 

I mean real ones, not us cyberspace vampires. :D
Who were your first/original/school/play friends, and do you still see them? Did you lose contact, move away, just drift apart, or do you still see or hear from them regularly? If you have lost contact, do you wish you could talk to them again or are they a part of your past that you feel is done with now?

For me they're all gone. They were
Declan: best friend in school. Totally lost contact once I left school.
John: Childhood friend. Lost contact when we moved to Darndale.
Gary: Best friend ever. He moved to London in the late eighties, sadly passed away in 1987. Miss him terribly. :(
Philip: He and Gary were my friends at the same time; went to the same school, had our first job together (working after school in a department store). He moved to Florida. I see him occasionally when he comes back to visit. He's married with kids and all.
Tony F: Met him when we were both working at a local radio station. Lost contact shortly after the millennium. Think he married an Italian girl.
Tony F2: Lived in Darndale, was always down here, messing on computer, watching telly. He moved to I think Wexford, another county down south and I lost touch with him. Met him briefly a few years back; he promised to come up for Christmas but never did. He left no contact details with me so that was that. I half expected as much.

I have about 5 close friends.. 2 of which I've been friends with over 20 years and the 3 others since HS so like 14 year.. Hardly ever see them, but still in touch with them all.

Ashley: Our mothers lived next door to each other while they were pregnant with us, so we were together all the time up until the age of 15 or so. (We had a, uh.. strange unspoken thing between us which I think was the final nail in the coffin. Her family was very, very country and conservative, so.) I did add her on Facebook recently but we haven't actually spoken in over a decade.

Tiffany: Met in the 2nd grade. We were both deeply uncool so we inevitably were drawn toward each other. (Her dad routinely grounded her from me, specifically though. This happened a lot with my friends) Best friends up until the age of 22 or so. Had a bad falling out. Haven't spoken to each other since.

Christina: Met in the 4th grade during computer class. We lived on the same street. One day she was riding her bike and I passed her on my rollerblades and she said "Wanna be friends?" and I said "Okay!" and that was that. (I wish things were that simple in adulthood) I tortured this poor girl so much when doing endless takes for my terrible short films, as she was often my only willing actress. Lost touch after the 7th grade or so. Saw each other once in a blue moon throughout high school. Haven't felt particularly compelled to make contact since then.

Julie: Friends between the ages of 6 and 8. She was two years older. She lived on my street and her mother was the coach of our town's tiny cheerleading team (for the childrens football team). It was humilitating; I was basically forced into it. Julie was sadistic and lied compulsively. We had strange little rituals. She convinced me that various objects in the neighborhood were sentient and demon-possessed. And once, before a boy I liked came over to play, she said, "You know, most people don't know this, but boys really only like girls who wear orange lipstick and green eyeshadow. And you have to speak in a sophisticated accent, too." Of course I believed this completely and wore her orange lipstick every time I saw a boy I liked for months afterward (while trying to speak in an alluring transatlantic type accent which just sounded completely bizarre mixed with my thick southern accent). We lost touch before I entered the fourth grade, but I ran into her by chance years later in the 8th grade when she was in town visiting. I spent the night but we lost contact after. Can't remember her last name, so I can't find her anyway.

I have surprisingly many friends for someone who's kinda introverted and misanthropic.
Got to know most of them in school, when I was about 15 and in our town's central park, where the 'alternative' people hang out, when I was 16-18.
There are a handful of friends I see every week or at least month, the others I usually see a few times per year, some even less often.

Oh and there's one good friend who moved to Berlin and kinda disappeared soon after we finished school. Would love to meet him again and often dream of that, but I also assume (and hope) that he has a good life and new social circle there and so I'm not exactly trying to desperately track him down.