Alumni relationship fails

[mortensorchid]

I'm not sure where this should go in the forum, but I was curious as to others' feelings about this sort of thing. Some have told me to put a certain importance on alumni relationships, be they business or personal. How important is it or isn't it to maintain as well as network in your adult life, business or personal? In my experience, it's been ... Weak.

 

I think I got my first taste of this when I graduated from the 8th grade. Like everyone else, everyone went to separate or the same high schools, you make new friends / acquaintance, you discover new things, then you drift. The same eventually with high school and college and jobs and whatever else - you drift because you are not going through the same things everyday together, you change, the people around you change, the places you inhabit change, etc. And this is natural for people to go through, no question, I'm not complaining about that. And it's for this reason that people drift and are not friends anymore after a certain point - you have nothing in common with each other anymore. I don't think that people have a certain value in maintaining an LTR in general, be it friendship or otherwise.

 

And because of this, I have noticed, people just close the books and move on from others. Some have said to me to network more for business or personal with alumni relationships. Results? Almost complete apathy. Not only do people not come to gatherings and whatnot, they don't even bother to respond with an RSVP. Do others experience these things? I can't be the only one.

[RecentChange]

I still have:

 

3 friends from grade school, 4 or so from college, and professionally, I have a bit of a network I keep in touch with.

 

Not huge numbers, but they are "Alumni relationships".

 

These are people I have kept in constant contact with. We may not see each other for years, but we do communicate and keep in touch.

 

Now if someone who I have not kept in contact with invited me to something - I most likely would not attend.

 

But if it's someone who I have kept up with, I would be there in a heartbeat.

 

My brother and his wife went to the same college, he was in a frat, she in a sorority - they graduated 20 years ago, but still have a huge social circle from those relationships.

 

They do social stuff together (wine tasting etc) and forge business relationships.

[basil67]

While my husband doesn't stay in contact with school friends, he has kept in contact with a number previous workmates within his professional field. With the exception of one guy, they aren't part of our social circle......but all could be relied upon for networking and the occasional reunion. Hubby has gotten a few jobs because of people within this circle.

[Springsummer]

I think I am basically the same as OP. Had some 'friends' back in university, but basically just keep in touch with 1 or 2. I know it's pathetic.

[CptInsano]

I'm still in touch with my best friend in elementary school, and I visit him every other year, though we live on separate continents. The same goes for my best high school buddy. I had a relationship with a woman who hated my guts in high school years after we graduated.

 

My friends from college/university I have stayed in touch with for about a decade. But since I emigrated, there are few opportunities to run into each other.

 

From my general experience you have to nurture these relationships from the moment you graduate. It's very hard to make up for it retroactively.

[road]

in nyc there is the one preschool that is must for your child

 

today's astors, carnegies, vanderbilts, roosevelts, and all those

that aspire to be's all send their kids there

 

first:

 

getting into the right preschool, gets you into the right prepschool,

gets you into the right college.

 

second:

 

networking, having their kids and your kids having play dates

which helps the parents network, and the kids network by developing

friendships as they complete their education they enter the world

with friends connected to offer prize jobs.

 

Henry Ford's grandson and great grandson were CEO of Ford.

You were in tight with the GG son you could network. You had

the advantage over those not personally known.

 

Unknown people to not get asked to sit on corporate boards.

And other such perks.

 

 

Average people are not driven as hard to network and keep friends.

As a tool to cultivate and secure one's social and financial standings

as the upper classes do.

 

Whether HS or college many people make friends just for four years.

In the back of their minds they know HS is their world. It is the only

pond that they can fish from. They know that graduation and cars

and college moves them into a lake to fish when in college.

 

The old relationships die because they become LDR. College over

rinse and repeat for those relationships become LDR and die.

 

 

A teacher told me that the longest friendships are those made when

one is an adult. I have a good friend for thirty years now. Met him about

when I was thirty years old.

 

Wealth or lack of ends relationships. The ability to take off from work,

expense, child rearing, make visiting old friends that moved far

away undoable.

 

Life gets in the way of everything.

Edited February 28, 2018 by road

[mortensorchid]

I understand the reasons why people hold these relationships to be, but I also understand why people think these relationships are also something they are not. For example, a few years ago I went out on an OLD with a guy who went to my university (not that we knew each other when we were actually there). Many months later I mentioned it in conversation to others and they perked up and said "Oh that's great! I'm sure you have a lot in common then!" I said well no not really because I met him that day, then after two text messages ("I had a nice time last night", "Thanks I did as well") that was it. When I mentioned this to my mom she looked like she was going to cry and said she'd been praying so hard for so long that a nice young man would come along for me someday. I said the same thing of how it went to her, she looked like she was going to cry but this time out of sadness. I explained to her that this is how OLD just works. Friends who have also OLDed said they experienced the same things no matter who the person is or isn't.

 

But ... Like others said in this thread as well as in my experiences with others in general, that's life. People are situational and once certain periods in your life are over, the people you spent those periods with go their separate ways as well. I have a few long standing friends from childhood - two girls from my childhood I had rather terrible fallings out with but they turned out to be the two biggest **s I have ever met. I have another who lives in Michigan who I knew from preschool, two former flames from my early twenties. I Skype with them 4 or 5 times a year. One from my college years I talk to once a year, everyone else was afterward. And I'm happy.

[CautiouslyOptimistic]

I'm still friends with lots and lots of college friends. I communicate with at least one of them at least once a day. Today we had a group text going because of my gals is having a really hard time with the suicide of one of her teenage students last week . Facebook has made maintaining these friendships quite easy. I take an annual girls trip with some of them every year, the ones I mentioned above about the group text (well, on the years I can afford it....the trip goes on with or without me). I went to a very small high school, but I'm still friends with some of them, and even several teachers. Again, mostly due to Facebook. I just got texts tonight from two guys I went to high school with. (One I was not actually friends with and we only became good friends after high school, through FB lol)

 

NONE of this has benefitted me in my professional life unless you count my current employer, my sister and her husband, both of whom I attended high school with, and I went to the same college as my sis. And that is not working out well at all (for me, financially), but it is for them, big time. So it's going to end soon. I hope.

 

I think I've posted about this before, but my very first match.com match was the roommate of a guy I dated in college. We knew that ahead of time (we emailed for several weeks before even having dinner together), but it was so very random because our college is a small, rural liberal arts college and we both live two hours away from there now. And I would never mention my alma mater in a dating profile.

 

I've never dated any "alumni" except that date I just mentioned (1 date) but I have friends who have and I think it's very sweet. One couple I know were prom dates, both now divorced and engaged to each other. They did it very much in the proper order. Another.....well, she cheated on her husband and moved several states away for the guy she never even dated in high school. I'm friends with them both and didn't even know they were friends. Now they're living together.

 

Your timing is interesting, MC. I just started listening to an audio book called "Keep Me Posted" and it's about sisters living on different continents who decide to start writing actual letters to each other. I'm only on chapter 2, but one of them is totally into social media and the other one isn't. And the one who isn't doesn't get it AT ALL....she sees through the (lack of) authenticity of many of these friendships and doesn't have time for it. My neighborhood is starting a book club on Sunday and this book is going to be my recommendation. I think it's a relevant topic to talk about these days.

[Simple Logic]

I'm not sure where this should go in the forum, but I was curious as to others' feelings about this sort of thing. Some have told me to put a certain importance on alumni relationships, be they business or personal. How important is it or isn't it to maintain as well as network in your adult life, business or personal? In my experience, it's been ... Weak.

 

I think I got my first taste of this when I graduated from the 8th grade. Like everyone else, everyone went to separate or the same high schools, you make new friends / acquaintance, you discover new things, then you drift. The same eventually with high school and college and jobs and whatever else - you drift because you are not going through the same things everyday together, you change, the people around you change, the places you inhabit change, etc. And this is natural for people to go through, no question, I'm not complaining about that. And it's for this reason that people drift and are not friends anymore after a certain point - you have nothing in common with each other anymore. I don't think that people have a certain value in maintaining an LTR in general, be it friendship or otherwise.

 

And because of this, I have noticed, people just close the books and move on from others. Some have said to me to network more for business or personal with alumni relationships. Results? Almost complete apathy. Not only do people not come to gatherings and whatnot, they don't even bother to respond with an RSVP. Do others experience these things? I can't be the only one.

 

All symptoms of our very mobile and very over worked society.

[Springsummer]

I don't believe in relationship. It seems friends are liabilities. if they are not, then they are not your friends. so I am not really interested in making friends now.

[LivingWaterPlease]

I went away to school when I was fourteen and roomed with a girl whom I communicate with every day, sometimes four or five times a day through texts. We phone each other about every week or two. We are LD from each other now but she is very dear to me and vice versa. At one point in my life i was seriously ill and she invited me to live with her (and her husband) as long as I wanted to. I didn't do it but it was comforting to know her home was open to me in this way.

 

Two others I remain close to were both college roommates and bridesmaids of mine. I was a bridesmaid in one of their weddings. One of them lives about an hour away and the other lives several hours away. I talk often with both of them.

 

I'm going to a high school reunion a few weeks from now and have been in touch with seven or eight of my classmates that I haven't stayed connected with. One of the guys invited me to his beach house after the weekend. I don't plan on going as I have things at home to keep up with, but still...there are a couple of divorced guys I have talked with I look forward to renewing a friendship with and one of them had a crush on me in high school though I never dated either.

 

I've done business with a person from school and have some possible business in the works with another. The person has told me they want to do business together but not sure it'll work out.

 

I really like having friends from way back when I was in high school and college because having history with friends is comforting to me.

 

However, I have a lot of friends I've made later in life who live locally whom I'm close with, too.

Edited March 2, 2018 by LivingWaterPlease

[CautiouslyOptimistic]

I don't believe in relationship. It seems friends are liabilities. if they are not, then they are not your friends. so I am not really interested in making friends now.

 

This makes me sad for you .