The thing about old friends

I have always liked keeping friends. Old friends particularly good friends. I also like to keep track of old friends that I haven’t seen for a long time too and eventually keep in touch with them. Maybe I should become a PI instead, or MPI (missing person investigator) or perhaps Friend Keeper for I like doing this so much. What I would do is track them over on the internet - easy and free hahahaha. And also tracking them through the same circle of friends that I am still in touch with. I have the habit of searching the internet, the yellowpages, email messages (the ‘forwarded’ ones) for my class and college mates or anybody that I think I know… who knows who I might meet.

If I’m lucky I get to find very old friends through these searches. Very lucky, I bump into very old friends. Extra lucky, I run into one old friends who happens to keep in touch with a few other old friends. Other times, I imagine myself bumping into all these people at shopping mall ka, parking lot ka, park ka, by the roadside ka.. anywhere la which seldom happen unless if I get very very very lucky. For instance, what happened yesterday.

Out of boredom (all 4 little people were still away) we went to Jusco Cheras Selatan. it was already late, around 9.15 pm (well… actually we weren’t that late as Jusco closed at 12 midnite last nite heh heh). From far, I just knew that I know this person. True enough, it was really her - NORSHAM MOHD NOR, a very old old friend. It’s been more than 20 years since we last met. Gegak gempita Jusco dengar suara kami. The bestest part is I get to keep in touch with a few of our friends whom I’m dying to meet. Awesome!!! Aku kagum dengan kuasa Allah, sebab kalau tidak disebabkan oleh perhitungan Allah, tak mungkin aku boleh jumpa Norsham lagi.

Another same incident. This time I bumped into a friend, a friend with a ‘nice past’ la so to speak.. heh heh at a wet market while busy shopping for Hari Raya when I spotted him.. (heh.. busy eh when I could spot someone…?). He was coming towards my way so I blocked him. And the sweetest thing was we kept on running into each other at the same place on a same day for a few times. But that was it la… I left him my number but he never called. boohoo.. (Tip: if you want to keep in touch with your long lost friends, exchange contact numbers, don’t just give your number). Nonetheless, I was satisfied as he was in my list of the most people that I want to bump into.

However, there are some very old friends or rather friends that you met but for some reasons do not wish to keep in touch, you are satisfied by just knowing where they are. (I have few experiences also where I see somebody I know yet I don’t go near him/her - these are the group you are kurang mesra with). It is for this reason that I have a website reuniting all these friends from my college. You know… a place where you can find, not just my friends, but also your friends from your batch or your seniors or your roommates that you wish to keep in touch with (unfortunately this website has not been updated for ages - after all the hard work done, I lost the data to ‘waitukay’ bug in 2001, very sad!!! but the info are still there though). I have pleasure in doing all this. In fact, I created a group in facebook too for all these people to reconnect. I just like to collect the data.

Apart from building a network or rather turn to someone you know when you need a favour especially when that someone who was your ex-schoolmate or collegemate is now a big fish, another good thing of keeping in touch with old friends is you get to reminisce old days, share sweet memories, laugh at silly acts. Something to look back and remind you of a person you were before and the one you are now. Whatever the end result is, keeping friends is what the search is all about.

I still have a long list of the most people that I want to bump into.