Best Ways to Find a Long-lost Friend

The world is really a small place, and the possibility of bumping into a long-lost friend never really dies, all you got to do is keep your eyes open wide.You could have lost touch with your closest buddy because his/her parents got transferred to another town or country. You, or your friend for that matter, could have moved out of town to pursue a career, or even to pursue higher education. The reasons that we can come up with for losing contact with a friend can be many. The bottom line is that there’s not a single person who hasn’t experienced the pain associated with such a separation.

The only silver lining in the age of technology is that we can always find our long-lost friends. I, for one, have found a lot of my school friends who had moved out of town for a whole lot of reasons. The distance that came with the parting helped see these friendships in a whole new light and ultimately nudged my way to actually find them. How did I do it? All thanks to Facebook, of course.

We, at Buzzle, hope to help you find your friend. Here are some ways to find those friends that time and distance have taken away from you.

Social Networking
There’s almost nothing that social networking can’t do. From connecting you to people in far flung places to getting you the necessary contacts to boost your business, social networking is one thing you can depend on. With the way social networking works, there’s a possibility of finding just about anyone in and around the world. Social networking giants like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc., allow you to socialize, track, and locate people sharing information online.

Facebook
With its current standing, Facebook is accessed nearly all over the world, and there is a high possibility that the friend you are searching for is on Facebook. Running a search on Facebook is relatively easy, and just requires you to type the name of the person. You would have to sift through a lot of profiles with similar names, however, you can narrow down the results with additional information.

On Facebook you can search for someone using…
Option 1: Search for friends using the search bar.
Option 2: Check the friend list of common friends.
Option 3: Check group lists that contain a whole lot of names.

These ethnic groups allow an individual to connect to people who have something in common, like the same locale, neighborhood, school, workplace, culture, etc. The point is, if you know your friend well enough, it will be easier finding him/her.

LinkedIn
There’s a reason behind the success of a social networking site like LinkedIn. With more than 225 million users in 200 countries, you are sure to find your lost friend here. LinkedIn is more like a professional resume, hence you can be assured that it contains the right details. This ensures you are searching for the right person always. Once you are on LinkedIn yourself, you can run a colleague/classmate/name search, and track just about anyone you want to find. Let’s call it the modern telephone directory.

Search Engines
If you are unsuccessful in finding your friend on one of the social networking sites, you can try one of the search engines dedicated to, well, searching. You can find your friend using Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc., by simply typing their name and country to get a list of people.

Pipl
This a dedicated people search engine that tracks down all possible information regarding the person you are looking for. The site searches through social networking sites, databases, etc., to give you a refined search. It also gives you contact details through which you can get in touch with the person you wish to find.

Wink
Just like Pipl, Wink spans the entire social networking database as well as profiles to give you an impressive search list. It also provides you with personal webpages listed under the person’s name which makes it easier to find someone. Besides, it also allows you to create a profile of your own, which helps when people search for you.

PeekYou
PeekYou allows you to search for people by name, country of origin, interest, work, school, and city. It will give you a refined list of people that fit the description you have provided. Besides, you can also know more about the activities of people with a username.

Alumni Sites
Our obsession with social networking obviously makes us forget that we have been a part of an organization which is sure to have a database. Alumni sites concentrate on schools and colleges, and are definitely area-specific. What is seemingly the best option is always left to the last, isn’t it?

Alumni.net
Alumni.net boasts of 5 million members from over 102,000 organizations registered all over the world. There’s quite a possibility that you will bump into the right person by directly going to the particular institution. You can search for your friends using their maiden names, which makes the search better. Chances are you will find more than one long-lost friend here.

Classmates.com
With members from USA, Canada, and a few other international locations, Classmates.com allows you to find alumni from far and wide. All you got to do is fill in the year of your graduation, the name of the institution, and the region, and you have your list of database entries to search from.

Friends United
Comprising memberships from the United Kingdom, and a few other countries, Friends United allows you to reunite with your past friends. You can also use the site to instantly message your friends online using their chat feature.

Apart from this, you can also find your long-lost friend on your own alumni website. School reunions are another place to rekindle a lost friendship. All you got to do is play an active part in the school activities to get together with you old buddies.