In Search Of... Long-Lost Friends

I seem to gather long-lost friends at a rate slightly faster than I make new friends, to which end, it seems like I have fewer and fewer friends each year. The friends I have remaining are at least technologically adept, which makes staying in touch easier, and therefore the chance of any of them becoming lost - let alone long-lost - is slight.

Nonetheless, the trend bodes ill.

I have friends like Jennifer Heppner, whom I could contact (and who could contact me) if I (or she) were in the mood to do it, but I don't (and she doesn't) for no more sinister reason than neither I (nor she) has. (Or have.) Okay, I'll stop that now.

It's a similar case with Jay Demetrick. Although our friendship ended on somewhat shaky ground, I saw him at Pride Day last year, he seemed glad to see me, and he even let me take a picture of him. He and Jenn, then, are not so much long-lost friends as set-aside friends. Among these I count Peter Ryall, Vince McNeil, and Jesse Walters.

The real hard cases are the friends whose brilliance seemed to ensure them future fame who've simply vanished, not even to be found on the Internet. I'm talking mainly about Matthew Bankert and Mo Hanna, but there are others.

The last I heard of Matthew, he was living in Dublin, and somewhere around here I have his mother's phone number, so I could probably find him that way if I wanted. Mo, on the other hand, is simply gone. No profile on Facebook or MySpace, her relatively common name the ultimate Google nightmare: a blind alley. All I have are my memories and a portrait of her on my wall which fairly radiates with her insouciant vulnerability.

It's always a wonderful thing to find a long-lost friend in fantasy; alas, reality has its own set of criteria. I ran into James Gill, an old friend of mine from the very early 90s, last year. We went for coffee last September, and despite being in my best humour, I think I pissed him off. He's never called again. As soon as I can think of how to contact him again without seeming confrontational, I will.

Colin Palmer I just lost touch with, in the same way I've lost touch with Paul Akehurst. I call and leave voicemails, or I send emails that go unanswered, and I'll assume they're mad at me (always my first assumption, no matter what the situation) and so I stop. Then, out of the blue, a contact, indicating that all is well and always was.

Colin Palmer found me on Facebook yeaterday, so I sent him a reply. So did Steve Laporte, who found my blog, and perused it, and had some nice things to say about it. Steve wasn't so much long-lost as misplaced, but still... Two in one day.

My only hope is that some day Matthew and/or Mo will google themselves, see this story floating in cyberspace like a message in a bottle, and find their way back to me.