"Let's Keep in Touch!"

 "Let's keep in touch!" In the hierarchy of lies, "Let's keep in touch!" is filed somewhere between "The check is in the mail." and "Those pants don't make your ass look big." 

In early October of last year, I attended the fifty-year reunion of the Leto High School Class of 1971. I met several people whom I had not seen since graduation day in June of 1971. After all of the small talk and the faulty recounting of memories came the ritual line, "Let's keep in touch." 

Given that almost all of them were carrying smartphones that were the size of tablets, it should not have been an issue. In addition, I gave several people business cards that had my name, e-mail address, blog address, and my cell phone number. That means that someone can call, e-mail, text, or even leave a comment on this blog. By now, even the slow among you can sense where this post is going. You are correct, maybe. In almost a year, no one who said, "Let's keep in touch!" has contacted me. I have e-mailed several of these folks and received not a single response. Maybe I just didn't understand what "in touch" means.

I have one classmate who I regularly communicate with who lives here in North Carolina. She and her husband were at the reunion, but I didn't bother giving them a business card. That was my "full disclosure" statement.

I wrote a couple of posts about the reunion just a few months ago. In one of those posts, I discussed how I missed seeing several people in our class that were friends of mine in school. I gave up Facebook more than a couple of years ago, so I don't have any contact with people who inhabit that God forsaken piece of the planet. Twitter is out of the question and my flip phone won't take good enough pictures for Instagram. So, what's an old guy to do?

Before the reunion, I sent a letter to a teacher who had been my favorite teacher in junior high school. I found his address in the Florida voter registration files and mailed it to him. I got it back in a couple of weeks from the Post Office and it was marked with a stamp that read "REFUSED". This is just a guess, but maybe I wasn't his favorite student. I didn't even know that you can refuse mail.

Out of options, I turned to Classmates.com. I have been on their more than twelve years but only look at it about once a month. Over the years, I have tried to contact people on there, but no one ever replies. Looking at it a couple of weeks ago, I saw that a person named in my reunion post had viewed my "profile". I sent a message and waited for a response. After a couple weeks, I just decided that Classmates works about as well as handing out business cards. Imagine my surprise a couple of days later when I got an e-mail telling me that I had a message in Classmates. Here was someone who I had not spoken to since the ninth grade and they had sent a message. We ended up swapping several messages. I am still stunned. 

What's the moral of this story? First, don't waste time and money giving out cards at reunions. Second, if they were really your friends, they would contact you. Third, acquaintances and classmates are not the same as friends. Let's face it, prisoners spend several years together in the same building, and I doubt that they meet for reunions. Seen any notices about the San Quentin Class of 1975? 

Evidently, I had preached on this communication subject to my family a few years ago. I was talking to my older son about this post a few minutes ago and he said, "Did you tell them the part about how the telephone works both ways?" No, but it does.

Let's keep in touch!!