People’s lives wouldn’t be what they are without their college buddies. You shared so much with them. In fact, they might know you better than your family does. However, you’ve lost touch with them, and you can’t stop thinking how much you’d like to see them again.
College is the best time of life for many people. You’re an adult, mature enough to live on your own, but too young to be saddled with college debt and financial responsibilities. These things aren’t an issue yet. It’s a time to explore likes and dislikes, to find out what you want out of life, and many did this exploration in the company of the people who became their proverbial “college buddies.”
If you want to find them online, a combination of social media, specialized services, and search engines will probably be effective.
LinkedIn is the best place to start, in case you haven’t already thought of that. Members list current and former schools on their profiles. All you need to do to get started is look up the name of your school on LinkedIn. The network will link you to alumni automatically. You can also search by job position or location.
Feel free to add other alumni to your network, even if they don’t seem relevant. The more you add, the more likely you are to get to your friend.
You can use a people search website to try and track down an old classmate from college. These websites are also known as background check sites. You enter their name, place of birth, date of birth, or any other information you have about them in the search bar. Start with their name and a city or state.
The people finder will retrieve current information about your college buddy. This might include an address, a phone number, an email, or information about their relatives.
You can try to contact them once you have their details, but be careful. Be polite and introduce yourself if you call a number you got from the background check site. They might feel uncomfortable, and it might not even be them. Information from people finders isn’t 100% reliable.
Other than potentially slight embarrassment, though, there’s no harm in trying a free people search engine.
If your college buddy has been in the news for whatever reason, you’ll find the report on Google. Any search should include the mother of all search engines. It will be easy if their name is unusual. If not, you’ll need more information to go on. Include their major in college, their hobbies and interests, or the name of their then-girlfriend or boyfriend, if applicable.
You can also try Google’s image search feature if you have an old picture of them. Google will search for similar pictures online and pull up the links to the websites where they have been uploaded. If they use that or a similar photo for a personal website or blog, you’ll find it and get contact information there.
Don’t rely on Google’s image search too much, though. It will pull up thousands upon thousands of similar images – of people with that hair color, similar build, wearing similar clothes, etc. It might get overwhelming and lead you to give up.
After LinkedIn, Reunion is the most notable alumni network, which hundreds of thousands of people use to look for old college buddies, former coworkers, and even long-lost relatives. Reunion has 40 million members and counting. After you make a profile, you can start searching for other members. You can check out newsfeeds, read and post blog articles, look at and post images, and view other profiles. The best thing is that none of this will cost you a dime. You only need to start paying if you want to send another user messages.
Your college buddy might also be looking for you. If you had a strong relationship, you could look forward to rediscovering that.