Hi {{first_name|there}}, it’s Thomas.

A few months ago, I reached out to someone I hadn't spoken with in nearly twenty years.

There was no particular reason. No reunion. No business opportunity. No milestone birthday. His name simply drifted into my thoughts one afternoon, and before my lizard brain could invent all the reasons why it might be awkward, I sent a short message.

Within minutes we were exchanging stories. Within days we had scheduled a call. Within an hour of talking, it felt as though the years between us had quietly folded in on themselves.

The friendship hadn't disappeared.

It had simply gone cold.

That experience reminded me, again, of something we often forget about social wealth: not every valuable relationship needs to be built from scratch. Some of the richest opportunities for connection are already sitting quietly in our past, waiting for someone to make the first move.

(Spoiler alert: that someone should be you. It’s always you.)

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Throughout our lives, we accumulate friendships in layers.

School friends give way to college friends. College friends are joined by coworkers. Then come neighbors, parents from our children's schools, teammates, volunteers, and people we meet through hobbies or community organizations. Every new season of life introduces new relationships while demanding attention that inevitably comes from somewhere else.

This gradual shifting isn't evidence that we stopped caring about earlier friendships. It's simply how adult life unfolds. Dunbar’s number is the principle based on the physical size of our human brain governing the quantity of friendships we can track, or about 150 social relationships. When we connect with a new person, our brains don’t have infinite capacity to start tracking them, too (think: marbles in a glass jar), so an existing relationship falls off our social radar and becomes old and cold.

Researchers have long noted that our social networks naturally reorganize as our circumstances change. Careers evolve. Families grow. People move across the country. Shared routines disappear. Friend groups scatter.

Yet something remarkable remains beneath the surface.

Unlike complete strangers, old friends already possess something incredibly valuable: shared history. They know earlier versions of us. We already speak the same social language. Trust has been established before. Reawakening that connection usually requires far less effort than building an entirely new friendship.

Our old and cold connections are often only one conversation away from becoming warm again.

When friendships cool over time, we often assume something has gone wrong.

The emerging neuroscience of forgetting suggests otherwise.

Researchers increasingly understand that forgetting is not simply the failure of memory but an active, adaptive process that allows our brains to prioritize what is most immediately relevant. Rather than preserving every detail of every relationship equally, the brain compresses, summarizes, and quietly lets unused information fade so that we remain flexible and capable of adapting to new experiences.

This is good news for friendships.

It means that as years pass, many of the small irritations, awkward conversations, disagreements, and misunderstandings that once occupied our attention naturally lose their emotional intensity. The rough edges soften while the larger emotional themes remain. We may forget exactly what was said, but we often remember how someone made us feel.

That selective forgetting creates space for reconnection.

Instead of carrying every interaction forward indefinitely, our minds gradually edit the relationship into something simpler and more generous. In many cases, time doesn't erase friendship. It removes the unnecessary clutter surrounding it.

One of the greatest gifts of reconnecting with old friends is that neither of you remained the same person.

When you last knew each other, your worlds may have been nearly identical. Today they almost certainly are not.

One of you may have changed industries. The other may have moved cities, started a business, raised children, developed expertise, or cultivated an entirely different network of relationships. Those separate life journeys become incredibly valuable when you reconnect because each of you now has access to people, ideas, and opportunities the other has never encountered.

Sociologist Mark Granovetter (famously known for his theory about the Strength of Weak Ties) demonstrated that many career opportunities flow through weaker ties rather than our closest relationships. Old and cold connections occupy a fascinating middle ground. They combine the trust of a past friendship with the fresh perspectives that come from years spent traveling different paths.

That makes them extraordinary bridges to new opportunities, referrals, introductions, collaborations, and ideas.

Sometimes the greatest value of an old friendship isn't simply remembering who you were.

It's discovering who you've both become.

Many people hesitate to reconnect because they worry the silence has become too long. The reality is that most people are delighted when someone remembers them.

Think about how often you've smiled after receiving an unexpected text from someone you hadn't heard from in years. Your old friends are remarkably similar. They're busy. They're distracted. They're probably assuming you've forgotten them, just as you're assuming they've forgotten you.

Meanwhile, both of you are waiting for someone else to make the first move.

Rewarming a friendship rarely requires a perfect reason. A shared memory. A recent article. A birthday. A LinkedIn update. A photograph that resurfaced while cleaning out old files. Almost any genuine reason is enough to reopen the conversation.

Once attention returns, memory follows. Shared stories resurface. Familiar rhythms return. What seemed permanently lost often reveals itself to have been quietly waiting all along.

Sometimes friendship doesn't need rebuilding. It simply needs remembering.

Will all the friendships you try to rewarm return to their once vibrant selves? Not likely, but the trip you both take down memory lane will be well worth the effort.

Before next week's newsletter arrives, think of three people who once played an important role in your life but with whom you've gradually lost touch.

Choose just one of them.

Don't overthink the message or apologize for the passage of time. Simply tell them they came to mind, share a memory you still appreciate, and ask how life has been treating them.

You may be surprised by how quickly the conversation picks up where it left off.

Social wealth isn't built only by meeting new people.

Sometimes the greatest investment you can make is rekindling a friendship that never truly disappeared; it was simply waiting for someone to stir the coals.

What’s the oldest connection you’ve attempted to revive? Do you have a story you think could inspire others? Just hit reply — your email goes straight to my inbox. 🙏