Trying to reconnect with childhood friend

Question

During elementary school one of my close friend groups was composed of three persons all living next to each other. Myself (m/22), another guy (m/22) with whom we are still best friends and hang out everyday and this girl (f/22) who moved away after elementary and we both soon lost touch with her afterwards.

Last week by chance we met up but we were both with our families and we merely said hi, and asked a question or two and then we parted ways. To be noted I was a bit taken aback and was a bit awkward, since I was already lost in thought and didn't really expect meeting her. My sister also noticed she also seemed taken aback. Afterwards I waved at her in Facebook Messenger and she waved back. Then I sent her a message (about 30 minutes after seeing her) asking if she wanted to grab coffee with us sometime but she never answered.

Around here it is extremely common to propose to have a coffee for any kind of meetup and since I mentioned both my friend and I, I find it hard to believe she mistook my invitation as anything weird. I haven't contacted her at all since then but I would still like to catch up with her.

How should I proceed?

Answer 1

If you are going to reconnect, both of you would have to want that, obviously. Bear that in mind - any advice you receive might make your messages reaching out to her more readily accepted, but they can't really change what she thinks.

What you have already done sounds perfectly reasonable. You have made an offer to meet for coffee, now all you need to do is wait for a response. If I understand correctly, you have done this via Facebook messenger. Am I to assume that you are not already Facebook friends because you said you lost touch? I'm no expert on Facebook's security settings, but am I right in saying that you can "wave" to strangers (provided they haven't blocked you), but their security settings may prevent messages from people they don't know? In which case she may not have got your message. Perhaps the next logical step is to 'friend' her on there. There may be other equally valid reasons why she has not seen it (for example she isn't addicted to Facebook and checking it every 5 minutes).

If you are certain she has your message then be patient and leave it a while. You are already worried about coming over the right way and not as "anything weird", so don't risk that by being pushy.

After some time has passed, if there is no response then maybe try again. I would suggest you try a different means of communication, such as look up her number and give her a call, if you can. This could be weird if done too soon after your message (only if she doesn't want the contact) but so long as you aren't bombarding her with contact attempts there seems no reason to think that an old friend who was happy to "wave" at you on Facebook would react badly to your making contact with her.