Long reply coming up, my apologies :
:, but since this was just the topic I had been thinking about today, I decided to write the whole thing down.
I had(have) the tendency to think or care far too much about a number of people that I knew from a long time ago. The problem is that due to my social anxiety, I never managed to build up a friendship with them, even when I was around them.
But at times when I did move into a new environment, with new people, I again did not make friends, and kept thinking more about these old 'friends', who actually at the time I was around them were not really my friends in the first place. I guess this is a symptom of social anxiety, for subconsciously I find it easier to simply keep occupying my time thinking about people who have disappeared from my life, than to make the effort to befriend the people I am around in the present. The lack of a social life in turn prevented getting me over the failed older friendship attempts.
One particular example, which is quite embarrassing, so I hope no one who knows who I am reads this, is the following. By far the worst case was one girl from my class I had a crush on ever since primary school, which develloped more or less into a sort of obsession. On the other hand I had a horrible fear of inconveniencing this person by my attention, or of coming accross as some crazed stalker. When I first fell in love with her, it was clear that she was not interested in me at all, and although there were a few others also in love with her, I got singled out by her with some very hurtful remarks, against which I could not defend myself. Although at the end I did say some nasty things back. Then when we moved to high school, I went to a different school and never talked to her and other class mates again, although she lived just a couple of hundred meters away. I tried to get this person out of my mind, but it didn't really work, although I never saw her anymore.
Then a year later she suddenly appeared in a sports club I was in. At that time I had a low self-esteem and was already suffering from social anxiety, so I never imagined that it could have anything to do with me. There's a chance that it didn't, since her brother also was in that club. But even in this club we had different hours, so I just saw her a few times during a competition, and then we never talked. So I was still thinking I should get her out of my mind, if I still wanted to have a life. I was tired of that club anyway, so I quit a few months later.
So there I was not having any reason to think I meant anything to her. Then again one year later, I was lining up in the local library, when suddenly I saw she was standing at the end of the queue. I tried to just act as if I hadn't noticed, and got out quickly. I left on my bicycle. Then when I was about half way home, I suddenly notice there was someone behind me, and it was her. This was very surprising, because since she was at the end of the queue, she would have to have made an unbelievable sprint to still catch up with me. Then she even overtook me and then suddenly slowed down, so that I was forced to ride behind her. I was really baffled, and my mind was overloading. In just a few seconds I had to decide what to do, and what I did was overtake her myself without even looking at her, and then cycling home by myself. I knew that I was making a big mistake, but at that time I couldn't really believe that she was trying to get me to talk to her and that this was at least a sign of friendliness towards me. The other reason was probably also that I was simply so anxious that I didn't know what to do, so I took the aggressive way out by ignoring her, while such a miraculous meeting was deep down in my heart what I had been dreaming of for years. When I got home I already felt very sorry, but then of course I didn't have the guts to call her up, go to her house or send a letter. After that I've never spoken her again, we just crossed maybe once or twice at a station or supermarket.
Luckily now 15 years later I'm not in love with her anymore or anything, already since a long number of years, but I still wondered about how she would be doing today, and maybe I thought that at long last we could still say hi or be friends. Some time ago I joined facebook, and looking around I saw she also was on there. So I went to look at her profile. Then last year when I was at one point in a depressed state, and stopped caring about anything, I just for the heck of it sent a number of 'friend requests' to people I knew from a long time ago, also to this person. But she never accepted, actually she waited half a year to reject it. This was of course quite normal, as we were not friends according to any reasonable definition.
Currently I don't feel so bad about it anymore. I think in the last years I've gained more insight into the reasons for this exaggerated attachment to the past, which is typical for introverted people. Now I'm more interested in the future and people I'm in contact with in the now, or that I can meet in the future. If there would be a chance I could still talk to some persons from the past, but I'm not thinking about it anymore too much.