Yeah... it also has a profound effect on children.
I grew up around the world backwards - my dad was a futures trader, and would end up working on a different exchange in a different corner of the planet every 18-24 months. He was also a serial philanderer, which it turns out was the actual reason for the frequent employment changes, but hey.
Between being born and leaving school at 18, I lived in four continents, a dozen countries, twenty houses/homes, and had attended nine schools - only in my last five years of education did I stay put - up until that point I'd not spent more than two years at any school.
So what effect does this have?
I have a weird approach to relationships with other humans. Being dislocated frequently has lead to a low investment high yield model of human interaction - that is to say, I spend as little time and effort as possible on relationships with others, and have an understanding of which levers can be pulled for maximal attachment (on their behalf, not mine - I stay unattached as losing people over and over and over gets a bit painful) with minimal effort. This mostly comprises moulding my external interactions with others according to the expectations that I perceive from them, and thus aiming for the "I met the most amazing X" the other night zone. This isn't because I want people to think highly of me or because I want to take advantage of people - rather because I want friendship in a lonely world but don't want to invest time and emotion into a relationship that may just be whipped away from me. Selfish, I know, but I have to survive somehow.
I don't stay in touch with people I don't see frequently, to the extent that people who were my best friends 10, 15, 20 years ago (all different people of course) I haven't spoken to in 10, 15 or 20 years. They may as well have never existed.
In short, it's turned me borderline psychopathic in terms of how I interact with others, I've learned to be a loner, I can get on with anyone, I can reduce anyone to quivering rage. I don't think humans were really built to lose their entire social group every eighteen months - it's not aligned with the whole primate hierarchy thing.
I recognise the same thing in others who have had similar backgrounds, and almost as oddly they notice the same in me. It usually leads to us simply ignoring each other on mutual understanding of the pointlessness of getting to know one another.
Your experience will not be unfamiliar to millions of kids who grew up in the military, at least the American one with bases all over the world. I don't think it makes people weird or unable to form friendships. The reason you're not talking to your friend from 20 years ago is you don't have anything in common any more. That's normal.
But I think it's leaving him/her with a void for real human connection, rather than the fake that he/she has had for so many years. He/she needs to get over the fear of pain of loss and start actually connecting with people anyway.
I'm much the same, and came from a similar background; I didn't move nearly as widely as you did, but certainly did have frequent moves.
Seeing this described is inspiring me to try to develop normal social interactions -- or perhaps it isn't. Having actual friends, who agree with your goals and will support you in pursuing them, who you don't have to put on a false face before, is one thing; having long-term acquaintances who disagree with you and hold you back is something else. If you're comfortable alone, you won't tolerate unhealthy interactions as being better than none at all...
I grew up around the world backwards - my dad was a futures trader, and would end up working on a different exchange in a different corner of the planet every 18-24 months. He was also a serial philanderer, which it turns out was the actual reason for the frequent employment changes, but hey.
Between being born and leaving school at 18, I lived in four continents, a dozen countries, twenty houses/homes, and had attended nine schools - only in my last five years of education did I stay put - up until that point I'd not spent more than two years at any school.
So what effect does this have?
I have a weird approach to relationships with other humans. Being dislocated frequently has lead to a low investment high yield model of human interaction - that is to say, I spend as little time and effort as possible on relationships with others, and have an understanding of which levers can be pulled for maximal attachment (on their behalf, not mine - I stay unattached as losing people over and over and over gets a bit painful) with minimal effort. This mostly comprises moulding my external interactions with others according to the expectations that I perceive from them, and thus aiming for the "I met the most amazing X" the other night zone. This isn't because I want people to think highly of me or because I want to take advantage of people - rather because I want friendship in a lonely world but don't want to invest time and emotion into a relationship that may just be whipped away from me. Selfish, I know, but I have to survive somehow.
I don't stay in touch with people I don't see frequently, to the extent that people who were my best friends 10, 15, 20 years ago (all different people of course) I haven't spoken to in 10, 15 or 20 years. They may as well have never existed.
In short, it's turned me borderline psychopathic in terms of how I interact with others, I've learned to be a loner, I can get on with anyone, I can reduce anyone to quivering rage. I don't think humans were really built to lose their entire social group every eighteen months - it's not aligned with the whole primate hierarchy thing.
I recognise the same thing in others who have had similar backgrounds, and almost as oddly they notice the same in me. It usually leads to us simply ignoring each other on mutual understanding of the pointlessness of getting to know one another.