Agreed. 43 and same. Everyone I was close with for 6 years (yeah I was the better-part-of-a-decade, loved to party guy) moved on, moved away, made their families, etc. The last time I heard from someone I went to school with was probably 10 years ago. The friendships I made immediately following university however, have proved to be more permanent. I've even moved quite literally across the country and still hear from them on the regular.

Given I'm a bit younger (currently early 30s), but I have the same experience. I don't speak much with anyone I went to college with. However, in my 3rd year of college, I did an exchange program to Japan for one year. I'm still in contact with a few of the people I met during that year abroad, despite us being more internationally seperated (some live in Europe, others in Asia and some spread across North America).

I agree. The best thing about college was that all my friends were from different walks of life. We just happened to be friends because we were assigned as roommates. My friends included a pot head, a meat head, a brooklyn hipster and some in-between. We bonded mostly over drinking and dating. It was a great time, but after college we didn't work in the same industry so some moved away. We eventually started getting in serious relationships and stopped drinking as much so obviously there was less to hold us together.

Today my friends are mostly people I used to work with and we have more in common, although we're still pretty different since we came together by accident of employer

To contrast, all my close friendships came from secondary school simply because the economy of our area is so good that no one ever had to leave.

I’m similar age to you, but I keep up with the dozen or so close friends I made during highschool and college. We make time, several times a year, to get together. What’s more I’ve found it hard to develop comparable friendships later in life —- not enough time, hard to prioritize, whatever.

So maybe just a different person than you wrote this.

Same experience with regard to losing friends of my youth, with the bonus of having virtually no social skills with which to make new friends.

For some of us, hitting one's forties marks a somewhat lonely life. Wife, children, coworkers, but no actual friends.