Many of us have long lost friends – acquaintances we once spent significant time with, but lost touch with over the years. If you don’t know where your friend is or how to contact them, you may be curious to try and find them.

But how can you do it?

Organize What You Know

First, spend some time organizing what you know about this person. The more information you have, the more thoroughly you’ll be able to search.

• Current and former names. What is this person’s name? Did they go by any different names in the past? Do you know their middle name or any nicknames they used to go by? Prepare to search for all of these in your future discovery efforts.
• Last known location. When did you last know this person? Where were they living? Do you know if they moved since the time they last knew you?
• Job/industry. Where did this person work? Do you know what job they held or what employer they worked for? Do you at least know what industry they’re in?
• Contacts and associates. Do you share any mutual contacts or associates, such as friends who knew both of you?
• Photos. Photos of the person can also be helpful to have, especially if you end up hiring a private investigator.
• Interests and hobbies. Do you know of any particular hobbies or interests this person has that could help you find them?

Use a Simple Online Search

If you haven’t already, try using a simple online search through Google or another popular search engine. Type the person’s name, or variations of the person’s name, and see what comes up. You might hit the jackpot and find them right away.

Use an Advanced Online Directory

Unfortunately, Google makes it hard to find people, especially if they have a common name; there are more than 7 billion people on the planet, after all. That’s why you’re usually better off using a more advanced online directory, where you can search for specific individuals. For example, with Fast People Search, you can enter a full name and a general area to look for your friend. Instantly, you’ll generate a list of addresses, phone numbers, aliases, and even secondary types of information like divorce records. In most cases, you’ll be able to find who you’re looking for, or you’ll at least be able to get more information you can use in your future searching efforts.

Look on Social Media

In our current era of digital connectedness and social media, it’s presumably easy to find anyone in the world – assuming they’re on social media in the first place. But if your friend could be found simply by entering their name in Facebook’s search bar, you probably would have met them by now.

Instead, you’ll need to dig deeper to find a person on social media. That could mean looking for friends of friends, experimenting with different URLs, or looking for a person via their email address.

Reach Out to Shared Contacts

If that doesn’t work, consider reaching out to some shared contacts. Who do you currently know who used to know this individual? Reconnect with them and ask them for any information they can share. Do they know where this person lives? Do they have any contact information for them? Are they aware of any name changes or other personal transformations that could make them difficult to find?

Make Yourself Easier to Find

If you and this person had a good relationship, they may be searching for you as thoroughly as you’re searching for them. If that’s the case, it’s a good idea to make yourself easier to find. Make sure all your social media profiles are public, keep your information up to date, and list any alternative names that were once associated with you as often as possible. You might be surprised at the results.

Hire a Private Investigator

If all else fails, you can consider hiring a private investigator. Private investigators have access to more tools and techniques than amateurs; they can be expensive, but they also tend to get results. If you’re desperate to find your friend, and every other technique has failed you, this could be your only real option.

Preparing for First Contact

It’s a good idea to remain optimistic and assume that eventually, you will find your long lost friend. It’s also important to prepare yourself for first contact. Depending on how you left this relationship, the initial stages of reintroduction could be awkward; be prepared to introduce some levity and explain why you wanted to find them. You should also be prepared for how this person may have changed since you last saw them. Hopefully, you’ll be able to reconnect fluidly and reestablish the powerful bond you once shared.

A lot of people want to donate to charities that help take animals away from situations that hurt them. If you’re not sure which charity to donate to, Animal Charity Evaluators has your back. 

ACE is a California-based nonprofit company that releases annual lists of top recommended animal charity foundations, and they offered assistance by funding some of Future Perfect’s work for 2020.

Most of the charities featured in the list are focused on strategies that can get around factory farming by enforcing the transition to plant-based diets, or at the very least, by improving the conditions in factory farms. 

Focusing on factory farms makes the most sense because this is usually the site of suffering on a large scale. Unfortunately, death is not the only unpleasant process that happens on these farms, but a lot of the animals suffer a lot before they are killed. 

In these farms you’ll notice that pigs, calves, and hens are put into extremely small spaces where they have little to no wiggle room, and that the things they undergo are so horrific that there are ag-gag laws which are used to hide the details of the cruelty from the masses. 

ACE looks and promotes the most effective way to help animals, and have three main criteria when it comes to choosing and recommending certain organizations:

• Charities must be able to produce greatest gains for animals
• Charities should evaluate and improve their programs actively
• Charities must present a demonstrated need for funding

With these three evaluating criteria in mind, ACE chose these organizations that you can donate to.

Wild Animal Initiative

This is a new entry compared to the other charities listed, and the goal of this charity is to research and advocate ways to assist free-range animals.

The Humane League

This charity runs campaigns that urge corporations to adhere to higher animal welfare rules, and also promotes grassroots legislative advocates.

The Good Food Institute

This charity focuses on the development of plant-based substitutes to meat, eggs, and dairy. They believe that developing plant-based options is an effective way to weaken animal agriculture.

Albert Schweitzer Foundation

This charity group has outreached corporations to promote the use of humanely raised products and they also offer legal services. They are also one of the first animal charity groups that prioritized corporate outreach for farmed fish.

If you are looking for the best animal charity group to donate to, you should check out ACE’s list so that you can look into the different charities and their advocacies and determine whether your values align with theirs.

Being able to donate to charities that help prevent animal suffering, and while it may not be you going to these farms to stop the horrors, supporting charities is an easy way to help. 

Polyamorous relationships are not everyone’s cup of tea. However, there are some couples who find it better to have a so-called third wheel. Others discover that having multiple partners work best for them.

Polyamory is not a popular lifestyle choice. Most people opt to enter monogamous relationships, preferring to have one partner at a time. In fact, individuals who opt to have multiple partners are usually frowned upon. To better understand why some people adopt—and perpetuate—polyamory, we collated several reasons:

They’re not the jealous type.

Dr Elisabeth Sheff, author of the book entitled “Polyamorists Next Door” asserts that people with multiple partners do not easily get jealous. Additionally, polyamorists assert that opting to be in a polyamorous relationship even helps overcome that natural predilection. They mention that being in a relationship with multiple partners allows you to ease too much focus on a single partner and distribute your affection to accommodate all the other partners you have.

The relationship isn’t purely about sex.

Sheff claims that people with multiple partners do not merely opt for the said lifestyle due to their need for physical intimacy. However, it is still one of the major reasons. Sheff shares that polyamory also works for her and her wife, especially since she travels a lot and they rarely have time for their relationship. 

“We have a lot of flexibility, but we don’t tend to act on it very much. Me because I don’t have a very high sex drive, and her because she’s been working like a fiend. She’s very serious about her career, and spends zero time trying to date. It’s only happened the once, where she met someone she really connected with,” she explains.

For some, having multiple partners helps provide the intimacy that may sometimes be lacking in a purely monogamous arrangement, as well. 

People fall into this lifestyle.

Sometimes, couples choose to try the lifestyle and find out that it makes their relationship better. “We learned a lot about how poly worked…and soon it was quite a normal thing in our social circle,” mentions Alex who also practices polyamory together with his wife. He narrates that, at first, he and his wife were reluctant to adopt the lifestyle. “It did make us more relaxed about other things, we became more comfortable telling each other when we found someone else attractive or had fun flirting with someone or whatever,” he explains.

It requires constant and open communication.

To maintain the beneficial effects of having multiple partners, Alex and his wife adopted the necessity of having constant and open communication. He says that they make it a point to prioritize their relationship even as they practice polyamory. He shares that it isn’t always easy. “…we found we were able to work things out for ourselves through lots of honesty and conversation and being loving and considerate in a way that has also made our relationship much deeper and stronger,” Alex explains.