We Surveyed 129 People About How They Track the People in Their Lives. Here's What We Found.

We wanted to understand how people keep track of the relationships in their lives. Not the CRM kind of relationships. The real ones. The friends from college, the coworkers you actually like, the neighbors you keep meaning to invite over, the cousin who moved and you can't remember where.

So we ran a survey. 129 people responded. Here's what they told us.

How people track their relationships today

We asked everyone how they currently keep track of details about the people in their lives. They could pick as many options as they wanted.

84% said "my memory." That was the most common answer by a wide margin. After that, 60% check social media profiles, 47% use their phone contacts app, and 14% use a notes app.

Only 2% use a dedicated tool. The overwhelming majority of people are tracking their relationships in their head, occasionally checking Instagram to figure out where someone lives now.

The details people forget

We asked what details people wish they were better at remembering. The top five:

1. Birthdays (66%)
2. Partner or spouse's name (50%)
3. Kids' names (46%)
4. Where they work (43%)
5. The last time you saw them (29%)

Birthdays were the clear winner. But the partner and kids' names results were interesting because those are the kind of details that feel like you should know about someone you care about. Forgetting a birthday feels bad. Forgetting someone's kid's name feels worse.

93% have been embarrassed by forgetting

We asked if people had ever been embarrassed because they forgot a detail about someone they care about. 64% said yes, and over half of those said it had happened more than once.

But the stat that really stood out: when you include the people who said "no, but I've come close," it jumps to 93%. Almost everyone has been there or been close to it.

We also asked people to share what they forgot. The responses were painfully relatable:

"I had no idea she was pregnant"

"I found out months later that their parent had passed away"

"I can never remember kids' names" (this came up constantly)

"I always blank on my friends' partners' names"

"Basic stuff like where they work or their birthday... things I feel like I should already know"

What happens when you move

We asked people how many contacts they lost touch with after their last move. 54% of people who have moved said they lost touch with half or more of their people.

And 84% of all respondents said they could not name the city where every person in their life lives right now. Most said they could get "most of them" but not all.

The more cities someone has lived in, the worse this gets. People who have lived in 3 or 4 cities were the most affected, with the highest rates of both embarrassment (73%) and relationship loss after moving.

Interestingly, people who have lived in 5+ cities were actually less bothered. Our read: they've accepted relationship loss as part of their lifestyle. The 3 to 4 cities group is the sweet spot of people who feel the pain but haven't given up on maintaining those connections.

Friend groups are more siloed than people think

67% of respondents said their friend groups have "some overlap but are mostly separate." Another 16% said there's very little overlap or their groups are completely siloed.

Only 12% said most of their friends have met each other.

Yet at the same time, 81% have introduced friends from different parts of their life to each other. People are actively connecting their worlds, they just can't see the full picture of how those worlds overlap.

Among people who described themselves as maintaining a large number of relationships across different groups, the introduction rate was 94%. Nearly every single one of them has played matchmaker between their separate friend groups.

What changes with a bigger network

We broke the results down by how many people respondents said are "in their life." The pattern was clear:

People with 200+ contacts were 80% likely to have been embarrassed by forgetting a detail (compared to 62% for people with under 50 contacts). They lost touch with more people after moving (74% lost half or more, compared to 44% for people with under 50 contacts). And the gap only widens as network size grows.

The larger your world, the more painful it is to manage from memory.

Women and men forget different things

Women were 20 points more likely than men to wish they remembered kids' names (52% vs 32%) and 15 points more likely on partner names (54% vs 39%). Men were more likely to forget where someone works (50% vs 41%).

This makes sense intuitively. Women tend to track the personal and family details. Men track the professional details. Both groups are forgetting the things that matter in their respective contexts.

After 35, kids' names become the biggest problem

People aged 35 to 54 forget kids' names at twice the rate of people under 35 (71% vs 36%). It makes sense: in your mid-30s and beyond, everyone around you is having kids. The volume of new names to remember goes up dramatically.

What this tells us

The pattern across every question was consistent. People care about the relationships in their lives. They want to remember the details. They're embarrassed when they don't. But almost nobody has a system for it beyond their own memory.

84% are relying on their head. 93% have been burned by it. And the bigger your world gets, the worse it gets.

The people with the largest networks feel it the most, but they're also the ones doing the most connecting. They introduce friends, bridge groups, and maintain relationships across cities and life stages. They're doing the work. They just don't have a tool that matches how they actually think about the people in their lives.

Methodology

This survey was conducted in March 2026 using Tally. 129 people completed the survey with a median completion time of 2 minutes and 16 seconds. The survey was distributed through Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, SurveyCircle, and direct outreach. Respondents were 70% female, 29% male, and 1% non-binary. 69% were aged 25 to 34. 71% were located in the US Midwest, with the remaining respondents spread across the US West Coast, Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, and international locations. All responses were anonymous.

Frequently asked questions

How do most people keep track of their relationships?

According to our survey of 129 people, 84% rely primarily on memory. 60% check social media profiles and 47% use their phone contacts app. Only 2% use a dedicated relationship management tool.

What details do people forget most about their friends?

Birthdays topped the list at 66%, followed by partner or spouse names (50%), kids' names (46%), where they work (43%), and the last time you saw them (29%).

Do people lose friends when they move?

54% of people who have moved said they lost touch with half or more of their contacts after their last move. People who have lived in 3 to 4 cities reported the highest rates of embarrassment and relationship loss.

How common is it to forget details about people you care about?

Very common. In our survey, 93% of respondents said they had either been embarrassed by forgetting a detail or come close to it. Over half said it had happened more than once.

What do people forget most about the people in their lives?

Birthdays topped the list at 66%, followed by partner or spouse names (50%), kids' names (46%), where they work (43%), and the last time they saw them (29%).