I'm not so much interested in the renewing old friendships so much as the "Hey! I know you! You dropped that anvil on my toes!" sort of thing. Just something shared to make things flow a little more smoothly and start the set up on a group dynamic. When everyone's a stranger, you have all of the personality conflicts of strangers jockying for position, the distrust of everyone and so on. A little flare of familiarity sometimes makes the process easier.<br/><br/>I'm sometimes amused by the group that always must have someone who doesn't want to be there, or doesn't want to be part of the party. It's aggrevating and a little off-putting, but I almost always see one. It's particularly gratting if the party has been formed for a while, but there's someone who openly doesn't want to be involved... it's like ... what are you still doing there then?<br/><br/>Some conflict is good, it keeps things interesting; it's the "Where do I fit, or do I fit into the group" thing that gets frustrating to me.