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When you're in a relationship, you see your partner ever so often. When you break-up, you start drifting miles apart; sometimes you might even completely lose contact.

Now, have you ever wondered what happened to the one that got away? Have you considered regaining contact with him/her? If the answers are yes, here's what you can do to find that person again, and maybe even rekindle the lost romance.

Here are a couple of things you'll need for this experiment:

1. Pen and paper
2. Internet connection
3. Firefox (Internet Explorer works too)

Just a quick note, try NOT TO stalk the person. Stalking is an offense that is punishable by law.

Step 1: Digging through your contacts

This is perhaps the simplest yet most embarrassing method. Start recalling if you're still in contact with your old flame's friends or family and give them a quick buzz.

Before you do so, to reduce the embarrassment, you might want to think of something to ask or talk about before moving on to your actual motive.

If you managed to find his/her friends but they're no longer in contact with him/her, jot down all the information that friend is able to provide. It would come useful when you start your search via the internet.

However, if his/her friends are still in contact with him/her or you managed to find a family member, the rest of the rest of the steps here would be unnecessary. That would also mean that you haven't actually lost contact with your old flame, you just never bothered.

Step 2: Write down everything you know

Before embracing the Web 2.0 way, write down everything you remember and have gathered so far in relation to or about your old flame - assuming that friends/family won't able to refer you to the person directly.

All this data will come useful when searching and filtering for the person via the internet.

Step 3: Google search

How do you search for information using Google?

Ernest Neo, 24, student as well as an entrepreneur, CEO of EN Technologies says, "It depends on what information I'm looking for. Basically I'd key in what I'm finding and click search." He adds, "If it's academic information, I'll use Google scholar otherwise I'd try Wikipedia, see what reference they use and from there continue the search."

Winnie Tan, 29, blogger says, "I'd key in the main words to start the search. For example, if I'm looking for a person, I'd key in his/her name, nick, or an email address if I have one." She adds, "Most of the time I manage to find what I'm looking for."

I decided to try it out for myself to see if I'll be able to find what I'm looking for.

First, I entered Google search page and keyed in the following as shown in the image.

Here are the results from my search:

It seems the name Wilfred Lim isn't that unique after all.

Remember I mentioned in step 2 to write down all the information you have gathered about the person? It comes in handy right about now.

According to the data I've gathered, Wilfred Lim works at PC Magazine. So in my search I included "PC Magazine" in the search as well.

By doing so, it lead me to the Contact Us page in PC Magazine Singapore's website.

Note: Wilfred Lim is just an example used for this article.

Step 4: Troll the social networking websites

Through Google you'd probably have found traces of your old flame. Now, it's time to filter through them and find the right link to him/her.

As shown in step 3, I've verified that there is indeed a Wilfred Lim working at PC Magazine. However, apart from the general email, no other details are provided.

Even if his/her personal corporate email is provided, personally, I would refrain from contacting the person via that mean. First of all, you can't be 100% sure that's the person you're looking for. Secondly, you don't know if the emails are monitored. You might not only embarrass yourself, you might get the person in trouble as well.

Now it's time to try the social networking websites like MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, LinkedIn, and such.

Let's look into Facebook first. For this you will be required to have a Facebook account.

Once you've registered, you can start your search.

I keyed in Wilfred Lim and it leads me to this page:

Note that one of the wall update states:

In step 3 I've verified that there is indeed a Wilfred Lim working at PC Magazine and that his designation is Managing Editor. From there I also know that PC Magazine is a publication under CR Media, same goes for Gadget3.

Therefore, chances that this is the Wilfred Lim I'm looking for is pretty high.

At the same time you can search Twitter as well. For that you will need to have a Twitter account as well.

Step 5: Make contact

You've finally got the contact info! Now what?

For Facebook all you need to do is drop him a message and add him as friend.

Click on the "Send Wilfred a message".

As for Twitter, you can send a tweet to the person like this:

Remember to include "@username", if the person isn't following, only by doing so will the person be notified.

Alternatively, you could also send a direct message instead.

Take note, if you want to send a direct message you have to follow the person first! To do so, all you need to do is enter the person's Twitter page:

Then click the follow button shown in the screenshot.

Writing notes or such gives you the time to plan out what you'd like to say, and has much less potential for disaster than an out-of-the-blue phone call.