I met a lot of ... friends, ..., and they did not stay the same...

[whatever]

Hello, dear Friends

My logic behind using past perfect is that the underlined events happened before he met his friends.
Is it ok, to use past perfect, or past simple should be used instead?
To me, the version with past simple sounds as if my friends did all the things after we met.


a) I met a lot of my old school friends, too, and they had not stayed the same either. Some of them had moved to London, and most of them had got married.
b) I met a lot of my old school friends, too, and they did not stay the same either. Some of them moved to London, and most of them got married.

 

[5jj]

(a) is correct and natural; (b) is not.

 

[probus]

My logic behind using past perfect is that the underlined events happened before he met his friends.

And that is exactly when you should use the past perfect. It's not unreasonable to say that the whole reason the past perfect exists is to deal with that kind of situation. Using the past simple would be wrong there.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

And for what it's worth, in American English, it's had gotten married.

 

[Tdol]

To me, the version with past simple sounds as if my friends did all the things after we met.

It would need rewriting- things like either make it confusing.