Google Talk (Gmail) Contacts and Friends Lost

I screwed up a Gmail contacts import the other day, thinking that I could resolve the problem by deleting my contact list and then re-importing it… but that’s not the case.

When I deleted the contacts in my Gmail address book, my Google Talk connections to them also disappeared. There’s absolutely no way to get those back - at least, not without jumping through flaming hoops first. I either have to reauthorize each one of my known Google Talk contacts (even though there are people in my address book who aren’t on Google Talk / Jabber), or I have to sort through the list and remember the people who had Google Talk.

You can set Gmail to “Automatically allow people I communicate with often to chat with me and see when I’m online,” but that doesn’t work well if they were just added / re-added to your address book. The alternative is to set Gmail to “Only allow people that I’ve explicitly approved to chat with me and see when I’m online.” That’s not what I want.

Or, I have to “spam” my contacts and add them one-by-one - and if they don’t have a gmail address, Google Talk will force itself to send them an invite. This is maddening.

I want Gmail to either send reauthorizations to my Google Talk “open” contacts, or enable them to show up in my Google Talk contact list if they’ve already authorized me as a friend on their end. Until then, I’m stuck with “no friends” in Google Talk.