Apple

I went to text an old friend from college and found that their contact was missing from my phone. I quickly realized that all the contacts (that I can think of) that I added somewhere between 2015-2018 are missing, excluding one who I texted with a month or so ago. Contacts from high school and since 2019 are there. I tried re-syncing my contacts through iphone settings and went into my icloud to restore contacts. These approaches didn't work. I went back to look on an old Mac to find that the contacts were also missing there, despite my not using the computer in months. I also checked an old icloud account where I was sure they'd be stored, and nothing! Its as if these contacts never existed in the first place. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there anything I can do?