Friendship is one of the most beautiful things on the planet. But how to keep your long distance friendship strong when life separates you? Less chance for internal jokes, good times and spontaneous bursts of shared energy.
Part of the reasons why friendships work is that friends are constantly by each other’s sides through thick and thin. There are many instances of mothers and fathers scolding their children who spend more time with their friends than with their families. However, there are instances when friends are physically removed from each other. The world is an ever-growing place with more opportunities than before. Sadly, many of these opportunities require those who are interested to geographically move to partake.
This can sometimes lead to friends being separated from one another. When this event occurs, it’s easy to understand why some people choose to end friendships. However, some friendships are much too strong and continue in spite of the distance.
How Do You Survive A Long Distance Friendship?
Let’s face it, humans are not known to be the most patient living things. This is especially true in the ever-growing digital world. What used to take hours of physically gathering information can now be done with a click of a button. Due to this, it can be easily understood why it’s hard to survive a long distance friendship. So due to this, it can easily be understood why many long distance friendships fall apart. However, many people have survived a long distance friendship and have generously shared their answers to these common questions.
How Do You Stay In Touch With Your Friend In A Long Distance Friendship?
Everyone has heard of a long distance relationship. The reoccurring motif of two lovers pulled away by carrying amounts of physical space has been portrayed in movies and books as much as it happens in real life. However, who’s to say that long distance relationships have to be purely romantic? There are probably many more cases of non-romantically intertwined friends being distanced from one another than the romantic version of this familiar life event. Long distance relationships, within the romantic sense and in the friend sense, are nothing new. Since the dawn of human interaction, people have been making alliances with each other that they have to be modified due to arising mobility needs. However, since this is a familiar concept, people have created a bunch of different ways to communicate with their long distance friends.
How to keep your long distance friendship strong?
Letters – go old school and share in a deep and powerful way!
For instance, the most traditional method of staying in touch with a long distance friend has been with a handwritten letter. Before computers, phones and anything electrically powered, many people just had paper and a pen which sufficed good enough. This is evident in works of literature known as epistolary novels. An epistolary novel is a book composed of letters written from one person to another. Letters are great for long distance friendships where one, or both, friends are unable to receive digital communication. This is often the case when someone has to be in a third world country or at a secluded place like a cottage or a camp. The downside to letter? It can be a while for letters to be received and responded to.
Emails – keep ‘em flowing!
Does your penmanship look like chicken scratch? Are you too impatient to wait weeks for a reply? If so, no worries, you are not alone. The more advanced step from a handwritten letter is a digital one. Emails are a great way to stay in touch with a long distant friend. It’s easy to create an email address. As well, there is no limit to how many emails you can send or to how long an email can be. Feel free to include pictures and videos as well. Also, certain email platforms alert the user when they have entered an invalid email address which allows users to know if they messed up their friend’s email address.
Phone calls – chance to laugh, chat and comment
Need an answer right away? Then a phone call is a way to go. Phone calls are immediate forms of communication that can greatly allow friends to get in touch with one another. Also, close your eyes and put your friend on the line on speaker and it’s like they are right there beside you. Phone calls have a personal comfort feel as you can hear the other’s voice. The only downside to phone calls is when friends are in different time zones, which can often be the case in long distance friendships, then calls aren’t the most practical forms of communication. As well, if you are calling a long distance number, your phone bill might be a frightening scene when it comes around.
Texts – Stay In Touch With Your Friend In A Long Distance Friendship
Texting is one of the best and easiest ways to stay in touch with a long distance friend. There are many benefits to texting a long distance friend. This is because many people around the world today own or have access to a phone that is capable of sending and receiving texts. Also, texts don’t need to be answered right away.
This is good in the sense when you want to tell your friend something but you don’t know if they are immediately available because you are a distance apart from each other. However, like everything, texting should be done in moderation. Part of this insight is because texting is still an ineffective way to register someone’s true emotion. With a few digital printed words, you are unable to tell your friend’s emotions due to a lack of vocal tone and facial patterns. As well, texting can easily be overworked because it’s so easy to send one, which can cause any friendship to lose its value.
The solution? Text your friend as if the two of you were not in a long distance friendship. Use texting as a quick means to share a brief moment or a quick laugh and combine it with a longer and more personal check-in like a phone call or online chat to keep the sentiments strong. If you’re wondering how often you should text your long distance friend, just follow the instinct.
True friendship will always survive!
Having a friend can bring out the best in people as a friend can point out the other’s gifts and inner beauty. As well, with some positive peer pressure, a friend can help the other live a more fulfilled and better life. Having someone to confess to and share with can greatly take overwhelming amounts of self exerted pressure from your shoulders.
Carrying on, with a fresh and new perspective, friends can offer a glimmer of hope when you are at your worst. With this, when 2 great minds come together, no dream is unreachable, no issue is too big and no idea is too crazy! Studies have shown that more social people, like those with friends, live longer. As you can see, with today’s digitally advanced age and a history of long distance relationships, long distance friendships can stand the test of geography.