Long-distance Friendships
Hannah
Take a moment to explore what your ideal long-distance friendship could look like and how to keep it strong, no matter the miles.
With the beginning of your studies, your life often turns around completely. Suddenly, there is so much to learn and to try out. You’re making new friends and connections, but the relationships you left behind often fade into the background. Especially with friends who moved to a new place themselves, keeping up
contact becomes really hard. Living in different cities, countries or time zones easily takes away the daily connection you’re used to. Luckily, there are countless ways to stay connected and grow closer, even across oceans.
Let’s take some time and find out what your perfect way of long-distance friendship could look like!
Keeping in touch
The most important (and probably the hardest) thing to remember is checking in regularly! So why not implement a little “catching up schedule”?
In the past year, for example, my friends have spent their lives all over the world – from Peru, over Ghana, to India and China. So we created a Discord server with a monthly reminder for little updates. Everything is allowed, from a voice memo about your new favourite food to an extensive diary entry for the last weeks. It’s a joy to hear what everyone has been up to and to contribute some of your own news.
You can find your own way to set this reminder, as an entry in your calendar or a reminder in your phone, for example. A conversation starter like this is also perfect to schedule a video call or chat for the next days. And while this can be especially tricky over several time zones, finding time for each other is worth it!
Especially when it comes to connections like that, we can be glad that the internet offers us such effortless ways to connect with each other. On the other hand, though, a handwritten letter can be a very special update. Especially finding such a letter years later and reading it again can be a beautifully nostalgic moment.
If you and your friends like to put a little craftsmanship into it, you could also create a shared scrapbook that you hand or send around a couple of times a year to create diary entries for the others to read. (No matter the contents, the result is almost always Pinterest-worthy!)
Ideas to spend time together
Let’s assume you found the time for a perfectly scheduled video call. You have talked for quite a while; everyone got a chance to catch up, and while there is nothing to report left, you don’t want to hang up. There are so many things the online world offers to spend time together and leave the daily stress behind, even if you’re quite a ways apart!
A favourite of mine are multiplayer browser games like skribbl.io or garticphone, where you can explore your artistic capabilities in the most hilarious ways (and of course it’s even more fun if said artistic ability does not really exist). If not drawing, then what about creating friend-group-specific memes with makeitmeme or killing and accusing (sounds fun, right?) each other in Among Us? These are just some of the free games, but there are so many more options, both simple and free or really engaging multiplayer games, that come with some
costs.
But of course it does not have to be online! One option is to travel back to your middle school times and play things like “kiss,marry, kill” or “who am I” over the phone. When you want to create new material to connect over, you could also read a book or watch a series “together” and share opinions and reactions throughout your daily life, whenever you find the time.
Last, but not least… Don´t forget to:
- Schedule actual meet-ups!
- Visit each other, meet up in a city somewhere between the two of you or plan trips together – no matter if it´s a camp weekend with the whole group or a holiday apartment for a week between two best friends.
Quality time and exciting experiences bring you together for years to come – no matter how far apart!
(And in the end: here is a little reminder for you (and me too) to finally check in with that one friend and send that text you’ve been forgetting over and over again. ;))