It is often difficult to maintain a long distance friendship. It can be hard to find the balance between contact and space, or keep in touch with each other when there’s no face-to-face interaction. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are some tips about how you can make your long distance friendships work for you!
Set Limits
Decide on the amount of time you’re going to be apart and set limits accordingly. If your friend lives within the same city, for example, maybe you’ll dedicate one night a week just for calling them. Maybe you’ll only talk twice a month. Whatever it is that works best for both of you, make sure you’re clear about it from the beginning.
Get a Routine
When you can’t see each other, but you still need to keep in touch with your friend, establish a routine for contact. Plan out times and days when you’ll call or text them; this will help make sure that you both have space to live your lives, while still making sure that you stay in touch.
Fill Time with Activities
When you’re apart from your friends, don’t spend too much time moping around about it! Instead, fill up the time between interactions by doing other things. Maybe hit the gym for an hour or two to work out your annoyance at having lost a friend, or maybe even just spend the time reading a good book. The point is that you shouldn’t let yourself be idle when you’re apart from your friends; it will keep you busy and distract you from missing them as much!
Meet up in the Real World
One of the most important aspects of maintaining a long-distance friendship is communicating effectively. Sometimes, you’ll be in a long-distance relationship with someone who doesn’t live anywhere near you. In that case, maybe your communication will be via phone or video chat for the most part. But if the person does live near to you, take every opportunity to meet up and hang out together as much as possible!
Use Social Media
For those friends you’ve lost contact with, but wish that you still saw more often, maybe social media will help to bridge the gap. On sites like Facebook or Twitter, you can catch up on what they’ve been doing and plan out your next meet-up. This way, even if your friendship isn’t one that involves a lot of face-to-face interaction, you can still find ways to stay in touch!
Social media is a great way to stay in contact with people, even if they’re far away!
Long distance friendships can be difficult to maintain and keep in touch with. It can be hard to find the balance between contact and space or keep in touch when there is no face-to-face interaction.
But that doesn’t mean it has to be that way! Hopefully the tips shared above will help you maintain a closeness with long distance friends as a parent, or as a teenager who has friends who moved away.