It seems that everyone is talking about how difficult it is to maintain long distance romantic relationships in college. What we all seem to forget is that whether or not we realize it, we are all in committed long distance relationships—relationships of friendships, that is. Even in this day and age where social media makes it almost too easy to keep each other updated every second (we’re lookin’ at you Snapchat), there is a very big difference between telling a friend they look cute and you miss them on their latest Instagram post and actually taking time out of your day to send them a text to check in. Needless to say, it’s not always easy to find time in our crazy schedules to drop everything for half an hour to catch up with people from home. While some of us are seasoned experts at long distance BFFing because we went to sleepaway camp (and therefore some of our best friends have never been from home), we could all stand to improve our skills at balancing our new and old friendships. Here are a few things to keep in mind when you’re trying to find your balance.
Cut each other some slack. You know how busy you are yourself — the hours in the day are definitely getting shorter, but somehow that to-do list of yours isn’t. You walked into Bertrand at 3 p.m. and suddenly, it’s 7 p.m., and you haven’t accomplished nearly as much as you had planned, but you were planning on FaceTiming your BFF at 7:30. It’s okay to send her a quick text saying you don’t have time tonight because you’re swamped with work and simply cannot get out of the library to chat. However, make a conscious effort to make sure you’re not always canceling and promising for a later date. Your friends are just as busy as you are, and while sometimes it’s okay to just say that tonight just is not going to work; keep in mind that if they’ve taken time out of their crazy schedule for you, you should be able to find a way to do it for them, too.
Unfortunately, sometimes your schedules simply just will not coincide. Maybe that’s because she’s on a family vacation in Australia and she’s 16 and a half hours ahead of you, and for the majority of hours you’re awake, she’s asleep and vice versa. If that’s the case, FaceTime is definitely out of the question. Now is when you have to rely on texting. If you find yourself wanting to text her throughout the day even though you know she’ll be asleep and won’t be able to respond, send her that text anyway. She’ll definitely respond to that text in the morning. Let’s be honest, who doesn’t love waking up to a text from your BFF that says how much they miss you?
They weren’t wrong when they said that long distance relationships aren’t easy. It takes a lot of extra time and effort, and sometimes that means literally penciling it in on your calendar. But taking that extra time out of your busy day to check in with your long distance BFF can be the difference between crying from a mental breakdown because of work, or crying because you’re laughing so hard from that horribly embarrassing photo from your last Friday night together.