Growing up, I knew all of my friends from school. I saw them every day, had lunch with them every day, and we hung out together on the weekends. It was easy in the sense that I didn’t really have to worry about the maintenance and upkeep of friendships.
But then one of my best friends moved away at the beginning of high school. Halfway across the country. Not close at all. Based on how I knew friendships worked then, I figured the friendship was going to die off and I’d never speak to him ever again.
Turns out, that wasn’t the case.
This is where technology became so much more valuable to me than it ever had been. I talked to my friend every day through text and we occasionally FaceTimed. It was nothing too deep, usually just to check-in, but it was the effort of reaching out that really made it so our friendship has lasted almost six years, with five of those years being almost entirely long distance.
And then the pandemic struck. Suddenly, I was completing my first year of college over Zoom while my friends from high school went off to their own schools. I stuck to what I knew best with FaceTime and checking in every once in a while to make sure everyone was doing okay. And even when finally moving to college this fall, I’ve still managed to keep those friendships alive and well.
I’ve learned, over the years of dealing with long-distance friendships, that the best kinds of friendships are the ones where you can go weeks without speaking to each other, but as soon as you start talking, it’s like the conversation never ended. Those friendships aren’t always easy to come by, but they are what allow for long-distance friendships to prosper.
The harsh reality is that not all friendships are built for long-distance and that the people involved must be willing to put in the effort for it to work. It’s communication and time and accepting that not every day is going to be perfect.
Once that’s all set, anything is possible.
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