I’ve read countless articles and have watched handfuls of Youtube videos about long distance relationship advice but what about long distance friendships? Not everyone is in a romantic relationship but friendships and the value they hold is universally relatable. Maintaining healthy friendships can be challenging, especially when both people are busy and attend different schools. Whether your best friend is from childhood or high school, it’s a tough transition from hanging out all the time to barely seeing each other.
My best friend and I met as coworkers and went to the same school for two years. Now, we go to different universities and work at different companies but we still both live in Washington. When we first parted schools, I expected us to always be in contact with each other and hangout often because if we both cared about our friendship, wouldn’t it be easy to make time for it? I quickly found out that the answer was no. Of course school, work and other things we wanted to pursue got in the way. Every day is also different. Sometimes we’ll be in contact with each other through social media and text all day. Sometimes we won’t talk at all. Despite the challenges, the distance has made our friendship stronger and has helped us appreciate the times we do see each other in person. Don’t worry, if you and your friend go to different colleges and you’re starting to fear the loss of connection, it’s going to get easier. I hope sharing my experience can help others who are also in the same boat.
Long distance or not, communication is key in any friendship. My best friend and I will DM each other funny tweets and Instagram posts. We also like to send each other random videos on Snapchat throughout the day. Communicating with each other even if it’s with something silly over social media feels like my bestie and I are hanging out again, except it’s just not in person. Good text language is also something important to master. Sending simple and dry texts repeatedly can make the other person feel like the connection is dying, leading them to assume that they did something wrong. Bad communication always goes hand in hand with negative assumptions about the friendship. Here are some text examples you can use to spark up a conversation:
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“Let’s talk later, I miss you.”
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“What’s up? Sorry I haven’t been in touch recently.”
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“You HAVE to watch this TikTok right now!”
Another great tip I learned through my own experience with long distance friendships is to introduce your school friends to each other. This way, everyone involved can meet new people and it helps to stay up to date with each other’s lives. I recently hung out with my long distance best friend and my best friend on campus. We all bonded really well and it was a really fun experience.
The hardest part of having my best friend off campus was learning to get used to the reality of talking less often. At the beginning of the school year, I would get anxious when my best friend wouldn’t reply to messages for the whole day. Now, we both know that life happens and there are a few days when we barely talk to each other. It’s hard, but accepting the reality of less communication than before will create minimal negative emotions like worry or stress. My best friend and I have a closer bond with each other now because we value and are more grateful for the times we get to see each other in person. Believe me, you and your best friend aren’t alone in this experience. Trusting each other, utilizing social media and being fully present when seeing each other will make it worth it.