True, meaningful friendships are hard to come by, so when one half of you moves away, it can feel quite devastating. You might feel abandoned and even a little resentful and it may be difficult to regain that solid feeling of friendship you once had. Luckily, with fun strategies like these maintaining a long distance friendship doesn’t have to be difficult, it’ll just look a little bit different from the outside.
Keep Sharing Interests
What are the reasons the two of you became friends to begin with? Did you meet at a dog park? At a movie opening? While playing volleyball? Whatever brought the two of you together, be sure to stay connected with those interests.
- Share articles and video clips/TikTok’s with one another about your mutual interests
- Watch movies together that have to do with your interests
- If you both love cooking, video chat while cooking a meal together
- Play video games together and take turns suggesting new ones to try
- Read a book together and stop after an agreed upon number of chapters to actively discuss it
Send Each Other Gifts
It’s one thing to send a gift, it’s quite another to send a thoughtful gift. A gift that proves you know them and are thinking about their comfort, convenience, and well-being will strike a deep chord in their heart.
- Bond Touch Vibrating Bracelets. Both of you wear these bracelets and with a single tap to them, you send a custom vibration to the other so you’re never too far out of reach
- Friendship Lamps. Friendship illuminates our lives, and so will this friendship lamp. When it is touched, it brightens the other person’s lamp no matter how far away they are. Connected via WiFi and the internet, it’ll feel like a hug from afar
- Egift cards. You know what your friend likes, and now you can offer them a surprise gift for that pair of shoes, bean bag or whatever else suits their fancy. Easy to send over text or email, egift cards are safe and secure.
Stick to a Schedule
Just like any other relationship, you want to have events placed on the calendar. This promotes a sense of belonging and validates the friendship and will always keep the both of you confidently connected. If for some reason you must cancel an event, pose another day and time.
- Phone calls and video chats
- Watching movies and television shows together
- Planning future trips and get togethers
Collaborate Creatively
Truly, the reason we have our friends is because they make us feel good about ourselves. We feel supported and encouraged, and want to try new things. As friends that have similar interests, why not work on an ongoing creative venture that both of you contribute to and enjoy.
- Shared playlist. Spotify makes it easy to share playlists with each other
- Send one or two pages through the mail and work on each one back and forth, adding pictures, die cuts, quotes, and hand written text.
- Write a memoir, novel or screenplay. Nobody said the end result had to be good! The creative collaboration is most of the fun, so let yourselves be expressive and see what you come up with!
Make Snail Mail Your Friend
Technology has turned personal correspondence into – literally – black and white. Whether it’s over the phone via a text or on the computer via email or social media IM, an entire layer of personal expression is gone when people no longer handwrite letters to one another. You can choose the frequency (once every 2 weeks or month might be best) and send each other thoughts, events of the day, hopes for the future and everything else you would talk about in person. Being hand written will mean so much more to them – and you – and you’ll be looking forward to getting the mail for something other than bills!
Don’t Be Afraid to Get Deep
When a friend is not physically there, it can take a toll on the level of emotional trust. You might find yourselves staying away from certain topics simply because it feels as though the lack of physical proximity means the other person doesn’t care. Be open with each other about this, and make a pledge to work against it. Take the time to be transparent with feelings about conflicts and actively listen to what they have to say.
Just because they’ve moved far away doesn’t mean you have to stop being friends. These connections are so hard to make and keep, it’s worth it to try your hardest to maintain the friendship, even if it looks and feels a little different than it did before.
