The main thing to remember is that if you want it to work, then make it a priority.  Set aside just a few minutes every week to keep in touch.  I’ve moved around a lot over the last ten years, so here are some ideas for maintaining long distance friendships:

• Scheduled monthly or weekly phone calls – Plan a specific day each month or week to call each other.  Even if you don’t think you have much to say, it helps you to keep each other updated on just the small things in your lives.
• Frequent emails – If you are more of an email person (like me) shoot out little emails frequently.  Just send a few sentences, weblinks, articles, or images that remind you of something you would have shared if you still lived in the same place.  Again, keeping in touch about the small things maintains a better friendship than just summarizing your life once a year.
• Yearly trip – Plan far in advance so you make sure that all of the friends can adjust their schedules accordingly and take advantage of the lowest prices possible.  I know a lot of people who have been planning yearly trips with the same group of friends since college, and it definitely lasts through the years!  Usually you probably travel with your spouse/significant other, but plan a trip with your long distance friend to meet up in a foreign place.  You will get to spend lots of quality time together.
• Instant messaging – There are many interfaces out there, but choose one that is paired with your email so whenever you are reading your email you can also take a moment to say hello to your friends.  This is definitely the best way for me.
• Birthdays and holidays – Make a special effort to remember these days.  Sometimes you might even spend them together, but if not then be sure to make a phonecall.

I purposely did not include social networking sites like Facebook because I don’t believe that these are ways to really maintain a friendship…in fact, I think they are the opposite.  If you are reading updates about someone’s life through a website then you will have no reason to actually contact them to ask important questions and catch up.  You probably know all about what they do everyday, but don’t actually have any personal interactions.  These are good for peripheral friendships, but not for your closest friends.

The main thing to remember is just that it only takes a few minutes out of every week to show a friend that you are thinking about them.  I know it’s super hard when you have the life happening around you to handle also, but close friendships are important to maintain in your life, even if they take a little extra effort.

Let me know if you have any special ways that you have maintained a long distance friendship that has lasted over the years…

Image: Flickr

Post from: Blisstree

How to Maintain Long Distance Friendships

I move a lot. Since college I have lived in 7 places (not different houses, different cities) in 12 years.

Every time I move it’s to follow my bliss and pursue happiness. At least that’s how I want to look at it today. During a few of those moves it felt more like running like hell. But, I now have the blessing of retrospect.

Right after college I sold everything I owned and moved to Lithuania to teach English. Obviously, I had to move to return to the United States.

My first real job was in a Utah town as a reporter and it was fantastic. Except, it was in Utah. The dating pool consists of Mormon or Freak. I went through an entire year when I was 24 when my only dates turned out to be secretly married. I’ve got to get the hell out of here to have a normal dating life, I decided.

I got a great job in a fishing village in Central California. Then all at once – in the matter of a week or two - my boyfriend turned into a psycho and inexplicably dumped me (Thank You God, because it turns out he too was secretly married, cheating on me, and a sociopathic pedophile), my job payed me so little I was barely surviving, my landlady dropped dead and her son raised my rent $200. I figured the universe was telling me: move on. So I sold everything again and got the hell out of there. 

Transition East Texas visiting Grandmother, met guy who hitched a ride to New York where I could pursue my writing career. Married guy, had baby, quit job. You know that expression: New York, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere? Turns out, we couldn’t. Not on a single income in the most expensive city in the world.

We made an emergency, Maybe we can save ourselves by moving to New Jersey move. I sat there in this suburban apartment complex and realized if I was going to be broke and living Not My Dream, I may as well do it around relatives who could provide free babysitting like NaNa and PaPa. Sold everything, moved.

Back to East Texas. The town we were living in was getting on my nerves. It had been 4 years after all. Not to mention we couldn’t afford our dream home if we stayed there. A dream home is worth moving for. This time, I didn’t sell everything because we didn’t have much . Which might explain why packing seemed like such an insurmountable task.

This town is small and quaint and I can be happy here. For about 3 years. Zack will be off to school. My husband will be ready to make a professional move. We’ll have a big fat emergency fund saved and we’ll be ready to take on another big city. Who knows, I may want to go back to an office.

Different phases of life have different definitions of bliss. If you have to move to find it. Move!

That military-brat thing got in my blood, I guess I am a bit of a gypsy.

Post from: Blisstree

Gypsy