As we go through our lives, we meet a few people that we find exceptional enough to want to regularly spend our time with. They become our companions, our allies, our confidants; in a word, they become our friends. However, we are often taken from our friends as life goes on, and we don't get to see each other much, if at all. In this current age of the internet and social media, staying in touch with our friends is easier than ever, yet many of our long distance friendships still suffer and fall apart. The reasons for this are different with each unique friendship, but there are ways to improve friendships instead of letting them suffer and fall by the wayside.
1. Regular video chat dates
Sure, you might be able to text your friends or message them on Facebook at any given moment, but these common forms of communication are not the same as talking face-to-face. Using apps like FaceTime or Skype to see your friend's smiling face as you share current events from your respective locations will strengthen your friendship, especially when done at a regular interval. For example, if one of you is having a particularly bad week, your Skype date at the end of the week might just be the thing that they need to turn a terrible week into a good week.
2. Letting them know that you're thinking about them
I'm sure we've all seen memes on Facebook about how friends tag each other on posts on a regular basis. While it may seem silly due to the fact that the word "meme" is in that sentence, this can actually help strengthen your relationships with friends. For example, I follow many dog based pages on Facebook, and if I see one that I know will particularly interest one of my friends, I will tag them in it. Not only are we connected by our shared interest in dogs, but now we can strike up a conversation based on how cute the corgi is in that picture that I tagged them in.
3. Be mindful of their schedule.
It's easier to keep track of your friends' schedules in middle/high school when you excitedly showed them to each other in the hopes that you would have at least one class together that semester. In the "adult" world, matching up our schedules is more difficult than we'd like it to be as a result of work or other important commitments. If you have something important to share with your friend, it is important to keep in mind when they are unavailable so that you do not cause them to get into any trouble or run into any other problems. This is particularly important if your friendship stretches across time zones. If you have a friend far away and you want to talk to them, check and see what time it is for them before you do. For example, it might be early evening for you, but if you have a friend who's six hours ahead of you, it's the middle of the night for them. Being mindful of their schedules and commitments is key to maintaining and improving your friendship.
4. Don't let your conversations be one-sided.
Although this may seem like a given, you should also be mindful of how much of the talking or listening you and your friend are doing. If it seems like you are doing most of the talking about your life, you should take a step back to let your friend do some talking of their own. Even if you are going through a difficult time, you need to remember that they are your friend, not your therapist or dumping ground for all of your problems. When people do this, their friendships fall apart even if they think they've done nothing wrong.
5. Continue to grow and share memories together.
Even though it's easy to reminisce about the times that you had together when you were younger, that shouldn't be the only basis of your friendship. You can only share stories with each other so many times before it just gets old. With this in mind, it's up to you to find a way for your friendship to continue to grow in the best way possible for you.
