[goodnews.inc]

The ABC's of Long Distance Friendships

BY BUSHRA HABIB, MACINSIDERS

“Move on”. These words will become synonymous with “long distance friendships” to the many international students and Canadian citizens returning from abroad, as they enter McMaster University this fall.

A common misperception that I often come across when addressing this topic is summed up by the overused cliche, “out of sight, out of mind”. It seems to be popular belief that no friendship can last over great distances, but this is not necessarily true. In order to maintain a healthy friendship despite distance, acceptance, balance and communication are absolutely vital.

To elaborate, it is true that some students who move away wish to have no association with any prior friends and focus more on the new people they meet at university. However, many friends feel torn between the opportunity to foster exciting new relationships and their longing to remain with their childhood chum. This often pushes a young person to two drastic extremes - either alienating their previous companions completely, or relying completely on them, refusing to move forward.

This is where we fall back on our ABC’s.


1. Acceptance

It is important to accept that you are transitioning into a new era of your life and that you will encounter great changes. That being said, it is also necessary to accept that your longest friendship may be one of those. Oftentimes, our friendships change in unexpected ways that bring more pain than joy. However, they can also transform in wonderful ways and once again, acceptance is a crucial stepping stone to achieving those positive changes. This is because, once we accept that we have the ability to make a difference in our friendships and shape them, we can commit to them and work on them as needed. It is unfortunate to say that it is quite possible that a long lasting friendship may dissolve once a person moves away - but this does not always have to apply. When we do not expect unrealistically, and instead accept the possible realities we may be faced with, we are better prepared to face the challenges that present themselves to us.

For example, your best friend may move without mentioning it to you in a letter or a phone call. Accepting that these sort of incidents may crop up due to the lack of intense communication and face to face interaction prevents a great deal of sadness and ripped up photographs. It is entirely possible they wanted to ask you about how you were doing instead and forgot about the fact they moved, or they wanted to tell you that stunning volunteer at the gym finally accepted their invitation for coffee.


2. Balance

Your best friend may now live a kilometer away or eleven thousand kilometers away, and perhaps they were also the only person you did laundry with. Your closeness to them can be represented by having them as #1 on your speed dial even if you never call them without a calling card (unless you actually use your speed dial for convenience; I do not). You do not have to hold off doing 32 weeks of laundry until you see them next. You can find new ways to display your importance to each other; by text messaging them “Good morning” out of the blue, or calling them after they email you about having a crappy week.

A note of caution before we proceed ahead. If you do indeed plan on continuing your long distance friendships, invest in calling cards and a long distance text messaging plan. Do not ever subscribe to a long distance post paid calling plan. While reminiscing with mum or Farah about your crazy kitten getting stuck on top of the fridge again will make you smile, the $300+ phone bill from Bell will not. Always use calling cards and be sure to shop around and look for ones without connection or maintenance fees. (CiCi is expensive but scam free.)

While it’s important to have a life that does not revolve entirelyaround your faraway friends, it is not polite to cut them out of your life.


3. Communication

Continuing the train of thought initiated above, if you truly do feel you can no longer subscribe to the work required of a long distance friendship, be honest and inform your friends in a gentle way (though I would recommend not abandoning ship before trying it; it may be easier than it seems). Avoiding the letters and never returning phone calls may seem to be the easy way to break it to them but they might break in the process as they hope that you’re just swamped with assignments this week and you will have time in the next.

If you have important news to tell them, write it down in a place you will be sure to remember it, so that it isn’t shocking to them a few months down the line, and so that they still feel that they are part of your life.

Be sure to share the positive experiences and don’t just spend all your time discussing serious matters or sorting each other’s problems out. Take out some time to just goof around and be silly; all friendships need a good dose of rolling-on-the-floor-in-peals-of-laughter.

Also, talk to them about what you both want from the friendship and establish clear calling and writing guidelines to ensure all parties are on the same page. If you have concerns about the friendship, do not wait too long to bring them up but at the same time, do not pounce on the other person if they are a few days late responding to a ten thousand word email.


Before wrapping up, let's go over some good ways to stay in touch.

On the Internet:

Skype is excellent for long distance calling but is blocked in more conservative countries. Windows Live Messenger is extremely popular, but your friend or you may be on a Mac, making video conferencing difficult, at which point Yahoo! Messenger is a great choice too. GTalk from Google provides great crisp quality and it truly does sound like the person is right there. PC to PC calling (that is when both parties have microphones and headsets) is almost always free, so if you’re being asked to pay, do some more research. PC to phone calling is charged but before you sign on for it be sure you’re using a system where you purchase credit before hand so that you can keep an eye on how much you’re spending. Also look around to see if calling cards are a better financial deal.

Don’t forget emails, and ecards for special occasions.


By Post:

Send a card or two, or a postcard of your adventures or an old fashioned hand written letter. Mail of substance is always appreciated.

I hope that this article was of use to anybody who had concerns about this issue and I hope that you find several more things to love about your treasured friendships over these next four years.

[PilotMal]

This is a really great article - thank you for it!
Not only do I have friends from around Canada, but I have friend all over worlds from being in Cadets - its truly a worthwhile experience if you can keep in contact with your National and International friends!

[mellye]

Great article! Thanks!

[goodnews.inc]

Originally Posted by PilotMal

This is a really great article - thank you for it!
Not only do I have friends from around Canada, but I have friend all over worlds from being in Cadets - its truly a worthwhile experience if you can keep in contact with your National and International friends!

I'm glad it was useful
Distance prompts more creative ways of keeping in touch and when you meet after a while it's jsut a wonderful time

[ferreinm]

WAYYYYYYY easier said than done. My two best friends from high school-- so hard to keep in touch. My best friend Christine works from 4-10 while I work from 8:30am-4:30 pm. We have opposite schedules. Everytime we schedule to meet up I have some meeting to attend of some sort or her mom gets rushed into surgery. My best friend Zeid is in Kingston this summer and my commute to Mac everyday is exhausting. You get so busy that it's just much simpler to stay out of touch. Honestly, Christine and I had sooo many ideas of how we were gonna see each other and keep in touch prior to university. Once I moved to Hamilton, yeah, everything changed. It's really really hard. You can do the odd facebook message and such but seriously it's not the same. You become a completely different person. I'm really different compared to how I was in high school. Back then I thought extra currics were lame and I slacked off. When she does see me, she has no idea what to talk to me about. She's become this shopaholic and I (being broke from living on campus and such while she lives home) am much more conservative with money. The time apart and the influence of new people can really change people. It's like meeting a new friend, only you've known them your whole life.

[goodnews.inc]

Originally Posted by ferreinm

WAYYYYYYY easier said than done. My two best friends from high school-- so hard to keep in touch. My best friend Christine works from 4-10 while I work from 8:30am-4:30 pm. We have opposite schedules. Everytime we schedule to meet up I have some meeting to attend of some sort or her mom gets rushed into surgery. My best friend Zeid is in Kingston this summer and my commute to Mac everyday is exhausting. You get so busy that it's just much simpler to stay out of touch. Honestly, Christine and I had sooo many ideas of how we were gonna see each other and keep in touch prior to university. Once I moved to Hamilton, yeah, everything changed. It's really really hard. You can do the odd facebook message and such but seriously it's not the same. You become a completely different person. I'm really different compared to how I was in high school. Back then I thought extra currics were lame and I slacked off. When she does see me, she has no idea what to talk to me about. She's become this shopaholic and I (being broke from living on campus and such while she lives home) am much more conservative with money. The time apart and the influence of new people can really change people. It's like meeting a new friend, only you've known them your whole life.

I'm really sorry to hear that but I know what you mean.
The people who I thought would stay close and keep in touch didn't.
However, moving apart allowed me to better appreciate one of my oldest friends and to be very honest, I don't think we would have the same sort of connection we would if I lived nearby where I'd just take him for granted.
In a lot of ways I hate that I can never plan the birthday parties or go to the bakery to get cake together, but in a way I'm glad because we're as good as family to each other and it'll be 8 years since I moved away next March.
Each case depends though; these things are just some of what's helped me

[feonateresa]

Thanks for the article.
Yeah, so basically I left all my friends in Toronto. While it is only like 45 minutes away, it's difficult to meet up with them when things like work or whatnot gets in the way. If it wasn't for things like cellphones, e-mail and facebook, well I guess we'd have to use letters - and if there wasn't ink well, you know where I'm going with this.

I don't know if it's just me either, but I find it difficult to meet good friends. You know, the ones that don't 'cause drama, the ones that you can talk to about anything and be completely yourself with. I only have a couple of those - those are the ones you don't want to lose, and you probably wouldn't if they were that good a friend.

[Joseph]

Nice article Bushra! Very useful information indeed!

[nila*]

when me and my three best friends ended up going to four different universities we started a private message on facebook which ended up acting like a thread and all us were notified when one of us posted a life update. It was great! Its approaching 2000 posts now with no end in sight


great article

[~*Sara*~]

Ooh awesome article Bushra! Although it doesn't always work, doesn't mean that it's hopeless! And I still stay in touch with my friends half-way across the world, even if it's not on a daily basis !

[Nino]

My close friends stay in touch by any means. There are friends that I have tried to stay in touch with but they don't even bother. I don't bother contacting those anymore. It's really difficult to stay in touch though. One would think that you would be able to hang out with a few friends during the summer, but it's not true. Most of my friends work full time or take summer courses so I barely get to see them. I actually just saw four of my best friends today. It was awesome!

[daisy]

Incredibly insightful article

[moops]

What I found hardest about all of my friends leaving for university is that pretty much my entire group of best friends decided to go to the same university and I chose a different one. So at first it was really awkward because they all had the same stories to tell, knew the same people etc. and it seemed like what was going on with me didn't matter.

That all changed though once they came to visit me at Mac, met some of my friends here and got a sense of how different my life at Mac is then theirs where they stuck to the same high school group. We're all closer than we've ever been and despite the fact I barely get to see them I know we're going to stay good friends for a very long time .

Good article!