Illustration by Lola Fleming.

Originally published in print February 2021.

Having left home at thirteen for boarding school in a different country, I would call myself a veteran at long distance friendships. When you’re thirteen no one tells you that keeping in touch with people takes effort, and with considerably less access to social media as I have now, I wasn’t the best at keeping in contact.

Nowadays, I can stay connected with people who are far away or who I might not otherwise speak to, feeling involved and showing interest in their lives with a reaction to their Instagram story. 

I’ve grown used to having friends who live abroad, so going home for the lockdown last year was not so different to most school/university holidays. I found it funny how much everyone wanted to FaceTime, because I’d always lived abroad but had never called friends so much, nevermind done Zoom quizzes. I think because the end of our time at University coincided with the lockdown, everyone was eager to keep in touch. From previous experience I wondered how long this would last. 

 

I complain about having friends who live far away, but I was the one who decided to do a Masters in a different country. It’s easy to look back on the good times when you’re in a new, uncertain place, and it’s hard to find a balance between not disregarding previous friendships and not moving on from the past. Moving away helped me see how my friends and I reciprocated the efforts to maintain our relationship. Some unexpectedly sent me real life mail; whereas others regularly react to my Instagram stories, supporting whatever I show I’m up to on social media. Some friends I never text but then call more regularly than others, some I text everyday but never call. I communicate with some friends simply by tagging them in multiple Facebook memes (I’m sorry if that’s you). 

 

Although I personally prefer texting to talking, I try and call my friends regularly, because it feels more personal. However, it can take a lot of energy to communicate different experiences across the phone to friends who aren’t there, because they need background information which wouldn’t be necessary if they were around. And so, to avoid boring them, I end up scaling down my stories, talking quickly or changing the conversation. I think this is also why our calls now seem to follow a pattern: we ask each other how we’re doing, and since everyone is in lockdown and not doing much, we end up reminiscing.

 

All of this has led me to realise that you don’t have to keep in constant contact with someone to stay friends with them and that your best friends might not be the people you speak to most. My home friends now are few, but we’ve known each other for so long that we know our friendship is stable enough to sustain periods without talking.You may not feel like Facetiming everyday, but you might just show a friend support by reacting to their story. We’re lucky to have forms of communication which allow us to reach friends when we need to but also when we have the energy to.