For six months now, one of my absolute closest friends has been living on the other side of the world, in Brisbane, Australia. She’ll continue to do so for the next six month. Traveling and settling in foreign countries for a period of time is one of our joint passions and I fully support her undertaking – of course! However, I miss her. A lot! And it sucks being apart when you’re used to hanging out almost every day – especially considering the time difference. Thankfully, the Internet with various forms of social media exists, which allows us to stay in touch on a daily basis and not miss out on important (and not-so-important) stuff in our lives.
In a long distance friendship, though, there are certain things you can expect. The following presents a list of things I have experienced with my bestie as well as other close friends living abroad from me. Things, not all of which, I had expected:
- You become her social media stalker …stalker!
- You find yourself counting your fingers to figure out what time it is for her and what she might be up to
- Phone conversations at random hours – for hours
- Random updates from her life – and you sending random updates as well
- Panicking when you cannot get her advice on something now – and her panicking when she cannot reach you now either
- Random out bursts into tears because you suddenly realize how much you miss your bestie when something on Facebook, Instagram etc. reminds you of her or when your favourite Television series airs
- Endless tags on Facebook and Instagram in random posts
- Endless list of Snapchats some of which will just make you laugh out loud
- A detailed update on her date nights
- Drunk texts in the middle of the day (time difference, remember), which will no doubt make you laugh out loud as well. Especially, when she sends videos, too
- Missing out on important stuff like when she meets a guy and you’re not there to approve this predator
- Most importantly, you can expect a deeper friendship that is not only stronger, however, also deeper due to the distance because you’ve both realized just how big a part of each others lives you are
…
Do you have long distance friendships, too? If so, what things have you experienced?
xo P!
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I had long distance friendships many years ago when we used to send letters by mail. Now that was an effort! They do say absence makes the heart grow fonder – I’m sure that also applies to friendships as well. Imagine how much you’ll have to talk about when you finally do catch up again. In person. xx
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I do not have yet a long distance friend, but I think it’s very hard. Next summer my best friend goes in England to stay with her mother. Permanently. I do not want to think about it 😦
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I have many long distance friendships as my friends are spread all over the world. In a way it’s sad because you don’t get to see them that often. But thank goodness there’s Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.. A while ago I had a metope with a friend I hadn’t seen in 20 years!!!! Of course I was quite nervous at first about how it would go since we planned to travel together for a week. In the end it was like we’d seen each other yesterday ❤
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I used to have contact with a person in Singapore, but we have lost contact right about the time the huge Tsunami happened there in 2004… Even though I don’t know why we lost contact, it’s a strange and eery coincidence…
I follow a lot of people through Twitter, or blogs, that are abroad, but wouldn’t necessarily consider them friends, yet 🙂
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Long friendship is tough as you use to be physically together, but it can survive the challenge. 😊
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Skype….wonderful way to stay in touch….my daughter back in her college years moved to London and we only had snail mail and I could fax her at her job sometimes…we arranged phone calls….it was horrible…but now fact time or Skype its like we are all together all the time…how exciting to be in Australia…6 months will fly by…. happy holidays…kat
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