Till just a few years ago you couldn’t have imagined having a long-distance friend, who you have never met in life, even in your wildest dreams. But in today’s digital age of social media, where connecting with people worldwide means just a few strokes of fingers on a screen, long-distance friendship is a widespread reality. You may have never been to America or met an American, but today you can find a friend online who’s American. However, online long-distance friendships are not the only kind of long-distance friendships there are. It’s possible that a friend of yours, for whatever reasons, had to move abroad or shift to a distant location. And now you can’t meet them regularly. Whatever is the nature of your long-distance friendship, many believe that they are hard to sustain and fade away quickly. Maybe that was true for old times when you had limited options to connect. But with the availability of the internet today you can chat or video chat whenever and wherever you want. Staying in touch is easier and more effective than ever today. If you’re still finding it hard to maintain your long-distance friendship, here are five interesting and effective tips for you.
Know Each Other’s Schedules
It’s true that thanks to the Internet you can talk to your long-distance friend whenever you want. But it’s very possible that you both live in different countries, meaning different time zones. Therefore, the time of the day you have free may be the busiest for them. It is thus important that you both know each other’s schedules well. That way you’ll know when to contact them and will not become a disturbance in their day-to-day tasks.
Send Surprise Gifts Often
Gifts are known to strengthen friendships and relationships. They are a great way to let your long-distance friend know that you care about your relationship with them and appreciate it. Since touch or physical connection is limited in long-distance friendship, sending gifts online can be a great way to connect. Flower arrangements such as bouquets, baskets or a combo gift of flowers and cake can be a better option to do the trick.
Watch Movies & Shows Together Online
We live in the streaming and binge-watching era, where watching TV shows or movies online on our smartphones or laptops is something we all do regularly. In long-distance friendships, it’s possible for your relationship to get boring when you do not have a lot of stuff to talk about. But when you watch a movie or tv show together there’s a whole bunch of new things to discuss. Who was your favorite character? How many times did you laugh or cry? How did you like the plot? and so on.
Share Your Daily Stories
When you live far away, you may start to feel disconnected from the life of your loved one. It’s natural for it to happen when you know nothing about what’s happening in their life. They are meeting new people every day, going to new places, making new friends, and achieving new goals, all of which you may not know anything about. Keeping your long-distance friend in the loop is a great way to still keep them as an important part of your life even though you both may be hundreds or thousands of miles away. Sharing stories of your daily struggles or successes is a great way to let your friend know that you care about their input and opinion about your life.
Send Cards on Special Occasions
Maybe you used to spend all your special occasions with your best friend, but now that you are long-distance you can’t. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t still include your friend in your special moments. Sending cards is a great way to still keep your long-distance friendship as a part of your celebrations and special occasions. Although you can send digital cards, a physical hand-written one would be even better. A message with flowers can convey a little more emotion than sending a letter alone. With the help of online shops, it is possible to get same day delivery of greeting cards with exactly the same message you need to send.
