How to Maintain Long Distance Friendships

When going off to college, it’s often hard to stay in touch with close friends from home.  As you make new friends and become overwhelmed with school work, it’s easy to lose contact with friends attending other schools.  Here are some tips to help you maintain those relationships:
 

• Skype or Face Time

This is a great and easy way to catch up.  If you both have an iPhone, you can easily chat over face time, but if not then you can just use Skype.  Pick a time when you are both free and make a “skate” (Skype-date).  Phone calls are awesome too, but it is always nice to see their face when they can’t make a visit.
 

• Alternate visits

Dealing with the busy schedules that most college students have, it can be hard to find a free weekend to go visit your friend.  In addition to busy lives, gas prices are ridiculously high.  Try to alternate who visits who each time so that you are both committing an equal amount of work and gas.  This will also ensure that you can each get to know one another’s new friends, and one friend does not feel like they are doing all the work in your friendship.
 

• Designate a day and time each week for a phone call

Make a time one day a week and designate it to calling your friend.  If you both watch Gossip Girl every Monday night at 9, then you could make the time Monday at 10 to discuss the show and catch up on each other’s weekend.  Skype is great, but phone calls are easy, low maintenance, and show that you both want to stay updated on each other’s lives.
 
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• Keep them in the loop

If something big happens, tell them! Sharing ups, downs, heartaches, and happiness is what makes a friendship so special. And no best friend likes to find out that you suddenly have a boyfriend via Facebook or Twitter.
 

• Pick a weekend for both of you to go home

Plan a weekend that you both will travel back to your hometown.  It will feel even more like home with your best friend there by your side.  Whether you both go home for the fair or just to visit your family, take time to see each other.  Plan to do something you did together all the time back home, whether it is watching movies all night eating ice cream or just shopping around town.  This way you can visit your family and each other all in the same weekend, what more could you want?
 

• Meet at a location halfway from each of your schools and spend the day catching up/visiting that town

Sometimes the distance between your schools is just not reasonable to make a visit for only one or two nights; instead, try meeting each other halfway.  If one of your friends goes to N.C. State, you could meet in Winston Salem and spend the day browsing the town and catching up.  Find a date that you are both free and then pick your location!  Even if you only have time for lunch and a movie, it is still totally worth it and much more satisfying than an hour session on Skype.

The friendships you have now are the ones you’ll probably have for the rest of your life. Remember to give to your friends what you’d want to recieve from them. Investing your time and effort in friendships is always worth it!