Every three months M and I facetime for three hours in the evening. We ask each other how we are, how work is and what drama life has unfolded for us. We reminisce about college days and the difficulties of being in our twenties. We feel nostalgic for the city we once shared and the sadness of no longer recognising a place we once called home.
You see, both of us are part of an LDF or long-distance friendship. She’s in Utah and I’m in the UK, with approximately 4,858 miles between us. There was once a point where we shared a small college dorm bedroom, just a fridge and microwave between our beds, so this distance is greatly felt. We used to eat dinner together in the dining hall, visit small indie bands at a rock club behind our building and make regular trips to Target.
The possibility that our closest friends might move away exists solely at the back of our mind. We know it can happen, we know it probably will happen, but we hope it doesn’t. We hope that the bond we develop between us is strong enough to keep us together no matter where we end up in life. The threat of missing our chosen friend feels far away, unimaginable.
But as with anything in our adulthood, our greatest fears sometimes become a reality, and before you know it, your favourite person lives in a different country, different state, different continent, than you. The nights going to indie concerts and ditching boys for movie nights are no longer a thing. The responsibility to plan ahead, schedule calls and set aside time for one another has become a necessity to surviving an LDF.
As a society we talk a lot about long distance relationships and how to survive the distance, how to keep the romance alive and how to not feel the depth of loneliness when you’re other half is not nearby. We so little discuss the effects distance has on a friendships. Remember that friendships, just like relationships, boost your sense of belonging and purpose, making you feel acknowledged.
As with any relationship, long-distance friendships need work. They deserve attention and effort. It’s easy to fall into the natural cycle of life, settling for a short exchange of texts and the wishing of a birthday once a year. But that feels cheap and thoughtless. Friendships are like fruit trees, they require nurturing, and attention and effort. Lots of it. So many of us will have and lose best friends simple due to distance, the busyness of life, the dropped texts. We will go from day-to-day chats to one off messages to eventually just scrolling through their social profiles to see what their up to. When you go from being each other’s first texts, first person to tell them any news or drama or life update, to simply having your life run parallel rather than intersecting, it sucks.
LDFs always start with a classic “I miss you” followed by reminiscing on a memories shared. M and I frequently return to our two-week road trip through Utah and Nevada that we took in 2019. You’ll eventually lament about the distance, about the missed moments, you play catch up on all the things gone past in each others lives.
You become an audience member to each other’s lives, eager to know what happens next in the story since you’re not longer directly part of it — the latest boy gossip, the work drama, the rant and rave of being an young-adult approaching their late twenties, no longer college graduates.
It’s the trips you can’t go on and the events you miss, the “did I tell you about…?” anecdote that you’re not sure you’ve heard, but which comes with a pinching reminder that you weren’t there. I’d say it’s sometimes sad, but more often than not, it just is sad. A sharp reminder that there was a closeness I once took for granted and the thinking that we would be inseparable.
But with distance comes maturity and appreciation, a deeper depth to your friendship that isn’t bound by proximity to each other. Every conversation, every phone call, and meeting happens because you both want it to happen, not just sheer coincidence. All of it culminates in the joint effort to remain close friends. As they say, actions speak louder than words. It’s a special kind of adult love for one another to set aside hours just to maintain the closeness you once had.
No matter the distance, whether it’s 30 minutes, an hour, or several hours, the distance will always feel far. However, bonds like these are often once in a lifetime; special connections that outlast other friendships. In short, they’re constants in a life which is forever changing and turning.
Here is a reminder to send that text or voice note, to schedule calendar invites for your next catch up. Many people become friends, but through nothing but sheer force of will and effort, it’s your true friends that stay with you no matter the distance or time that separates you both.
Hi Natalie!
I came across your substack from one of the Substack feature threads. I run a literary zine in the form of a newsletter on substack called The Abandoned Dreams Collective. I'm currently looking for other writers who are looking to expand their reach through collaborations and cross posting.
Though this is slightly different from what you're writing here on this newsletter, I really enjoyed and connected with the emotion behind the words in this piece and in the "If I could" essay and think it would be a great fit for what I'm doing. Would love to collaborate if you're interested