When we are abroad or in a new city our friends become our family. We may be doing an Erasmus scholarship or working in a new city. In all cases, we end up having a wide collection of memories with different groups of friends that have helped us live a memorable time. However, in most cases our relation with them becomes a long distance friendship.
All we want to do is to keep our friends from abroad but it is difficult. As time goes by, tasks of adult life occupy our time with work, social commitments, family and the friends we have in town. So, how do we keep our long distance friends?
Recent studies and opinions from writers all over the world say that maintaining a friendship in the distance is a complicated task but a very rewarding one. We only need to take a little time, have the appropriate digital tools and follow these 5 steps to make the friendship a lasting blessing.
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF APPS
Fortunately, we live in a time when social applications help us to be connected with those we love, even miles away and be part of our friends’ lives. Among the most innovative tips that the youtuber Soundly Awake talks about are the video video chat apps. There are plenty of them such as Facetime, Skype, Hangouts or Whatsapp. Snapchat deserves special mention for the amount of funny filters with which to hold a conversation by video call and make it an even funnier experience.
Sometimes it is not convenient to set a date to make a video call, however, and we find it difficult to find a moment to sit on the sofa at home or relax in a cafe and catch up with those friends who live far away.
In those cases it is easy to have a good messaging application with full functionalities on hand to talk on the way home, on the subway or anywhere without having to organize a time for it.
VR FOR MAKING IT MORE REAL
Technology evolves making a lot more real to have those virtual encounters. There are many Virtual Reality games that build a virtual world where it is possible to interact with friends separated by seas and oceans. Among them we can try Alt Space VR, a virtual world in which to create an avatar and live different adventures with friends and even invite other unknown players.
Nathan Grayson’s chronicle tells how, in different scenarios such as labyrinths or places in the American West, he connected again with his girlfriend who lives in another city and made new friends along the way. The aim is not only playing a game but recreating with the avatar the behaviour we usually have, chat and act in the same way we usually do, so our friends connect with us emotionally.
MEET THEM IN NEW EVENTS – REMEMBER THAT FESTIVAL YOU SHARED?
It is probable that a good part of the memories we have with friends that live far away have to do with common hobbies that we had when we lived nearby. It could be going to see football, ice skating, marathon solidarity or music festivals.
Meeting your friends in one of those events is one of the best ways to instantly revive the good times, jokes and attitudes you used to have with them. To facilitate the meetings, we use Wave Application, an app that enables two friends or a group to share their live location in real time on a private map. It is a fun, creative way to find each other in a festival while spotting each other moving in real time, chatting and getting to the meeting point. Wave is free and it works in all devices.
DO THINGS AT THE SAME TIME
A Reddit forum has found that doing things simultaneously with friends in the distance is one of the best ways to connect with them, beyond the weekly or monthly checkup of how life is going. To do this, we can choose a movie that interests us and view it at the same time with our friends on Letsgaze or Rabb.it web.
Gamers recognize that to spend good times play online challenging games and that this is the best way to get together with others and have a good time. It can be Minecraft, World of Warcraft or the Sims, but the thing is to spend hours playing with long distance friends.
GO TO VISIT!
It may take 5 or 10 years since we do not see some of our friends in the distance but as the youtuber Lindee LinkMusic points out, when two friends meet again it seems that nothing has changed. This is true when the relation is maintained by social networks, letters, events, online games, etc.
If friends continue to connect, it is okay to get reacquainted from time to time and feel like they were living in the same city. If we take a long trip we can choose the stopover in Toronto and take the opportunity to see a friend, go directly to see the friend in Spain or stay halfway, say in Singapur. The important thing is to take a weekend to live adventures as we did before. Take advantage of these tips to plan an affordable getaway.
Pablo Clemente Pérez 