Shortly after I published Friendship Can Be Like Dating, I received a text from a long-distance friend of mine. How did internet friendships play into my theories, he wanted to know. He had a point. After all, he and I are good friends and we definitely don’t see each other once a week. If we see each once a year, it’s time to break out the party hats. And thus, an idea for another blog post was born.
Do I think it’s possible to be close friends with people who don’t live locally? Definitely. Do I think it’s possible to be close friends with people whom I’ve met on the internet? Yes, if certain things happen.
Basically, in order to be close friends, you’ve got to find some way to have both time and intimacy with one another. Without these, it’s hard for a relationship to grow beyond a pleasant acquaintanceship. Luckily for us, both of these things are possible using technology, which means we’re no longer as limited by geography in developing friendships.
Photo by Al Bogdan (another long distance friend)
I still think the Once a Week theory holds true in the online realm. The friends we interact with on a weekly basis feel like an active part of our lives. The friends we interact with on a monthly basis still feel present. Less than that, and we become less aware of and engaged with each other. (That’s not to say you can’t still be friends; it simply means you won’t be as immediately close and involved.)
But interactions look different when we live far apart. A few of my friends and I are what I call “text friends” because we communicate primarily via text. We might have an entire conversation over text, or we might just send a quick “You are my favorite brand of awesomesauce” kind of text. But what we’re doing whenever we send one is saying, “Hey, I’m thinking about you, I love you, and I value our friendship.” I have other friends who are “Twitter friends” because we mostly chat on Twitter. Still others are e-mail friends or Facebook/Facebook message friends or Skype friends. Time spent interacting is important, but interacting at all also plays a larger role in these LDFs (long distance friendships).
One of the great things about LDFs is that it is often easier to get one-on-one time. Although there are group-focused ways to communicate, many of the most common methods require forming a personal one-on-one relationship. Whether I’m sending texts to my friends in Ohio and Washington or Skyping my friend in Boston, we’re focusing on each other.
Some of the communication techniques are also great for balancing friendships to be more two-sided. In both e-mail and text, for example, both people will get a chance to speak, talk about their lives and viewpoints, and be heard. And because there’s an inherent delay built into the communication, it’s a lot harder to be interrupted in a way that’s truly disruptive.
I do find that my LDFs are greatly enhanced by any amount of face-to-face time. Often, in fact, they begin with face-to-face time and grow into something closer over the internet. Many of my convention writer friendships have started like this. In person time can be hard (and expensive) to arrange, but when it works out it’s worth its weight in gold.
What do you think? Do you have close LDFs? How do you maintain these friendships?
The Practical Free Spirit 
Who I stay LDFs with is largely mediated by who is on GChat. If you’re on GChat a lot, we’ll probably be closer than if you’re not. I think it’s possible to remain good friends with someone I don’t talk to very often, but in that case, it’s kind of a thing held in abeyance: when the two of us are in the same place, the friendship springs back into place, fully formed, as if I was hiding it in a backpack somewhere, but when we’re not together it’s largely a notional thing.
Yeah, I’ve had that same experience of the friendship being able to spring back to where it was after a long time apart. It’s fabulous when that happens.
I’d consider my writing group people to be LDFs, even though one of them only lives a few miles from me: we communicate via email and blog, and Hangouts 2x a month. Two of them are closer friends than the others, because we communicate more often and with more intimacy.
But I only see them in person twice a year or so.
Most of my friends are various types of LDFs now, and while I miss weekly dinners, I’m closer to them than I am to plenty of people I’m local with. I’m finding that the main stumbling block I have in continuing close friendships (even with people I see in real life on occasion) is their refusal to embrace our mutual friend, the internet. There are so many ways to communicate, but if they can’t/won’t use them, it makes it very hard to stay close.
Yes, there has to be some common ground in the means of communication to keep things going. That’s why I try to be flexible about that as much as I can, although I have trouble embracing IM.
I’m lucky enough to have a writing group over Skype/Google+ with one of the closest friends I’ve ever had. I haven’t seen him in person in years, but we still talk a lot.
It’s tough to keep things going when that distance starts, but through trial and error, a new balance can usually be struck.
It certainly does take adjustment! And I think it also partially depends on what held the friendship together when you lived closed by.
Most of my closest friends are LDFs, actually. And all but a couple I met online. 🙂
I certainly have a LOT more LDFs since I started writing. My writer community is spread out all over the place.