Long Distance Friendships In Your 30s – A Complete Guide
Long distance friendships in your 30s!
If you grew up in the typical Western society as a Millenial, then you probably already have some experience with the Internet and communicating online. You probably have used messaging apps such as MSN Messenger and AIM back in the day. And now with modern apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, talking with people is more prominent than ever.
But now that you are in your 30s, being able to connect with friends remotely is so important. Whether it’s your older friends that moved away from you, or you yourself moved to a different place, I’m sure you still want to stay in contact with them. Having experienced this myself, I have seen the positives of communicating online, as well as the downfalls. It might seem simple to use a messaging app to stay in touch, but I can tell you it’s a lot more than that. And that’s what I wanted to talk about today.
In this post, I’ll give you a complete guide with long distance friendships in your 30s and how to manage them. There are things that you should know on managing your friendships online. By approaching online friendships with realistic expectation, you will be more satisfied and happy at the end of the day.
Without further ado, let’s get started.
The more contact with each other, the better.
In my experience with long distance friendships, the ones that were the strongest were the ones where we both stayed in touch very often. It doesn’t mean messaging each other every single day. But I would say at least once a week. Whether it was about some random news article, or just simply talking about our daily lives, we always had some excuse to talk to each other about something.
On the flip side, I noticed the online friendships that ended up drifting apart (click here to see why friendships drift apart) were the ones where we didn’t stay in frequent contact with each other. Whether it was me neglecting the friendship or my friends not responding back to me (more on this in the next section), the infrequent connection will make it difficult to maintain the friendship. This may be controversial, but if you find yourselves asking how things have been, then that friendship is probably drifting apart.
So if you want to maintain that long distance friendship, then make it a plan to stay in frequent contact with that friend. The conversations should not be a catch up, but conversations should be as if you’ve seen them already a bunch of times and talking about trivial stuff.
However, what if you try to message your friends, but they’re not responding (or at least not in a timely manner)? That’s what I wanted to talk about next.
You’re only half the equation.
This point is SO important. I used to struggle with this, when you try to maintain a friendship online by staying in touch with them and trying to connect every so often, while not seeing that kind of same love in return (figuratively speaking). But at the end of the day, you are only 50 percent of a friendship. Your friend has to do their part in maintaining the friendship you have with them as well. So if the other person doesn’t want to connect, there is not much you can do.
I’ve had this happen to me with a few of my friends. I valued them as great friends and wanted to maintain the friendship. So I would message them often, try to connect with them in various ways through commonality and listening to their concerns. But I hardly ever heard from them. So I realized that there’s not much I can do on my end. If they don’t want to maintain the friendship that we have, there isn’t much I could do about it.
So don’t feel bad if you’ve tried to stay in touch with a long distance friend, but it’s not working. You are only half the equation. Which leads me to my next point…
Set realistic expectations.
Remember that you are in your 30s and chances are, your long distance friends are probably just as busy. I think with online messaging, we expect that our friends will reply back to us right away. But in reality, there can be many reasons why friends don’t respond immediately. They are busy with their own personal lives, whether that’s work, family or even with local friends.
On a broader note, friendships can drift apart, online or not. As you and your friends get older, your views can change and personalities can also change. That could definitely affect your friendships, and why your friends may not respond to you when talking online. I came to that conclusion with some of my friends that I talk to online. They may be a different phase of their life where I’m not a priority to them, and that’s fine. It is what it is, and you should set realistic expectations.
Don’t forget what brought you together.
On that note, I wanted to end off on the importance of remembering what brought you and your long distance friends together. That could be the big reason that keeps you friendship intact. Whether it was meeting other in school/work, or being into the same hobbies, you should continue to talk about those things whenever you have a chance to chat.
For example, a lot of my friends I met because we were into video games. So I will always bring up gaming every now and then because that is what we both love. It’s nice to not only talk about the hobbies from the past (good old nostalgia), but to also talk about the hobby in its present day, because you two have grown up as well!
With that said, you should also talk about your personal lives if comfortable. It’s how we connect with friends, and that is no exception with long distance friends.
Conclusion
I hope you found this post informative and helpful. As you can see, long distance friendships in your 30s aren’t simply messaging your friends every day. It’s about talking about relevant topics, setting realistic expectations with the friendship and having the right mindset with them.
If you have any questions or feedback, leave them in the comments below!
