Long-distance friendship/hardship
If you are one of those blessed souls travelling the world and changing a home location every few months, then you must have gone through the whole “We might never see each other again but let’s keep in touch!” phase with at least one person.
I did it countless times. In the past few years, I changed a country at least four times, gaining an extensive overview of the cheapest supermarkets, and making interesting friends along the way. My question is: How the hell do you manage to stay in touch with these people?
Why is it so hard to reply?
You get separated from the other person, you start texting, tagging each other, snapchatting, sending carrier-pigeons and stuff like that. Over time, the conversation gets less frequent and it’s harder and harder to reply on time. Eventually, you just end up having an unopened text rotting away in your chat history for days, weeks, months…and suddenly it’s just a somebody that you used to know.
At this point, I have several non-conversations like that. And if I’m being honest, it makes me feel super guilty. Seriously! I even dreamt about these people ganging up on me and making me watch the Bee Movie over and over again. Damn, that shit was scary!
Blame it on your personality...basically, you're the asshole here!
As a hardcore introvert, I tend to categorize my friends and to sort of separate the wheat from the chaff (That was the meanest thing I said today and that’s something, considering I blurted out that dolphins are not nearly as cool as orcas at our work meeting today…Also, I just recently learned that phrase and was just dying to use it, so don’t hate!).
- Group A: very close friends who have witnessed me hyperventilating every time someone died on The Walking Dead; I'd rip my own heart out for them
- Group B: the rest
It really looks horrible written like this. In reality, it’s not as black and white, but let’s stick to it for the sake of me not writing an entire book on my past failed relationships (My working title is: “10,000 Tips on How to Stay Lonely and Miserable for the Rest of Your Life” but it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.)
Once there is no depth to our connection, I tend to treat texting as a chore that I am obliged to do in order to maintain the social construct set as standards by our society (Man, that sentence sounds so smart, it almost made me fall over. If it’s not correct, then keep it shut and don’t ruin it for me!). Yeah, sure, I will reply in the evening…or tomorrow…or in the weekend…next month for real…how about next life?
Besides, why do I need so many accounts on social media? Why do I have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, WeChat, Hangouts (What the hell?! Who even uses that?)… I don’t even remember posting anything in the last year!
Freaking peer pressure! They all made me download all that, yet I still prefer to play Minion Rush than to care about snaps of people with mutilated faces (Those are really scary! Why, Snapchat??).
Ok, end of my rant.
Now, I made a bet with myself:
I’m gonna text every single person I lost touch with…in the past year (Otherwise it would be unbearably awkward!) and I will reply to them always within 24 hours. If I manage to keep it up for a month, it should stick as a habit and maybe make me a more likeable person able to form meaningful relationships.
If not, then I’m throwing my phone out, cancelling my rental agreement and going to Morocco to live as a sheep.
Beautiful goal!
I really deserve to spend some quality time with my best friends Ben and Jerry now.
@vendee out
P.S. Feel free to share your insights and techniques on handling a high volume of incoming texts. I was thinking of crafting a beautiful template and send it to everyone…but for some reason, that never worked for me in an actual conversation…
P.P.S. Do you think I am just a sentient robot, on a quest to find and feel love?
Don't feel guilty, or I need to start feel guilty... I'm exactly the same, or even worse. I cut people out of my life just out of boredom. I fail to even remember their name after short while. For some time I also felt extremely guilty, now I fail to do that too.
I noticed, that when I met someone (not important to me kinda person) that I didn't actually even once ask how they were doing. I just answered to their questions very briefly and didn't make any counter questions.
The funniest part for me is when people do this with high pitched voice "HEEEEEYYY, Let's stay in touch, don't be a stranger" and both sides of that party know that is a lie.
Ahh glad to know I am not the only one struggling with this (even though I am not glad it makes us feel so shitty)...I like to think that some people come to our lives just like chapters - they have a beginning and an end, and it's no use to force it if you just don't click together. I am able to keep contacting people who really matter to me which makes it all the more painful when THEY are the ones who don't reply. It's really shitty to be at the other end of it, which is why I would like to improve in that. What if I make people feel shitty with my non-actions?
You're totally right with the last comment - it's even worse when you run into those people months later and don't even know if you should say hi
@vendee You are not the only one who deals with this dilemma. However, I liked your idea about getting in touch with everyone again and answering them within 24 hours.
I am going to do something similar after reading this post. I plan to make a point of getting in touch with someone everyday and continue to circle around every so often and keep that up over the next few months.
So glad I was able to inspire you @joebrochin! It is one of my greatest short-comings and due to the fact that I constantly move around, each faded friendship leaves me a bit more scattered.
I really hope you will manage to succeed in your quest! I will be hoping for the both of us :-)
That sounds really overwhelming, to be honest. Why not connect with just one or two people a day, rather than message all of them at once? That way, you'll be more likely to keep in contact, because you won't get burnt out or buried under texts.
Also, I would totally encourage you to not judge yourself for needing personal time and space, even if that means not messaging back right away. It's okay to take time to think about your response. A well thought out response will lead to closer more authentic communication and friendship than a generic word or two that was all you could send because you were really tired or lost track of time or felt pressured to respond promptly. Anyone who values you will understand your desire to give their words the attention they deserve.
Anyway, this is just my perspective as another introvert, so if it doesn't work for you, that's okay, too!
Thank you @tessaragabrielle for your insight!
I know it sounds overwhelming but, in fact, it is not. I don't have that many relationships that I want to actually revive. There were some toxic and uninterested people in my chat inbox that I am fine with letting go. Also, I am not planning to text those that I want all at once. I am spreading it over several days to avoid being overwhelmed, as you put it :)
Thank you for your thoughtful advice to not judge myself. I am highly skilled in that area, so it is always nice to get more encouragement from others. You are absolutely right, it is important to have personal space and my closest friends are on the same page as me in that aspect. I always try to avoid responding generically in two-words because I want to support my friends, not just stay in touch.
Thanks for your comment, always lovely to meet another introvert and share opinions. Hope your methods work for you as well :-)
I would say, Get the fucking rid of what is socially correct and be your own best friend ! If you should have only one great relation it should be with yourself, and guilt is the worst in a relation...don't feel guilty to have too much "friends" you have not texted, don't feel guilty to not have enough, guilt is guilt and as long as it is a feeling you tolerate in your life it will manifest in every possible form ;-)
Well that's my feeling ;-)
And the social model is there only to maintain an illusional order, when at the same time it apparently generates more mental disorders in fact...why ? because people feel deep inside there is something else, there is something to search inside themselves and not outside in the "society", in the others....searching for approbation is what makes people maintaining a structure that is outside them...
Wheras the solution comes from the inside...befriend yourself...yes, have those friendship bracelet kit if you want and make all the bracelet for you, but not to show the society you have friends, but only for you, because YOU deserve to take care of your inner being...and everyone should do the same and little by little love themself and seriously, do we think people would go on searching outside the confirmation of their whorthiness ? would they take a gun and shout someone because they think they would feel better after ? No, everybody would care its own business in a loving way, which will benefit everybody..
Even though your train of thought sounds very complicated (had to re-read it more times than I'd like to admit..), the core of it is a very sweet advice. I know where you are coming from and it seems to me like you have all your shit together, which is fantastic!
Unfortunately for me, my brain is my greatest enemy, throwing sticks at my feet every chance it got (that scumbag!), making me feel miserable for so many things (not just guilt). I know that I should find happiness within and not let myself be controlled by what society dictates, but that notion is just so deeply seeded inside that it is hard to ignore. But I digress...
What I wanted to say, is that the guilt I feel is mostly over losing contact with friends that made me actually feel really happy in the past which is something that I can only say about a fraction of people surrounding me. I guess I am just trying to convince myself that I can feel that happy again if I revive the relationships. Maybe I will, maybe I won't - I guess only time will tell...
Daamn, what a load of mortal coil :D Thanks for sharing your opinion, this was one of the best interactions I had today (including real life)!
Well...according to me...if you have a bro code friendship....you wont be going through all those problems...
Ahh I always found the concept of a bro code fascinating! Can you maybe share some insight from the code on staying in touch with many people that you haven't seen in over a year? I am really interested :)
Easy fix, buy a new phone activate it and use the old one on wifi. It will seem like no one cares about bothering you. My new phone has been on the charger the last three days. It's been nice.
Hahaha yeah, that's also a solution. I can always get rid of all technology and live in an abandoned hut in the forest. That's one of my exit strategies :D