Author of “Your Guide to Finding Friends, Making Friends and Keeping Friends” 

“My good friend is moving to a new city.  I am worried that this move might mean the end of our friendship.  How can we maintain our friendship after he has moved away?”

This was the question that one of my newsletter readers asked me.  When good friends move away, we are right to be worried that the move might affect the friendship. 

It is very common for a physical separation caused by moving to a new city to be the beginning of a big change in the relationship.  Not every relationship will survive a move by one of the people involved.  Of course, some relationships and friendships last a lifetime, through many moves and changes.  But to make a friendship last after a big move, both people will have to be committed to making sure the relationship continues.

For the person who has moved away, there will be many new distractions and new adventures.  There will be times when your friend will feel lonely and homesick and long for the friends and family left behind.  At other times, the new adventures in a new place mean that your friend will be starting down a new road.  Eventually, the memories of those left behind may grow dim.

Some of the new adventures and experiences will change your friend in a deep way.  The person who has been left behind will probably change as well.

How do you keep from drifting apart?  This is the real challenge of long distance relationships.

The key of course is to stay in touch with each other.  A move to a new city will mean a new job, a new group of friends, maybe even a new way of looking at life.  Although the person who has moved will want to hold on to the important relationships from the past, they will also want to meet new friends and explore new activities.  They will want to experience new sides of themselves.

Some people who make a big move find that holding on to old friends is very important.  Other people who make a big move are very focused on moving forward, and leaving the past behind.  They want to reinvent themselves.

If you want to hold on to a friend who has moved to a new location, it’s very important that you keep communicating with each other.  Otherwise you will not be able to keep each other updated as you move into new areas of your lives.  It’s also important that both people make the effort to keep the communication going. 

Fortunately we live in time when communicating with people far away is both easy and often inexpensive.

If you really want to keep in touch with the emotional changes your friend is going through, it’s probably best to use the telephone, in addition to keeping each other updated with emails and other modern ways of communication.  As well, you will find that visiting each other in your respective cities can be a great adventure for each of you, so be sure to visit each other as often as practical.

If you send emails, be sure to send personal messages to your friend, instead of simply including your friend on a long list of people who all get the same message from a social network site.  In fact, you might want to try one of the oldest methods to keep in touch – by real letters, sent by snail mail.

For a long distance relationship or friendship to survive, both people must make it a priority to hold on to the relationship.  Both of you should make an effort to stay in touch and keep each other updated by using the telephone and the computer.  In addition, try to visit each other as often as possible.

Be sure to discuss the trivial daily events you are going through, as well as the deeper emotional changes you are experiencing.  Take turns listening and sharing, and you will have a better chance of keeping your relationship alive, despite the distances that separate you.

This article was written by author Royane Real. 

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Learn to Be Popular - even if You're Shy and Lonely!

By Royane Real

Do you ever with you had a better social life?  Are you tired of being lonely?  Perhaps you suffer from shyness and you wish you could learn how to be outgoing and popular.

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