Long Distance Friendships Harder Than Long Distance Relationships?
Ah, the beauty of traveling…If you go somewhere and stay a while, hopefully you make some good friends. Especially if you are taking a some sort of course and/or live with them. I was in Canada in July,2005 and made some lovely friends. It was before Facebook. We had email and messengers. My best friend was a Mexican girl named Paola and we had so much fun together. We laughed, enjoyed Vancouver, partied… Of course the gang was huge and multi-national. After the month was over and everyone went back to their countries, e-mail traffic was incredible. We sent each other messages, shared photos and talked online. Then of course everybody had jobs, school and native friends/relationships to tend to, so the traffic slowed down considerably. I know it is a normal process and everything but it is still sad that everyday life just adds to the miles and time differences. But of course you get jealous of the ones who got to stay in the city you love so much. Or if people are leading more fun then yours. My less than satisfying internship at a PR firm certainly made me miss everyone and everything about the place even more.
Some places make it easier to be 100% yourself. Vancouver- for me – was definitely one of them.
But that year gave me much to look forward to: I was going to be an Erasmus student in Halden, Norway. Imagine the exciment. A full-time student life. You get to live with your friends, your neighbors are your friends. You can get lazy, party your ass off, have movie/karaoke nights…It was a bliss. Complete with crushes, romance and amazing and hopefully everlasting friendships… You see, the reason I said “hopefully” everlasting is that; even though I know we will remember each other (Hell, we spent a whole year together and had an amazing time). It was the best year of my life…
I can’t believe it has already been 4 years. Of course a lot happened in everybody’s life. Some of the Norwegians scattered around to do master’s, some internationals stayed in Norway, an “Erasmus” couple got married (a French guy/ Russian girl that met in Norway during Erasmus). And there have been a couple of reunions.
But inevitably, we started to lose track. There are many ex-neighbors that I haven’t heard from in years- which is a shame because I was really close with some of them. I had a really great German friend named Franka. We got along really well. We had fun and it looked like there was only one thing that separated us really: she was a hard-worker. I was not. Let’s just say if I can get away with passable grades, I do. My grades there would not affect me academically at all as long as I passed so why bother more, right? But her hard work continued after she went back to Germany and eventually, we lost touch completely. The ironic thing is, though- while in norway, she dated one of my best friends there. He broke it off as erasmus time grew closer, she wanted a long distance relationship. He did not. I can’t really imagine how she could pull it off; no one the erasmus gang is in contact with her- due to her busy life.
Oh then, you have your neighbors that you are really, really tight with- spend most of your time with and have such a laugh. But then you leave, new neighbors come abroad and you are forgotten. Well, maybe not forgotten. But I prefer to be remembered often and well I definitely prefer keeping in touch, rather than remaining as a distant memory, eventually to be forgotten. Here is the thing, I don’t care how many friends you have. It is not about how close you live. It is about how close you are. Lack of communication and life sure get in the way, but I sure wish things didn’t work like that. It is weird turning into strangers after everything. Oh don’t give me the move on speech. These are not romantic relationships. You ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO GET OVER YOUR FRIENDS.
Of course, I realized when you are life gets on the faster track, you are the one to communicate less. And hell, I can’t blame the ones who are deeply in love, deep into the party life and have less time to spend on lineIn fact, it is highly encouraged. I, on, the other hand- am a writer/freelancer. Computers are my good pals. Internet is a must. And it feels good connected to the rest of the world when you are in a transition period like me. You know- when you have figured out what you want and you are ready to fight your ass off to get it. Hell, after I do get what I want, I will just pay them all a visit- wherever they are…Until then, we have the memories, right?
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