Best Ways to Stay in Touch With Friends

Updated September 27, 2017 | Infoplease Staff

Whether you live down the street from each other or across the country, maintaining friendships after the school year is over is hard work. Likely you and your friends have busy schedules, different friend groups, and not a lot of overlapping free time.

When you're feeling lazy and alone, think of the following tips and you can connect with your friends even when it seems impossible.

1. Try Snapchat

Snapchat is one of the best tools for keeping in touch. When you commit yourself to maintaining a snap streak with someone then you will be snapping them constantly. Snapchat comes with the added bonus of silly faces and fun filters. It’s one of the ways to stay in touch that requires the least amount of effort.

2. Schedule Skype/FaceTime dates

Set up times where you will set aside anything and everything to talk with your friend for at least an hour. This is the best way to communicate because it’s as face to face as you can possibly get without actually being in the same room. FaceTime calls often can last for hours.

3. Write down your thoughts and put them in an email

It’s like letter writing but better. You can put all you wanted to tell your friends in an email all at once. Or you can write the email as the week goes on and send it at the end of the week. Email communication provides a way to keep your friends updated, and you can keep a record of all your talks together in a folder. (If you're feeling fancy write a letter using cute stationery--just don't forget to grab a stamp and toss it in the mailbox!)

4. Establish some rules to create habits

Making some rules about talking to each other is important if you want to maintain a relationship. The rules really can just be as simple as you should try to text each other once a week. Create a conversation "hook" or game. For example, you can create your own "dog spotting" club. If you see a random dog that was especially cute you are obligated to take a picture and send it to your friend.

5. Try and do similar activities

When you have a long distance friendship it’s hard to find common ground when you can’t really hang out together. So finding an activity that you both do will give you some common ground in all the newness that is happening with your relationship. Start taking classes--dance, painting, martial arts, theater, anything! Just take the same type of class as your friend! Odds are that you’ll be able to teach each other things because your teachers will inevitably have different styles.

6. Actually interact on social media

When your friend posts something on Instagram or Facebook comment on it instead of just liking it. When you comment you’re able to show more interest in whatever the topic is. You can also have a small conversation in the comments section. This makes you an active participant instead of a passive one.

Keeping your friends close and your friendships strong is really all about putting in the effort. You and your friends know what works best for you. Figure it out and you won’t drift apart.

By Sabrina Petrafesa