Mastering the art of the long-distance friendship
Three different long-distance friendships, all very special
One of my best friends lives a five hour train ride away from me. She is happy there – on the coast – in the mornings can walk for ten minutes down to a small cove that on a winter’s day, without the tourists, feels like it belongs to her. When I visit it feels like a holiday, but she is a piece of home. While we usually see each other every few months or so, nothing ever changes. No time has passed. We slip into each others lives again, no matter where we are.
Katie and I met towards the end of reception. I was four and she was five, as I still remind her, she is ten months older than me. We lived on the same road for nearly all of our school years, which I took for granted, how special it was, but we were just kids. In the mornings I would leave my house, saunter up to hers and hum whatever song I was obsessed with at the time on the doorstep while I waited. When she eventually opened the door, she’d tell me I was loud. I say eventually – she was always running late, scoffing the last slice of peanut butter toast before swiping her shoes from the rack and only then, would we be on our way to call on our other friends, who lived just a few minutes more up the road.
After we left sixth form in 2015 and went our separate ways, me to Bristol for university, Katie to France for a ski season, her first of many – it would have been natural for our lives to follow the separate paths we each set out on, relying on the mere transient moments where we intertwined at Christmas or the occasional break in summer. And while we did take disparate, winding paths to get to where we are now, as I expected we would, as we are very different people, I have never felt far from her. She makes things easy, even when they aren’t. And though I occasionally feel an overwhelming pang of sadness when I miss her, it’s a reminder of how good a friend she is. I am lucky to have someone I miss. I am lucky to have somewhere by the sea to escape to, she says I can visit anytime.
As part of my journalism, I have explored various elements of friendship – including heartbreak and dissolution – but also how friendship changes as we age, and found that later life can be a golden age for friends. We are more agreeable, less interested in conflict. As we get older, we become more focused on happiness, simply because have less time left on Earth. But one thing I am yet to look into is the circumstances of friendship, particularly in your twenties, as we face ever-moving parts of life on mashed up timelines – relocation, housemates, romance, breakups, marriages, babies, jobs, colleagues. Of course, friends and family are always scattered around, not even just the country but the world – no matter how much I wish they were closer to me.
In South London, I share a three-bedroom flat with two of my other best friends from home, who are sisters to me now, and I am within walking distance or a short train away from my other closest friends. It feels as though I am gliding through life with them – we see each other frequently, I can pop round for dinner after work, I know their (other) friends, I know about work dramas and boyfriends and girlfriends and situationships and gym crushes and their weekly plans and what they had for tea last night. The normal, boring stuff, that actually isn’t very boring at all. I always want to know what you had on your jacket potato, or if you overcooked some chicken breasts because you were afraid of getting salmonella. I want timestamps and fit checks and and a re-enactment of every conversation line by line. I never want the short version of a story.
I think it would be fair to assume that it might not be the same with Katie, that we are living separate lives, that we are observing each other from a birds-eye-view, that we would save details for when we see each other, that I might not know her every emotion and feeling, of how happy she really is. But that isn’t the case. Though we aren’t great at phone calls and often do save a lot of the intricate details and debriefs for when we see each other in person – we message most days. I have put faces to names, I know how her week has been, how her family are, how her boyfriend is, her milestones, her achievements and how she is spending her weekend, what the weather is like there. I still see her flourishing, learning, growing. And while some weeks we speak more than others, as is to be expected, we make the effort because we want to.
Then, every time we get the joy and excitement of reuniting, counting down the days – cruel, cruel time passes so quickly, we have only just said hello but now it is goodbye, for now – we squeeze each other tightly, try to hold back the tears and smile, knowing the time we’ve had together has been precious. We cling on to the fact that, despite not having another date in the diary to see each other again, it won’t be too long.
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In August of this year, I re-connected with a friend from university because one of our old housemates was getting married. After some deliberation, we figured out that hadn’t seen or properly spoken to each other for five years, but decided it would be nice to get an Air BnB together. Both (still) being stingy, we found a cottage in rural Dorset ran by an elderly man with a small bedroom, two single beds and a tiny TV that gave me a headache because I had to squint to see what was going on. I know, perhaps this could have been slightly intense for two people who haven’t crossed paths in such a long while – but oddly, I knew that it would be fine – lovely, even. And it was, we met on the train journey, got some picky bits from Sainsbury’s, and spent the evening before the wedding catching up on the last half-decade, about how our lives had changed.
Since we last saw each other – when I bumped into him at a bar in Bristol in 2019 – I was in a long-term relationship, he was single, I was about to travel, he was about to start a law conversion. Now, I am single, he is in a long-term relationship, I live in London, he moved back to his hometown and feels settled. We reflected on our time at university without romanticising it, we spoke about how it wasn’t perfect but we were blind to it at the time, how nostalgia can be sickening, a twisted, feeling that squeezes your gut into knots, then focused on our present selves and looked forward. He is not one to dwell on the past, neither am I, I have recently warmed to the phrase ‘your past is a life lesson, not a life sentence’ – so we bonded over our current interests, and got to know each other all over again. I was reminded of why we became friends in the first place.
Our friends’ wedding was the catalyst to what I think will be a friendship for life, it forged a re-connection that may have otherwise never happened. A celebration of love is a powerful thing. While our friendship is not like mine and Katie’s – it doesn’t have the strength of our foundations, the years of memories, of supporting each other, the gift of time, and we don’t message unless we’re organising to see each other – it still works well. Just because we don’t see or speak to each other all the time doesn’t detract from the fondness.
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In April 2019 I sat down on bench in the back garden of a hostel in Byron Bay about to tuck into a BBQ, when I heard two very strong, west country accents in my earshot. Discreetly I turned to my left to take a peek at the two bellowing identical twins sat next to me, then proceeded to gently interject and ask if they were from Bristol. From our first conversation alone, I knew that these were two girls I wanted to hang out with – their mannerisms, sense of humour and values were pertinent after just a few hours together. I often wonder if we ever unknowingly crossed paths in Bristol over the three years I was there for uni, at the Galli, or on a Thekla Thursday.
After we left Byron, we met up again in Brisbane, got an apartment together in Noosa and then six weeks or so later we reunited in Thailand, when I desperately needed to see familiar faces, to feel at ease, after being in the cyclical pattern of meeting new people then saying goodbye within the space of a few days. All we did in Ko Lanta was lay on the beach (we all got stung by jellyfish), listen to Taylor Swift, scoot around on mopeds to get cheap toasties from 7/11’s and watch old X Factor audition videos (which never fail to make us cackle). Now five years on, they are a core part of my life. “How are the twins?” my mum and dad will ask. “When are you seeing them next?”
Harriet and Issy are unfailingly kind – they never forget a birthday, an anniversary, an interview, a date, a new job. They show up for their friends, they are exceptionally loyal. Over the last couple of years we have started an annual tradition, a pre-Christmas meet up just for the day, somewhere equidistant between Bristol and London. It’s nothing extravagant – we mooch around (we loooove to mooch), drink lots of tea, eat good food, visit bookshops – special, quality time. We should do it more often, really. Our shared obsession with pop culture, films (period dramas especially – no one understands my pure adoration for Pride and Prejudice like they do), TV, books, music, writing and National Trust properties keep us tied together – it’s something we could talk about for hours, and they are my go to for recommendations. If Harriet has given a book less than a four star review on Goodreads (follow her Booksta), I won’t be picking it up. Now that’s my version of trust.
I don’t think there is right way to master long-distance friendships, or friendships in general. There’s a familiar saying, myth, even – if your friendship lasts for over seven years – it will last a lifetime. I am unaware of any science behind this, and surely it cannot always be true. Friendship breakups happen, and they hurt when they do, it can be a painful loss. Things change, people change. Maybe I’m a sceptic. Or, maybe it’s just a case of, ‘when you know, you know.’