Keep In Touch with Friends

It can be remarkably hard to stay in touch with all of your friends, even people who mean a great deal to you. If one of you moves or you both get busy with your separate lives, you may simply stop crossing paths. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to bridge any distance, whether literal or metaphorical, and keep in touch with friends.

Steps

Using Technology to Keep in Touch

1. Use your phone as a telephone. Make the call! Whether you’ve been meaning to do so for a while now, or the thought just occurred, follow through on the desire to get in touch with someone by giving them a call. Let your friend know you’re wondering what they’re up to, and give them a quick update on your life.
   • Know that is doesn’t have to be a long call to be meaningful. Just the sound of one another’s voice will likely be enough to bring a smile to each of your faces, whether from the next neighborhood or across the continent.
   • Schedule a call. If you or a friend can’t speak for long, or you can’t connect on the first try, shoot them a text offering to schedule a call later that day.
   • Get in the habit of keeping up with a far-off friend by maintaining monthly calls at specific times and dates.
   • If you or a friend are particularly busy, set up calls during daily commutes.
2. Get on FaceTime or Skype. Video calls are even better, as they allow you to keep in touch visually as well, and simply provide a greater feeling of togetherness, no matter your actual distance. Several video-chat applications are especially easy to use, as well as freely available.
   • FaceTime is limited to Apple products, but is literally as easy to use as it is to make a call – the button for FaceTime shows up automatically during your call.
   • Skype is also easy to use, though you must install the program on your phone, tablet, or computer and set up a free account. You can also make audio calls and send text messages through Skype, anywhere you have internet access.
3. Make group calls with Google Hangouts. Google Hangouts will allow you to video chat with up for ten friends at once. Try to set a standing weekly or monthly date and time to catch up with a group of friends consistently.
   • Using the text messaging feature, propose themes for each call and plan to wear costumes or share relevant viral videos.
   • You can also use the text-messaging feature to simply remind one another of an upcoming call.
4. Shoot them a text. Texts are a great way to send someone a quick note, wise-crack, or simple “thinking of you” message. Don’t let the majority of your communication with an old friend happen through texts, but texts are a great way to let someone know about something that reminded you of them.
   • Text internationally with Whatsapp. Whatsapp is a smartphone application that costs an initial installation fee, but will allow you to send and receive international texts – as well as video and audio messages – for free!
   • Note that calling, video-messaging, and e-mailing are all better mediums with which to engage in more nuanced or meaningful discourse.
5. Send an email. While lots of email accounts allow chatting with other users that are online, don’t hesitate to send along a good old-fashioned electronic letter. Emails benefit from the potential intimacy and breadth of an actual letter, and you can send them literally whensoever you please.
   • To take advantage of the extra communication capabilities allowed via email, respond to one another’s emails right in the body of their text.
   • Use a different colored font, and respond to each of the sentences or paragraphs in a longer email to enjoy the feel of an ongoing conversation.

Using Social Media to Keep in Touch

1. Write your friend a letter. You may be thinking: that’s not social media. In fact, letters are the original form of social media, though the phrase has come to be associated with virtual and fleeting forms of contact – none of which have even begun to approach the depth and gravitas that can be conveyed in a tangible, handwritten letter.
   • Start by conveying why you’re writing. A simple, “Hey! I’ve been thinking about you and wanted to write to touch base about each of our long and winding paths through life.”
   • Ask a few questions specific to their lives, particularly about things you know that they enjoy.
   • Update them a bit with a few things in your realm, particularly anything you’re especially proud of or are looking forward to.
   • Make it fun. Include a drawing, hard-copy photo, or scrap of concert poster you wish you could have attended together – or did attend together in the past!
2. Facebook stalk your friends. “Stalk” is used here with in an attempt at humor – the point is, take advantage of the opportunity to catch up on the happenings in a friend’s life via their Facebook posts. Tossing a “like” at a photo or comment that sticks out will bring you to their mind, too. Commenting is even better.
   • By browsing your friend’s wall, you’ll automatically have things to talk about next time you see them.
   • Make notes on your phone of things you want to ask them about next time you get the chance. Or, better yet, use your phone like a phone and call them – you already have an opening conversation in mind!
3. Use Instagram and Pinterest. Photo-based social media platforms can be a great way to stay in touch with friends too. With both Instagram and Pinterest, you can quickly and easily share images of the things you see while searching the web, other peoples’ profiles, or even real life.
   • Use Instagram if you’re into taking pictures of latte art, interesting sidewalk formations, or the book you’re reading. You can simply post photos to your feed, or send them as direct messages to a friend.
   • Leaning towards those slightly more home-décor-minded, Pinterest has been compared to sitting around and ripping pages out of magazines with your friends.
   • Whatever platform you choose, remember to emphasize the “social” potential by @-ing or #-ing or simply direct messaging your friends that you think would be interested!
   • When sending images directly, include a note about how much better it would be to experience whatever you sent together “IRL”!
4. Jump on the Snapchat bandwagon. Appearing with overwhelming force, Snapchat has become the go-to social media weapon of literally hundreds of millions of humans. Some of them are your friends. Keep in touch with them and their day-to-day moments of snappiness by downloading this free photo and video messaging app on your phone.
   • Add text and rudimentary drawings to your messages to be extra social.
   • Send messages to a few select friends or everyone on your contact list!
   • Know the distinguishing feature of Snapchat: you’ll only see each other’s “snaps” for a few moments.
   • Snapchat is especially fun for wild, zany, and otherwise nonsensical discourse.
5. Get creative with other online platforms. Aside from the smartphone apps you’ve probably already heard of, and all the other methods of sending messages back and forth across the web, there are other, more creative ways to interact online as well.
   • Check out Miniclips.com, which hosts a bunch of multiplayer games you can challenge your friends to play with you.
   • If you have different schedules, you can always see who can get the highest score in a single player game and update each other about new achievements.
   • Use Spotify to setup a shared playlist that you and your friends can all add music to. You’ll learn what they’ve been listening to and vice-versa.
   • When you discover a new artist that they added to a shared list, shoot your friend a text to tease them (politely) for finally developing an appreciable taste in music.
6. Don’t rely too heavily on the online realm to keep in touch. Excessive internet use – including, if not primarily, the use of social media – can have detrimental effects on your health, productivity, and happiness.
   • If you’ve recently upped your time online and are experiencing greater loneliness, staying up later, and missing class or showing up late to work, you may be spending too much time online.
   • Stick to non-instant messaging tools – such as email – instead of live chatting, if your productivity or happiness may be taking hits from your time using social media.

Making Plans to See Your Friends

1. Acknowledge any unintended distance by addressing it. Most friendships go through challenging times, especially when you begin to see each other less often. Keep a friendship going by articulating the fact that you want to keep in touch, even if your individual situations will require a different approach.
   • Make time to communicate. You can even add an alarm to your phone or calendar to remind you – though you’ll likely end up looking forward to reacquainting with one another each chance you get.
   • Apologize for being out of touch. State that you regret the distance that has grown between you, and that you intend to be better about staying in touch moving forward.
   • Everyone gets busy from time to time. Don’t be the person that uses being busy as a reason not to keep in touch – even when it’s a valid point, it sounds disingenuous.
   • Be direct, and trust that your friend wants to get back in touch too. Try something like, “Hey! I know it’s been a while, and I apologize for my role in that – can we meet up soon?”
2. Meet up. If you’re within an easy bike, train, or drive of one another, make plans to meet for an evening together, or even the occasional day trip. You’ll both be looking forward to it, and planning ahead will make it more likely to actually happen!
   • If you’re having trouble getting together at the spur of the moment, plan ahead, even a month or so beforehand.
   • For further trips, plan further in advance.
   • You may be limited by distance and expense, so you may not be able to visit far-off friends as often, but with planning and saving, you can definitely still make meet-ups happen!
3. Hold an annual reunion event. Whether with one friend or an old crew, make a tradition to meet once a year. You can always meet at the same place, rotate between one another’s current hometowns, or go somewhere different every year.
   • If you’re hoping to bring a bunch of friends together, have everyone pitch in and rent a space that is somewhat centrally located.
   • Alternatively, have the most-centrally-located person host to reduce traveling and housing costs.
   • Even if only for a weekend every year, seeing one another will greatly help you keep in touch.
   • It doesn’t have to be anything special – simply spending time together can be incredibly enjoyable and rewarding, not to mention fun.
4. Send invitations via snail-mail. You don’t need a computer to keep in touch with your friends. Letters and hanging out are both far more personal – and one can even help facilitate the other. Whether simply for a dinner next week, or that annual friendship soiree in the sun, send hard-copy invitations.
   • Include all the important details in the invitation, as well as the contact information for whomever is organizing the event.
   • Encourage recipients to post the invitation somewhere they’ll see it, both as a reminder of the time and date, but also to increase excitement. There’s nothing like looking forward to seeing one another to ensure yet another good time together.

Tips

• If you're technologically illiterate, there are simple guides available on the internet that will help you learn how to set up an email account, make online calls, and more.

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• Keep Real Friends in a Cyber World
• Stay in Touch With Old Friends

Sources and Citations

See also

• Socialize With Someone Who Is Losing Interest in You
• Ignore People You No Longer Wish to Be Around
• Find Old Friends Online
• Deal With Losing a Friend
• End a Friendship
• Get Rid of an Unwanted Friend
• Tell Someone You Don't Want to Be Their Friend Without Hurting Their Feelings
• Get Rid of One of Your Annoying Friends
• Get Rid of Someone You Don't Like
• Get Rid of a Bad Friend

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