How best to maintain friendships with far away friends?

[Earlybird]

Dd and I recently left London for America (as some of you know). I am aware that many good friends back in London have returned from their summer breaks, and are settling into a new school year. Their daily lives/routines will no longer include us for playdates, coffees, birthdays, etc.

Is drifting apart inevitable? What do you do to maintain long distance friendships so that they stay strong and current? Is there a way to help dd stay in touch with her pals?

do you have skype?

I don't know about your DD but when I left England to go and live/work in Toronto for 3 years

I stayed friends with my friends from College - but I came home twice a year.

I rang them and wrote to them {this was before mobiles and email}

Letters were the main way of communication in those days

I imagine if they are real friends you will stay in contact via email etc.

I see my best friend once every 6 weeks now and we talk on the phone in between.

BUT when we get together now we never stop talking

Luckily our DH get on together as well

Good luck with continuing your friendships

Hi Earlybird. Email, phone, send photos (I think this really helps people if they can see you in your new surroundings). I've been in the US for three years and have put a lot of effort into staying in touch. I think I make more effort than the folks back home and that is normal so be prepared to do a bit more than your friends.

My son started off staying in touch but then made friends in the US and drifted away. I think children sometimes need to break off in order to settle here.

It takes two though. Most of my friends are great but a few have given up which really depressed me for a while but talking to others I've found this is pretty normal, too. So you may find there is some decline in numbers! Plus I have forced myself to make friends here, I think you need both. I'm off back to the UK in a week - haven't been for a year and I am so excited - there's nothing like old friends.

As Martin Amis said you can make new friends but you can't make old ones.

Some people will drop off Earlybird. It is inevitable. As you make new friends in your new city you will, over time, find that they will give you what your old friends do.
I am in regular contact with 1 friend from the UK (I left 5 years ago) and intermittent contact with maybe another 5 and indirect contact with maybe a few more.
But I now have the dilemma in that we recently left NZ and it will happen again. There are 3 people I know I will try to be in touch with. One of those may fall by the wayside ...
Your true friends are the ones who, when you do see them again, it feels like no time has passed. Those that you can still sit for hours talking over coffee/glass of wine and it feels like it was yesterday when you were last together.

Thanks for your posts in response.

I don't have skype, but do have a low cost International calling plan. It's not the expense of calling that makes keeping in contact difficult, but time zones. I'm home from the school run in the morning, and they're often out doing errands just prior to school pick up. When the children are in bed in the UK is the time I must be leaving to collect dd from school here, and then move on to after school activities/supper/bathtime/bedtime. When I get dd to bed and am available to chat, it's the middle of the night in the UK.....and on it goes.

I have been thinking about maybe proposing some sort of email/chat room scenario to half a dozen friends that all know each other. I envision our own mini-Mumsnet where we'd each write a few lines/paragraphs about what is happening in our lives whenever we had some time to do it, and the posts could be read/responded to at leisure(similar to threads here). But I wonder if my friends would think that odd - and I'm not sure if they'd be comfortable sharing intimate or fun stuff with each other, even though they're happy to share with me. But, on the other side it might cause them to develop new/deeper friendships with each other.

I suppose you're right that some friendships will inevitably tail off, and that solid/deep ones will remain. And, I think you're right that exchanging photos regularly will help as they give visual images of how things are evolving/changing.

I'm just looking for an easy/effective way of keeping in touch that doesn't get derailed by time zones, and doesn't involve writing lengthy individual emails....which can become a chore/obligation rather than a fun way of keeping in touch. Any other thoughts/ideas/suggestions?

I used to live in the US and I keep in touch with a lot of people using a combination of myspace, where you can post bulletins that all your friends see, and yahoo instant messenger for one on one 'chats'. I like myspace because you can see photos if your friends have them and it makes me feel closer to them.

Thanks for that RBH. Will look into it.

I rely on:

email mainly, phone calls, skype and instant messenger & good old fashioned letters.

I really recommend Skype - it's great if you have internet access at home. Free phone calls, video too if you have a webcam.

I am in contact with quite a few of my friends from the UK although more and more seem to disappear as time goes by.

I used to keep a blog but had to stop - it was a great way of keeping in touch but meant a lot more work on my part.

Oh yes, facebook seems to be the new way of keeping in touch...

I agree with all really, with true good friends it doesn't matter how frequently you are in touch just the fact that when you are it's like you were never apart, you can chat for hours. I have a few of those. I also have friends who I don't contact at all but when I come home usually every year I call and they will always pitch up at the pub or restaurant and we catch up there til the early hours. There were alot of people however who I thought I would keep in touch with but it was one sided and the friendships drifted. That's not sad though because as you start to make new friends and feel settled you have less and less time and energy to put into keeping in touch with the old ones. It's almost like changing jobs or schools you filter out those who are really important to you and the rest are replaced with new - like many things in life.

As for keeping in touch I have been friends with my oldest friend for 30 years, we chat frequently on msn, one or two others I phone the rest get the round robin email. Mental note if I'm ever on somebody's round robin email I will know my place in the pecking order . We do have skype but none of my friends do, we use that for family.

hth and good luck with making it work

Email was the main method and as already mentioned it does take two sides to keep things going.

What surprised us too were the number of friends that made the effort to come out and visit us. Yes, I know being overseas made us a prime holiday target for family, but it blew us away how many friends really went out of their way to save and take the time off work etc to come see us... meant A LOT at the time. Compare this to the SIL and her boyfriend who do nothing but travel in their hols and NEVER came to see us (countries around us) but never to where we were to see her young nephew

Now we are back in the UK when we have our friends from back where we were visit the UK we tend to do our best to make sure we meet up when they are over, to keep things strong, no regrets