Virtual friends

[StefansVampireBride]

In your opinion, can virtual friendships last long term? I’m talking about people who used to live nearby each other and then moved away, and also about people who have never met.

I am wondering if it is a lot harder to recognise when the friendship is more important to one person than the other. Communication by virtual means: email, messaging, phone.

I think sometimes if one friend isn’t as invested in the friendship and finds the other friend annoying in some way, they won’t necessarily let their friend know because it’s easier not to say anything when you never see each other anyway.

One of my very best friends lives in California (im in Edinburgh, always have been). We met online in a chatroom in 2003, never met in person due to distance/life happening. We speak every day via WhatsApp and voice notes, send birthday/christmas/holiday cards and gifts. Weve seen each other through some incredibly rough times. I couldn't imagine my life without her, despite there not being a physical presence. I think it very much depends on the people, as you say sometimes it can be one is more invested than the other.

That’s so lovely!

We've had a few ding dongs in the past, like any relationship you will get on each others nerves from time to time. I've probably done her head in, I've basically been pregnant the last 2 years, ds is 16 months, dd is 6 weeks so she's taken the brunt of the hormonal rants and emotional outbursts (including me crying one morning cause there was no marmite in the house, i don't even like marmite, I just wanted to smell it lol).
I've watched her (albeit virtually) go from a single mum of 2 young boys living in a tiny, dingy apartment and working jobs she hated to get through school to now being a director of a pretty successful company and being mortgage free on an absolutely beautiful big detached house in a gated community with a pool, I was very privileged to have a front row seat to that.... getting quite teary now actually haha!!

That is lovely!

Yes my friend moved to London ten years ago - I'm still in Scotland. We keep in touch daily without fail and make the effort to visit twice a year. Our relationship is still just as good as it ever was.