How to keep in touch with friends that are on the other side of the continent or a different continent from:
- Skype and Facetime are the best ways to keep touch after flying/taking a train/driving across the country to see them. As much as I’d love to go spend face to face time with the people I care about that live far away, it’s not realistic to do that often.
- Phone call. – Have you talked to your mom lately? Stop avoiding her calls with lame excuses. Let mom know that you’re still alive. She might miss you more than you think.
- Send letters and cards – the paper kind! Receiving a hand written letter is much more personal than receiving an email.
- Email – If you don’t know how to use stamps (ah… the digital generation), compose a long letter and send it through email. It’s … almost… as good. Not quite. but all right.
- Snapchat. If you’re into selfies and taking lots of pictures, this is probably a great way for you to keep in touch with your friends back home. I feel shy taking selfies but I’ll send pictures of something I cooked, flowers, and pictures of our cat to share a sliver of my life with my friends far away.
- Facebook. Uploading pictures does not count. Sending meaningful messages to check in with someone every so often does. I don’t like Facebook because I feel overloaded by the amount of visual stimuli Facebook throws you but I can see the benefits of Facebook. So many people have Facebook that Facebook is a helpful tool to stay in touch with groups of people such as the group of people you worked with several years ago in a group chat or group page, or see pictures uploaded by family members and smile to see how the little ones are growing up.
- Texting – this is really hit and miss. I do concede that texting your long distance significant other an up or down of your day or just texting them to tell them that you love them is pretty nice. On the other hand, if your younger brother is texting you a long story about his day and all you reply is “lol.” and “k”, maybe you’re not engaging yourself to keep in touch with your brother enough.
How I keep touch with my favourites:
- I talked to one of my best friends (EVER!) who lives in Taiwan over Skype. She might come to Vancouver to spend her winter break and could be staying over at my place. Yay!!
- On the weekend, I also spent time with one of my favourite people on this Earth through Facetime. 🙂
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