In second grade, I became friends with this little redheaded girl with a smattering of freckles all over her face. Little did I know back then that she would become one of my closest and longest lasting friends.

Over the years, Chelsee and I have gone through phases of being extremely close and being closer with other friends. I know that we spent a good deal of time together when we were kids and one distinct memory sticks out in my mind; a trip to the zoo with my dad. We both still remember that trip and laugh about the funny pictures we took. As we got a little older, we both became involved in different activities and drifted apart for a few years, but whenever we saw each other, we still talked. In middle school we were friends, but did not see each other as much as we would have liked. Once we got to high school, I convinced Chelsee to join the water polo team.  This guaranteed that I would get to spend more time with my friend; the shared commitment and spending more time together caused us to grow quite close yet again.

As high school wore on, our interests and activities diverged once again. Chelsee became busy with after school jobs and softball, while I was playing water polo in the fall and swimming all winter. Chelsee’s after school job and my practice schedule made it much more difficult to spend time together. We both also had our respective boyfriends intermittently during our high school years, which also diverted our attention and caused problems for our friendship occasionally. Today, we are separated by about 4 hours most of the months out of the year- she goes to school in Indiana, Pennslyvania and I am at JMU. Living separate and very different lives at our respective schools make it difficult for us to be in contact as frequently as we would like. But, I know that I can always count on her when I need someone to talk to and help work out problems. Our friendship has always been like this, we may not be together all the time but we are always available when the other person needs us.

Chelsee and I share what McCornack (2010) calls a communal friendship; we spend time together whenever possible and also rely on each other whenever we need a word of encouragement, some support, or even just a laugh to brighten a bad day. Given that we are separated for most of the year, our friendship also relates to McCornack’s section of the reading about maintaining long-distance friends. He lists several reasons why some long distance friendships survive while others don’t; I can see that many of these reasons pertain to our friendship. These reasons include, we both have always enjoyed being friends, we consider each other’s advice to be sound, any changes that occur in us as people don’t bother either of us and we embrace any changes that do occur, and since we have been friends for so long, we share many memories which help us reconnect when we reunite (McCornack, 2010).

I do not know how I would have survived some of these years if it hadn’t been for Chelsee. Talking recently, we both agreed that this year we would make every effort to visit each other at school. I am looking forward to closing our friendship distance and seeing what my favorite redhead’s life is like while I am so far away.

Do you have a communal friendship that is also long-distance? How do you deal with it? Did you find McCornack’s tips for maintaining long-distance friendships helpful?

Reference:

McCornack, S. (2010). Reflect and relate: An introduction to interpersonal communication. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.