One of the best relationships you can have with someone isn’t even the romantic type. Finding your best friend to navigate the ups and downs of life with is truly one of the greatest treasures you can have. Even if they move miles away, cities away, states away, countries away, or even worlds away, you both have a special bond that cannot be broken, no matter how far apart you are from one another.
There’s a secret language, inside jokes, references that just the two of you can connect with. Here are 10 things only people with long-distance friendships will understand.
When you wake up, you’re careful not to call right away because you automatically know that they should still be asleep. In fact, you seem to plan much of your schedule around theirs to maximize your phone meetings and stay synced with each other. Long-distance friendships work best around coordinating your interactions.
Their lunch might be your dinner, but it doesn’t matter because you both are sharing a meal together. If your birthday is at midnight, they’ll be the first one to send you well-wishes if they’re in a time zone that’s at least an hour ahead of you. You’ll find yourself calculating time like you’re both back in high school next to each other in Algebra class.
Nothing beats the thrill of opening your notifications on Instagram or Facebook and seeing all of the “likes” from your best friend. “Binge-liking” is the perfect evidence of someone missing you. Long-distance friendships are all about social media support.
When you post a photo on Instagram, your best friend is the first one to “like” it. They leave comments to hype you up, reminding you that you look your best even if you don’t feel it. You’re worried about your appearance, your reputation, your credibility on social media. Your best friend is always there to be your biggest fan.
Now that TikTok has become as popular as YouTube, this is twice the content you can expect to receive on your phone from your best friend. You’ll laugh together at the funniest videos, the most epic memes, and the craziest film reels. This will just be more fodder for more inside jokes, and you can never have too many inside jokes.
As soon as music videos drop from your favorite artist, you instantly share it with your bestie. You blow up their phones with snaps on Snapchat, and you spam them with links and articles to various curiosities and oddities that only they can understand without judging you. The more you send each other, the better.
The pandemic is ruining everyone’s lives. You and your best friend are having trouble seeing each other as it is with finances and scheduling conflicts, it doesn’t help that now safety is an obstacle. However, the lack of travel doesn’t have to ruin any long-distance friendships.
Sometimes, just planning an imaginary trip can be hopeful for keeping the relationship intact. You can send each other destinations you’ve mapped out, or landmarks you’d like to visit when coronavirus ends, or even just searching online for cheaper flights later in 2021 for the heck of it. It’s cheesy, but that’s how you and your best friend roll.
This is one of the truest statements about long-distance friendships. Your conversations aren’t just about the dates or the romantic lives of your other half. You know all about their coworkers, their classmates, their friends, and their enemies. You’ve never met any of them, of course, because you live too far away. But, the conversations usually involve a statement like, “Wait, is this the Kate that side-eyed you for getting your raise at work?”
On the other end of the spectrum, you also feel like your bestie’s friends are also your friends. It’s a comforting thought to know that your bestie’s friends are technically friends of yours and that if you’re ever there for a visit, you can count on meeting these trustworthy people that have kept your other half company while you’ve been away. As long as your best friend knows that you are their number one, though, you’re okay with the time they spend with others.
You don’t care how many times your best friend brings up that dance from junior year of high school, because you know you had one of your greatest moments in life there together. Somehow, that dance keeps getting brought up in conversation almost every time you guys talk because that’s one of the last times you guys really laughed together–really lived together.
If you think about it, it’s a normal occurrence to retell old stories since you’re waiting on a chance to make new memories. Long-distance friendships survive off of nostalgia.
We mentioned the spamming from earlier, but that doesn’t just apply to clips and cute photos of dogs. You want to make sure your best friend doesn’t forget what you look like. They need to be the first to see your new hairstyle, the first to see the bags under your eyes from a long night of work, and the first to see you when you put silly filters over your face to be funny.
Long-distance friendships are bound to pick up a few enemies along the way. Even though you have no insight on how the old school bully is doing, your best friend is keeping tabs on them for you. You love the delicious tea being spilled about how horrible of a life Laura is having after she spent all of the sophomore year talking about your weight.
Your best friend knows you best, and vice versa, so it makes sense that you both send each other the best gifts. There are always surprise care packages during exams or little pick-me-ups arriving at your doorstep when you’re going through a breakup.
Additionally, there’s something adorable about handwritten letters on greeting cards for every occasion, even if it’s just to wish you luck on a new job interview. You’ll treasure every item you get and you sleep with a smile on your face knowing they feel the same way.
Those text messages and videos and photos you get before you see your best friend are what you live for. You enjoy knowing when they’re packing, when they’re on the plane, when they’re in the Uber, and when they’re down the street before the big embrace. Long-distance friendships exist just for this special moment that nobody outside of it could possibly understand.
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