Whether you’re preparing to leave home and move away to uni, going travelling, finishing university for the summer, or finishing uni entirely, one thing remains consistent: it’s important to keep in touch.
People used to have to accept the fact that leaving their friends was a big deal. Often, they’d not see them again and find that strong ties would quickly be lost. Luckily, this doesn’t have to be the case anymore! Now we live in a digital age where staying in contact and keeping up with friends is easier than ever before.
So, if you’re worried about losing touch, check out the great ideas below and see how you can become a practically perfect, modern day friend! (Or at least send people goofy stuff on WhatsApp).
1. Stay social
The main way a lot of people stay in touch now is through social media, and it’s hardly surprising when you think about the sheer number of ways we can communicate using it. Plan your reunion events in a Facebook group, tweet from anywhere in the world, or Instagram shots of how you see life, and you can stay connected to your friendship groups from across the globe.
Social media is a free and simple way to keep in contact. And even though it can feel a little synthetic at times, if it works for you, it works! Just remember that you only have to go online when you want to, and that the side of people’s lives they’re willing to put out there might not be the whole truth… So don’t worry about comparing yourself all the time.
2. Post
On the other hand, if you like to do things the good ol’ fashioned way, why not try using Royal Mail to keep in touch?
For some reason, letters tend to feel much more personal, perhaps because of the time and energy it takes to put one together. So do try and make the effort, because let’s face it, if nothing else, we all love receiving post.
It’s pretty fun to collect a bunch of items together that you know your friend will enjoy and send them all at once like a care package. Think about their favourite foods or drinks, places they’ve been, inside jokes, and any hobbies or interests they have for inspiration. You’ll definitely earn some friendship points there.
3. Group chiddy chats
This is probably the most popular method of keeping groups of friends in touch these days, and the easiest way to end up scrolling through eighty messages about someone vomiting on their own shoes.
The whole thing pretty much hinges on who’s in the group. If your friends are a bit of a wild bunch, prepare for a string of profanity at 4am on a Wednesday and photos of unspeakable crudity. On the other hand, group chats can also be perfect for organising times to meet and catching up on everyday life. You have to take the rough with the smooth, and not worry about muting it every once in a while.
4. Calling
A phone call is an obvious one, but if you’re anything like me, you might find the lack of visibility with the other person to be a bit off-putting and awkward.
Fortunately, pretty much all of us now have access to video calls through apps such as Skype and FaceTime. Video calling takes away the blind element of phone calls and is the closest you can get to actually hanging out with your friends.
Although you do have to put up with the fact that no one in the history of time has ever looked good in that little video window.
5. Leaving messages
Many of the above assume that your friends are good at replying to messages and are at least a little bit tech savvy. So how can you connect with the ones that are difficult to deal with?
If you keep finding you’re getting your friend’s voicemail, start leaving fun messages. And make sure they’re long ones so they stick in their head! You can play pranks, tell jokes, invent characters or just say how things are going. You could even record a video message and send it to them. The nice thing is that it takes the stress and guilt out of all those missed calls, making it just a bit of fun instead.
6. IRL
While all of these ideas are useful, remember that nothing beats seeing your friends in real life. It’s important to take the opportunities when they arise and make the effort to see those you care about. It can be easy to forget how much we need them.
The best part is when you realise that it doesn’t matter how long you go, or how your lives change, you get back together and it’s all the same. You laugh at the same old things, swap new stories and reform that same bond. It’s a truly special part of human nature.
If you’re currently sitting your A-Levels and are still not sure about where you want to go to uni this year, come down to our Open Day on 17th June. Coventry was recently voted 3rd happiest student city!* So come along and start imagining where you’ll meet your new friends come September!
*Sodexo survey 2017
