Julia D’Rozario ‘24
New Media Editor
It’s a problem that most of us relate to. As we stumble through the seasons of life, it becomes easy to fall out of touch with people we love dearly. It’s not that we don’t want to know how they’re doing, or share how we’re doing — it’s that life comes at us awfully quickly, and it can be hard to narrate life as fast as it happens to people who aren’t physically present.
There’s a kind of friendship that grows naturally in school, where you spend every day with someone. You know the characters in each other’s lives, you have 24/7 access to their stream of consciousness, and you hear every trivial detail about every daily event in real-time. As you enter adulthood, whether you move away or simply become occupied with other responsibilities, it becomes harder to know each other in as much detail. You hear about big things — the new jobs, new relationships… but you miss out on the little things. You know — the interview anxiety, the almost-relationships. Some people say that’s healthy and normal, that, as life goes on, people naturally phase in and out of your life. But I will never be content with that.
Here’s the thing: I’m obsessed with my friends. I still want to experience the minutiae of their everyday lives as if I was there in person with them: I still want what band/TV show/recipe they’re currently obsessed with. I still want to overanalyze text messages like we did in middle school. I still want to know the little things!
I’m lucky. My oldest friends have been metaphorically joined-at-the-hip with me since I was ten years old. There hasn’t been a week in the last almost-fifteen years that we haven’t spoken. We met in middle school, and the five of us have managed to stay as close as ever despite now living across five cities, four time zones, and three continents.
After years of long distance friendship, I could write thousands of tips. But for now, here’s three:
1) Call without scheduling.
If you take away one thing from this article, let it be this: scheduling does not work. For me personally, time zones have been the biggest issue. With four time zones to plan for, scheduling a call is almost never possible… it’s always the middle of the night for someone.
Even without time zone differences, scheduling is impossible. We all think we’re busier than we actually are. As a student, the only days I identify as being truly “free” are Saturdays and Sundays. I wouldn’t schedule a call for 9 am on a Monday — I have Con Law at 10. That being said, when the phone rings as I’m doing my eyeliner, I answer the call. When the phone rings while I’m studying, I almost always have twenty minutes to spare. So call. Ring your group chat without planning it days in advance. 90 percent of the time, someone will pick up. And the more you do it, the more normal it becomes.
I concede: “catching up” is exhausting. When you’re not used to calling frequently, it can be daunting — especially when you have emotional updates to share — to embark on the journey of explaining a story from scratch. Every call is an in-depth “fill me in” call that you may not have the emotional energy for. Sometimes, you won’t update each other until one of you has finally hit the point of absolute emotional crisis, at which point you dedicate eight hours on FaceTime to telling a months-long story in one tearful go, from character-introduction to plot-twist to present chapter.
By contrast, when you get into the habit of calling at random times, speaking for fifteen minutes (or however long it takes you to do your eyeliner) and going about your day, “catch ups” become a thing of the past. You don’t need to preface every little story with a prequel, four character profiles, and forty-five minutes of context. You can tell your funny story, give your silly update, or indulge in your objectively-petty-but-you’re-my-friend-so-take-my-side-anyway rant without the context. They already know the backstory — because you filled them in in twenty minute increments as it happened.
2) PowerPoint.
Now you’re thinking, “okay, Julia, that’s great going forward, but how do I go about the catch up chats that I haven’t had yet? I need to fill them in before I can start with ‘eyeliner calls’.” To this I say: PowerPoint.
Calls aren’t perfect. Even when I’m absolutely as up-to-date as I could possibly be about my friends’ lives, there are things I don’t know. There are important, defining figures in their lives who I have never met and will never meet. There are crushes that we call by codename (“skater boy texted me!”), exes that I know only for where they fit on our ever-evolving DnD alignment chart (“wait — are you talking about chaotic-neutral Alex or a lawful-evil Alex?”), and events that I never heard about because they didn’t feel ‘big’ enough to share.
This is where we put our LRW skills to good use. Use your magical CREAC powers to create a ten to fifteen minute presentation on whatever it is you have to say. Have your friends do the same. Set up a Zoom call, get to screen-sharing, and take turns presenting your life updates. Your first PowerPoint party might be purely catch up: relationship timelines, new obsessions, and ‘introductions’ to new people in your life.
Then, after your PowerPoint party, you’re all up to date. But the presentations don’t need to stop there. On the contrary, they only get more fun; the less actual substance a PowerPoint contains, the more petty/ smooth-brained/ generally entertaining it becomes. Feel free to get creative. From personal experience, and by way of example, think: “The Icks I’ve Acquired in 8 Years of Dating (46 slides)”, “Why I’ve Abandoned Personal Growth in Favor of Staying the Exact Same,” and “How to Build a Life on Pure Delusion”.
Recommendation PowerPoints are a category all on their own. Last month, I mentioned in passing that I had finished Demon Slayer and wanted something new to watch. In response, my friend creates a full-on, detailed anime-recommendation slideshow, complete with pros and cons, synopses, and the Julia-specific reasons she thought of me for each recommendation. Call me crazy, but that’s a love language. I only watch what she’s recommended at this point, and I can’t watch anything without thinking about how much I love her.
3) Voice messages.
Finally, send voice notes. Constantly. As in, whenever a stupid thought pops into your head that you might have chosen to inflict on your loved ones had they been physically next to you, inflict it on them anyway via voice message.
Voice messages take many forms, and they are all created equal. And believe me when I say that your friends want all of them. They want your chaotic live-reactions to Love is Blind. They want your unformed thoughts on the Will Smith—Chris Rock drama. They want your tipsy proclamations of affection (“I love you, and I miss you, and I had three white claws tonight!”).
They want to hear your voice! So call. Make over-the-top presentations. Send voice notes. And remember: when someone loves you — which your friends do, a lot — there is nothing too trivial to talk about.
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jkd2dd@virginia.edu