Maintaining old friendships is hard without face-to-face meetings

By Eva Neumann Sep 22, 2011, 3:06 GMT

Berlin - When someone moves away to take a better job or to follow a loved one, it's often hard to keep in touch. Though email, internet chats and good old-fashioned telephone calls makes it easier to stay in touch, such communication can't replace face-to-face meetings.

It happens to students after years of sitting in the same classroom together. One goes off to a foreign study programme, the other elects to stay home and study. Eventually, they both get jobs in different cities and move on with life.

Over such long stretches of time and change, it's normal for friends to lose touch with each other.

People who don't want their friendships to go by the wayside must invest energy, emotion and time.

You can identify the three types of friendship by reading Aristotle, said psychotherapist Wolfgang Krueger. He believed these were friendship of utility, friendship of pleasure and virtuous friendship.

A friendship of pleasure is based on experiencing things together in free time while a friendship of utility has a purpose. Both of these categories of friendship play a role in certain phases of life and then die away.

A virtuous friendship is different. 'Deep heart-to-heart friendships are different. When they are actively fostered, they last a long time,' said Krueger.

Friends in this category often can be counted on just one hand. When people are asked in surveys about how many best friends they have, the answer is usually zero or one, said Horst Heidbrink, social psychologist at the Open University Hagen in Germany. 'Ask about close friends, a maximum of five are named.'

Pleasantness, common interests and values are the basis of such friendships.

'Close friendships are unbelievably important for our emotional stability, for our inner security,' said Krueger. People with these kinds of relationships know they have someone they can depend on solidly and they are never really alone.

'The most important requirement for maintaining such a friendship is regular communication,' said Peter Wendl, a therapist and communications trainer at the Catholic University in Eichstaett, Germany.

Social network sites on the internet can be used to share photos, details about travel and what's happened over the past year, but such one-sided information isn't sufficient to maintain a friendship over time.

'In addition direct contact, an exchange, is necessary,' said Heidbrink. The most simple form of direct dialogue is telephoning. It helps create a feeling of nearness and it allows for an exchange of important information about experiences. It also strengthens the feeling that friends have something in common.

However, no form of communication over distance can replace a personal meeting and having a common experience together. 'It should be possible for close friends to see each other twice a year,' said Krueger.

Direct encounters are especially important when something essential has changed in the life of the other person. Only people who have met a new partner or visited someone in their new home can take part in this new facet of their life. But what sounds simple in theory is not always possible in practice.

A major change such as the birth of children cause shared interests to change and also limit the time people have to keep in touch, said Heidbrink. Such developments, he said, are the most common reasons for friendships to dissolve or go dormant.