Long-Distance Friendships: A Vital Part of Life - Essay Sample

Introduction

Friendship is an essential and enhancing aspect of life and plays a vital role in an individual's life. In relation to this aspect, the philosopher Aristotle suggested that in poverty, among other life misfortunes, friends tend to provide a sure surge, a fact that shows their essence in our lives. To enhance and maintain friendships, individuals should seek to improve their communications channels and behavior (Johnson, 2001). Among the most ignored forms of friendship is the long-distance friendship, which involves friendships between individuals in different geographical areas but remains relevant regardless of the distance involved. Ideally, just like any other type of friendship, long-distance friendships are quite hard and challenging but should be emulated by everybody as they make up crucial aspects of real friendships. With the increased level of technology that has since influenced communication, the geographical distance continues to grow narrower. Friends in different geographic areas should, therefore, take advantage of the communication advancement to maintain their friendships, effectively.

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Comparatively, geographically close friendship entails friends that have close access to each other. Likewise, managing these types of friendships also requires effective communication between the individuals involved (Johnson, 2009). This study seeks to examine the relation between long-distant and geographically close friendships, and the need to maintain them towards attaining social support in society. More importantly, the first section of the study will delve into investigating the maintaining behavior of both geographically-close and long-distance friendships. Further, the second section will show the social support that both types of friendships provide to individuals in society.

Maintaining Behaviors of Both Geographically-Close and Long-Distance Friendships

Given that friendship plays a definite role in individuals' lives, there is further a more critical need to nurture and maintain friendships to realize their benefits in the long run. As Johnson (2001) suggests, the lack of knowledge about friendship maintenance is surprising in the current society. It is perhaps the reason for the constant failure of friendships, in both geographical as well as long distant-relationship. According to (Johnson 2009), friendship maintenance entails engaging in different interactions that serve towards sustaining a relationship between two or more individuals. There are several behaviors that individuals engage in towards maintaining their relationship and may apply differently depending on whether a friendship is a geographical close or long distant friendship.

For the long distant friendships, among these behaviors include positivity, assurances, openness well as developing networks. All these have shown to be the most effective behaviors applied to maintain friendships and can all be possible by maintaining effective communication. Moreover, friends in long-distance friendships can also have indistinct conversations about their families, careers, schools, among other aspects, to sustain their relevance in specific friendships (Christina & Autumn, 2014). Positivity entails being optimistic towards maintaining friendships through aspects such as avoiding any negativity, overlooking the small mistakes among the parties involved, and, more importantly, anticipating having more extended period friendships, even during particular times that may prove to be tough for the friendship. Friends can also maintain their relationships by enhancing the rate of assurance among each other. This behavior specifically applies the best for a long-distant relationship among romance lovers, because while at different geographical areas, both parties may feel insecure and intimidated by various factors that can since be solved through assurance (Johnson 2009). More importantly, people can maintain their friendship and relationships through assurance as a behavior, as it indicates a future among the parties involved, thereby showing commitment. Moreover, friendship maintenance can also depend on openness as behavior and can be applied to both aspects of long-distance and close geographical friendships. While communicating, individuals are supposed to share feelings among any other elements that may affect the existence of their friendship. The openness, therefore, allows for more realization of how-to further address issues that may affect the health of their friendships.

Compared to the long distant relationships, close geographical friendships can be easy to maintain because of the close contact and hence more interaction between friends. However, friends in this particular type of friendship are also supposed to adopt behaviors that can enable them to maintain their relationship further. According to Christina and Autumn (2014), friendships in close geographical locations can, therefore, be sustained by sharing interests, doing recreational activities together, visiting each other upon important concerns, and providing the necessary support, for instance, in terms of real help. Sharing interests may include sporting activities, among other recreational activities, to enable friends to connect, specifically in terms of talking and spending time together. For instance, Brody (2013) provides that through spending time together in various activities, friends can enhance their communication and expression of ideas, which in turn helps to maintain the relationship. Frequent and relevant visits to each other further create a sense of care and relevance to each other, which, as a result, enables friends to sustain their relationships for long. As Johnoson (2001) suggests, an increase in the distance reduces the opportunity for the face to face interaction between individuals and may, therefore, affect their long-terms as friends. However, as close friends, it becomes easier for friends to visit each other and to strengthen the bonds between each other.

Close geographical friendship can also be maintained through assurance to each other, despite the distance involved between each party. Covertly and overtly assuring each other how they value their specific friendships should be well communicated among all the friends, to sustain their relationship. Parties can do this by being honest with each other in every aspect. According to Brody (2013), relationships built on false are always only as good as their foundation and can, therefore, be hard to maintain. This behavior is also applicable towards maintaining long-distance friendships, as it shows appreciation of different support, hence enhancing developing longer and healthy relationships.

The Social Support That Geographically-Close Friends and Long-Distance Friends Can Provide

Social support entails having friends among other people such as close family members, to turn to incase a person has a need and in crisis. It helps to provide a broader focus and develop a positive self-image. Social support enhances the quality of life and further provides a cushion against hostile life events. Various researchers have examined the importance of friendships and relationships for many decades. More importantly, a lot of researchers point to the classical study of suicide and social ties, by Emile Durkheim. For example, he argued that connecting socially is essential towards achieving personal well-being among individuals, an individual with no close friendships in society is at a considerable risk of suicide (Koban & Kruger, 2018). This, therefore, explains emotional, social support as the first social support that close geographically friendships offer in society. Specifically, friends in the same geographical areas tend to visit each other and provide emotional, social support to their counterparts, in case one is going through a hard time in life, such as depression. For instance, by visiting a friend going in distress, they tend to change their perspective in life, precisely what they're going through, as they can get different angles of approaching the various problems. As Kelmer et al. (2013) provide emotionally, social support often involves physical comfort, including hugs, pats on the back as well as providing listening ears and empathy. Importantly, with emotional, social support close geographical friends can give a big hug and listening to a fellow friend's problem, assuring them that they felt the same way too and that things would be better.

Besides, close geographical friendships also provide tangible social support to individuals, a fact that plays a significant role in their wellbeing. This support can only be useful to friends within the same or close geographical areas because it involves physical aspects. Weiner & Hannum (2013) provides that tangible social support entails taking on responsibilities for another person so that they can deal with particular problems. It also means taking an active stance towards helping another friend to enable them to manage a problem that they are going through in life, by offering physical support. For instance, as Koban & Kruger (2018) suggest, someone that provides tangible support to a friend may offer to bring them food when they are sick or offer to do particular tasks on their behalf. Moreover, tangible social support can also entail brainstorming solutions to specific problems by sitting together. This is more important rather than telling an individual what to do in a scenario because brainstorming enables the friends to combine ideas and consider the various options involved. Furthermore, communication of ideas in this particular type of social support empowers the individual in need actively deal with a problem at hand.

On the other hand, long-distance friendships also provide social support to individuals through various aspects. As Kelmer et al. (2013) claim, social support through this type of social support highly depends on the level of communication between friends. It should, therefore, be emulated to enhance the comfort, and in the long run, help maintain the friendship. Long distant association can offer information social support to each other to enable them, walk through different facets of life. This form of support, as Weiner & Hannum (2013) outline, can exist in terms of advice-giving that may not necessarily require friends to be in the same geographical locations. As such, friends can, therefore, communicate an offer informational support distantly in different areas, allowing the individual is advised to make the right decisions effectively. Moreover, effective communication of this support can help an individual to know the next steps that they may take to be successful. Despite, geographical support can also provide informational social support, as friends can visit each other and offer advice on specific aspects of life.

Additionally, friendship can also provide esteem social support both as distant and close geographical friendships. As a type of social support, friends can show esteem support by expressing confidence or encouragement. In this case, friends offering esteem support can point out specific strengths that the other parties might forget they have and further let them know that they believe in them, and particular things that they might be doing (Kelmer et al., 2013). Doing this motivates friends and as a result, enable friends to believe in themselves. Offering esteem social support is further essential in life as it helps to cushion people from particular stressors that they may encounter in life.

Conclusion

Friendship is an essential aspect of life and should, therefore, be encouraged elements. As shown in this paper, friendship should t...