All my friends are moving away. How can we maintain our friendship?
Getting used to our relationships changing or even disappearing is an ongoing fact of life. As therapist Linda Blair says: “Our biggest transitions in life are marked by the breaking or making of attachment – with our parents, until we leave and our friends may become our new family; have a family of our own; or, in this case, be the ones who are left behind.”
So if you’re worried about your friends moving away it doesn’t mean you have a weaker identity: “If you think your identity is stable and sits only within yourself that’s a problem, because it’s absolutely essential that it’s bound up in others,” says psychoanalyst Anouchka Grouse. She describes the separation as moving from a community that is “embodied where you exist” to one that is “disembodied, where you exist in parallel”, which is no bad thing: “It’s different, but it’s all a way of adding to the richness of your existence. Your community becomes more far-reaching.”
It’s normal, then, but how do you get over it? There’s a fine balance, says Grouse, “between treating all people as replaceable and mourning loved ones who disappear”. Blair says we should be wary of using technology as a replacement: “We assume nowadays that we’re in touch with people because of all our choices for communication, but actually we don’t feel really connected unless we are in the presence of someone or if we can hear their voice on the phone. The emotional centre of our brain, the amygdala, is very primitive.”
What really matters, she says, is how much effort you put into the communication. She suggests opting for meaningful contact – like arranging a Skype or even writing a long message or letter: “The easier and quicker it is to do, the less meaningful. Spend time or arrange something in advance. That will maintain contact much better than a quick text.”
For those worried that making time for others will push old friends out, Blair says: “Love and friendship aren’t measurable quantities – you can’t have too much of them. The more time you spend loving and caring about others, the more room you will have for others, not less.”
If we begin to learn about making and breaking attachments when we are young, it might be worth speaking to a child since, Blair says, they “haven’t yet developed decentralisation – caring about what others think – meaning that what they say is true to the heart”. Six-year-old Ceian Thenneiusen tells me how he coped when friends in primary school moved away: “You just have to remember not to forget each other. Keep that person in your mind, go on playdates, but also make sure you make new friends so you’re not unhappy when they’re not there.”
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