Maintaining Friendships

Living on the other side of the planet from America is awesome—there’s absolutely no doubt about that. But while life here in Nagano has its pros, it also has its cons, like the 13 to 14 hour time difference from Florida, the isolation, and busy schedules. These all tie into why maintaining long-distance friendships is difficult.

Different time zones

I’ve always been proud of the number of hours Japan has been ahead of Florida because we’re “in the future” and therefore “more advanced” than America. I’m kidding, but unfortunately, being more than half a day ahead of my friends means that good opportunities for prolonged interaction with them are scarce. When I’m getting ready for bed, they’re sitting in the first service at church, and when I’m on lunch break at school, they’re supposed to be asleep. We can’t talk to each other as much as we want to, and I feel like our friendships can’t grow because of it.

Different lives

Our family’s isolated. I mean, really isolated. My siblings and I go to school in a one-room log cabin in a town of 18,000 in the middle of a forest in the mountains. So, it’s hard to hold an interesting conversation with people 7,000 miles away—our daily experiences are so different and there isn’t much to tell them about our small town. In our conversations with friends in America there are awkward silences, uncomfortable conversations are cut short, and it’s not a very pleasant experience. Thus, willingness to uphold that kind of relationship is rather low. The fact that everyone is busy doesn’t help.

Everyone’s busy

It’s easy to forget that, just like my family, the majority of my friends in America are all either going to school, work, or church (or all three), and our schedules seldom have a coinciding free spot. So, the rare occasion that we are online at the same time is like chancing upon a unicorn in the forest. As harsh as it sounds, we’re not part of each other’s everyday lives anymore. We’re still part of their thoughts but not interacting within their immediate circle. I sometimes wonder if it would be better to simply give up hope of ever talking to them again and just move on without them, but then I remember why we’re still friends after all this time and think better of it.

So, maintaining relationships across time-zones is really, really hard. You’ve got the time difference, isolation, and packed schedules to juggle, and in situations like these, patience is worth more than gold. But hey, in Romans it says that “perseverance produces character,” and who doesn’t like a kid with character? 

Photo by Flickr user oxcnpxo