Is There a Point to Friendship if You Live Far Away?

Not my usual type of post, but visits back home tend to get me pondering bigger picture stuff. I thought about writing a step-by-step guide to making social plans when visiting home, except I have not been very good at it for the past few years, which brings me to the following. More Paris and France-focused content is tk.

I’ve been stressed as hell about visiting California this summer. Losing sleep for weeks ahead of the trip, and I wasn’t sure why. I did some mental health check-ins to discover the source: was it the idea of the eleven-hour flight with a toddler that was keeping me up nights? Was it the thought of client work on a new contract while nursing a nine-hour jet lag? Maybe the anticipation of digestive issues that always return upon dining in The States? Nah, when I finally was brave enough to admit it to myself, I was stressed at sorting through the social calendar, filling it with visits, sending the texts to say, “hey, I’m in town, wanna hang?”

This used to be the fun part, the whole point of traveling back home. The first few years when I’d visit from France, I would spend every lunch, every evening up in LA catching up with friends, old colleagues, anyone who wanted to hang. I’d post up at this patio or that beer garden and tell everyone I knew to meet me if they felt like it. I’d run myself ragged working by day, tanning by aprem, catching up with friends all night long. And this worked for those friendships, for a while. I felt connected, felt the friendships were being nursed with just enough face time. So great to see you, let’s do it again when I’m back next quarter.

Then, one year, it felt hard to do the connecting part. It could be that the pregnancy/baby/toddler era has kept me from my three to four annual visits, making those hangouts annual instead of quarterly. It could be that friends who were willing to show up for a friend who’d been gone for three years don’t care as much for one who may never come back. It could be that I don’t feel I have the right to keep taking up time in their calendars when I’m never around. Let’s be honest, it’s most likely the latter.

Part of my pre-vacation stress was the size of the social planning; I care about a lot of people, I want to spend time with them and my family as much as possible. But how can I possibly make it all fit while also working and exercising and sleeping? I tried a big party in my parents’ backyard last year, which helped get a ton of friends and family all in one place. Great plan, except I felt like I got about thirty seconds with each of them; not exactly friendship-sustaining quality time.

I was also stressed about how to choose which of my friends to try to make time with, which I have to do because time is limited. There are friends who I used to see every day, who I love deeply, but who I’ve barely heard from or seen since I left. There are others with whom I was a beloved colleague at best, but we’re now seven years bonded over exchanging Soprano’s memes regularly. How am I supposed to decide which of those two to get brunch with in the limited time that I’m here?

The final part of my pre-vacation stress was guilt; my primary torturess/motivator. Everyone here in California has their normal lives, work, schedules; what right did I have to ask them to make time for me, especially since I don’t even live here anymore? All I can offer is a night out or coffee every calendar year—is that interesting to people? It works for me, but I can see why some folks might not take the 5 to the 710 to the 105 to the 605 for that.

I tried to look at it from my LA-based friends’ perspectives. You’re minding your own business when someone you maybe get to see once a year texts you to see if you want to grab dinner or go on a hike. You text and text and text until you finally agree on a date and time and activity; do you want to do this? Is it worth it, considering this person lives so far away? What’s the point? This is what I’m worried they’re thinking when my message appears on their phone screen.

That anxiety begs the question: what the heck is friendship, anyway? Have you ever stopped and asked yourself that? Well, I just did, and my brain is kinda boggled.

I used to think that friendship was when there were people you liked doing things with; the people you felt happy around, and vice versa. Then, as I got older, I added to that idea that friendship was helping one another through hard times, having one another’s backs. Then I added that friendship was when people knew you extremely well, but still loved you, continued to choose you. Friendship is when you can spend every day together, or only see one another once every few years, and you’re still happy to do so. Friendship is when you can have every type of conversation, talk all night, or go a while without talking, and regardless, the love is still there. Recently, I’ve expanded my definition of friendship to be the people who support you as good as, or even better than family. Franchement, friendship can sometimes be as simple as enjoying natural wine as much as one another. I could go on, but this level of mushiness is not my usual comfort zone.

To simplify, maybe we can say adult friendship is effort + enjoyment + support, divided by time. Before you scribble your feedback, this is a metaphorical equation, not a mathematical one.

I thought perhaps my personal definition of friendship might be biased, so I looked it up. Merriam-Webster lacklusterly describes it as “the state of being friends,” a cop-out which has bolstered my confidence in my DIY definition.

This rumination on the definition of friendship, though meandering, was helpful, because it told me (as usual) that I needed to chill TF out. If I was able to see a handful of people, that was great. Better than none, especially if quality, not quantity, was the goal.

If there were some people I missed this year due to timing, lack of availability, family obligations, that’s okay too. We always have next year. I don’t have to twist myself into a guilt pretzel over it each time I visit.

This exercise also helped me realize how each of my friendships is so different, but that doesn’t mean any are stronger, weaker, doomed, etc. One isn’t clearly closer to the true definition of a friendship, because there isn’t one in the first place. There’s the friend I text memes to constantly about Martha Stewart and Taureans. The friends I lunch with every time they’re in Paris, and who I see on their back patio every time I’m in LA. There’s my sister with whom I go to shows and drink Hamm’s on the patio at Walt’s. My ballet friends who almost all moved away, so we send messages every now and then, but that’s all we can manage. The friend I hadn’t seen since 2012, but it feels like we hadn’t missed a day. The friend I didn’t get to see on this trip because she lives too far away, but who I know knows that I know that she knows. All extremely different, but all overflowing with the enjoyment and support parts of the friendship equation.

And not to be all good feelings and rainbows, let’s get real for a sec: there are plenty of friendships that kind of petered out, always with a whimper, which makes it all the more confusing. The effort part of the equation wasn’t there. People who stopped replying to emails, who said they’d text but didn’t. I disappeared—maybe they didn’t want to invest in someone who was gone. Maybe I think they dropped the ball while they, simultaneously, think it was me, and we’ll be trapped in a silent waiting-for-the-ball purgatory for the rest of our lives. By my own definition, this is perfectly fine as well; accepting that friendships have their season is the only way you can get back up on the friendship horse and try again.

So, is adult friendship, particularly when you live far away, just trying your best and hoping others will do the same, so you can keep enjoying one another’s company for as long as possible? That would make the equation: effort + enjoyment + support, divided by time, maybe all to the power of trusting good intentions. Like, we have to trust that we’re all doing our best and meaning well, and that the good feelings will be there the next time we’re able to make the lunch date happen, as infrequent as that may be.

That’s certainly a definition that I can live with, as I type from my childhood bedroom on the last few days of my visit to LA. Or, I’d better be able to live with it, because I had to return my rental car, so the social outings are done for this year’s visit. Despite jet lag, work, parenting, a death in the family, a sting ray sing, and a stomach bug, I managed to catch up with a baker’s dozen distinct friends/couples/friend groups, some of them more than once. Why am I beating myself up? Low self-worth, and because I feel like I still could have done better, and because I still wonder if living this far from friends and family is the right way to live. But we can save that for another time.

My perfect scenario for my next visit would be a variety of get-togethers throughout my whole trip, maybe every other night, some one-on-ones for my one-on-one friends, some bigger get togethers for people who can handle that. Sometimes its dinner, other times a hike, an art outing, music watching, beach going, park sitting. Definitely talking. And by the end we remember why we stay in touch; we feel the love, enjoy our time together, maybe help one another feel more seen or valid, less lost or alone. And we know we’ll do it again just as soon as we can. Preferably no wine outings, however, because wine has gotten too damn expensive in LA and French wine is better anyway, please don’t try to fight me on this.

I much prefer when the geography is reversed. I love when people come and visit Paris and ask if I’m free to hang out. I drop everything, recommend some spots, block my calendar, and enjoy the heck out of these dates. This problem could be easily fixed if everyone would just come to their senses and move to Paris.

Post Script: This rumination did me forgive myself for not seeing everyone I know on this trip. It worked for about 12 hours, until I woke up to a text from a dear friend asking if I was still in town and if we could hang out. Agh, the guilt. Trying to remind myself that I did my best as I pack up to head home. I’ll do better next year.