Promoting Social Wellness in your Extended Community

Modern Friendships: How Do We Maintain Long-Distance Or Digital Relationships?

Long distance relationships (LDR), not just of the romantic sort, but friendships and families included, have become more common place especially due to the pandemic. While it is natural to believe that such relationships are less fruitful and harder to maintain, this does not need to be the case.

With the deeper integration of using technology to communicate with each other, positive outcomes for these relationships are ever more attainable. Maintaining LDRs depends on various aspects which are communication, boundaries, certainty, acts of love, and commitment.

Communication - Effective and healthy communication has always been a cornerstone in relationships. However, with the geological rift involved in LDRs, this becomes even more crucial and the utility of varying methods of communication should be considered. Some examples of these methods could include video calling platforms such as zoom, instant messaging, social media, and emails. Researchers have found that three aspects of communication via digital technologies are associated with positive outcomes. Firstly, parties should consider the richness of the communication method, as not all forms of media allow for certain nuances in human communication to be conveyed such as tone variance, social cues, facial expressions. These are important for interpreting attentiveness, engagement and intimacy. Types of media which allow for a higher level of richness improves the perception of shared space with other parties. Media multiplexity theory (MMT), which regards the quantity of types of media used to communicate. Therefore, involved parties should do their best in maintaining effort in communication through a higher variety of methods for the best outcomes. Communicative interdependence perspective (CIP), which relates to the blending of communication between forms of media. As such, the integration of topics across these platforms instead of solely keeping certain platforms for specific topics, aids in the fluidity and quality of communication. Of course, critical topics such as conflict resolution could preferably be kept to the platform with the most suitable level of richness.
Boundaries - Effectively managing boundaries in any relationship is key to success, and even more so for an LDR due to the stress distance could bring. Establishing healthy boundaries such as appropriate timings for communication, or actions which one might feel uncomfortable within a romantic relationship should be communicated and practiced early on, laying the foundation for minimising conflicts and improving certainty in the future.
Certainty - Between romantic partners, certainty would pertain to clarity in the future goals of both partners regarding the relationship. If certainty is lacking, perceived success in the relationship tends to wane and the difficulties of distance may begin to outweigh the optimism of romance. As with boundaries, such matters should be communicated as early as possible such that the LDR may grow without ambiguity.
Acts Of Love - Acts of love, which are more subjective, require consistent effort as well and are equally important in maintaining both non- romantic and romantic relationships. Examples might include thoughtful message or a meaningful gift perhaps. It would depend on the love languages of the parties involved and the feasibility of such acts due to distance.
Commitment - Commitment is perhaps the most important of all as it involves consistent effort in all the aforementioned aspects of maintaining an LDR. Although seemingly simple, without commitment at the core of a relationship, everything else can easily fall apart. To aid in commitment, setting up scheduled timings for communication would assist in the regularity and quality of interactions. Furthermore, having personal reminders to engage in meaningful acts could definitely help in maintaining engagement intimacy during one's busy schedule.

In Conclusion

LDRs may seem daunting and difficult at the beginning.

However, with consistent efforts into the various aforementioned aspects from both parties, a solid foundation for a fruitful relationship may be built.

Engaging With A New Community

As we transition through the different phases of life, we experience major life milestones such as enrolment into a new school, national enlistment, or entry into the workforce. These life changes bring along entirely new sets of people, rules, and unspoken customs that may seem too daunting to navigate.

Indeed, being newly part of an existing community is terrifying when it entails the unknown. With no prior experience or knowledge of this community, we may find ourselves worrying about the most minute things to make a positive first impression, from the things we say to the attire we wear. Thoughts like “How do I fit in? Can I fit in?” come to mind.

Feeling nervous and unsure with a group of strangers is perfectly normal and something most of us feel. To alleviate these worries and feel at home with your new peers, here are some tips to engage with them:

Seek Out People Who Are Well-Informed About The New Community.

A reliable mentor can inform you of rules to abide by, familiarise you with the group dynamics and culture at play, as well as bring to your awareness unspoken social norms to keep in mind. Your mentor may also introduce you to other members and involve you in activities with the community. Depending on the context, such mentors can be found in seniors in school, colleagues, supervisors, or even mutual friends. With a mentor to rely on, you can receive comfort in a new environment and form a stronger sense of belonging and identity with the community.

Join Clubs, Interest Groups, Events And Activities Organised By The Community.

Take the time to participate in a few events and activities your community attends, such as casual lunches, celebrations, or school events. Joining clubs and interest groups are also great ways to find subsets of people in the community who share the same hobbies or interests as you. These are all effective avenues you can use to get to know more people and foster stronger interpersonal relationships. When you feel more comfortable, you can suggest your ideas for future activities and invite everyone to come along. Being part of these shared experiences can serve as conversation starters for later, identify similarities between you and your new peers, and make you feel integral to the community.

Express Openness And Willingness To Build Friendships

For many, we are hindered by our insecurities from approaching a new group, hesitating to start conversations with them in fear of social rejection. This may lead us to appear aloof and unapproachable to others, which in turn reinforces our own beliefs that we are not welcomed when it might not necessarily be the case.

While ridding ourselves of these worries is not something that can be accomplished overnight, we can take little, purposeful steps out of our comfort zone to appear more open and confident in forming relationships with new people. Some of these steps are:

Be An Active Listener

During a conversation, show the speaker that they have your attention through eye contact, affirmative noises (for example: ‘mhm’, ‘uh- huh’), nodding, smiling, and asking open-ended questions about themselves at appropriate times.

Adjust Your Body Language

It is important to be aware of our body language as it gives off non-verbal cues of our emotions and thoughts. To be perceived as pleasant and approachable, keep your arms and legs uncrossed, shift your body toward the speaker, and mirror some of their actions, posture, or facial expressions while they are speaking.

Mediating/ Managing Challenges & Adapting To Changes In Relationships

Most of us will experience grief at some stage of our lives. While most instances of grief are most closely associated with coping with the loss of someone close to us—a spouse, a family member, a close friend, we can also experience grief in response to other losses in life—a job, an intimate relationship, our health.

When it comes to death, we are all keenly aware of its inevitability. However, despite this certainty, most of us avoid thinking about death. For the majority, it is enough to live with the knowledge that our lives will eventually end. Why would we want to bring this knowledge to the forefront of our existence?

Dealing with Guilt

Bereaved people often say that they feel guilty. They often wish that they could turn back the clock, do something differently, do more, speak less, prevent the death from occurring, no matter how unrealistic that wish may be.

Look at the whole picture. Recognise that no relationship is all bad or all good. List the things for which you will never feel guilt--ways in which you gave, supported, expressed affection or appreciation, or otherwise enhanced your loved one's life. Set a no-guilt deadline. If your guilt still plagues you daily after releasing it through talking and focusing on the aspects of the relationship that were purely positive, consider selecting a date in the future when you will stop self-punishing thoughts.

Retaining Individuality

The bereaved person is the only one who can feel what they feel, think what they think, and know the best way of expressing whatever they are experiencing. Others affected by the death will have their own way of grieving, of expressing feelings which may be different. There is no right or wrong—grief just ‘is’.

Some people feel like taking to their bed for a couple of days; some want to stay with a friend for a short time; others feel like cursing, yelling, screaming, crying or withdrawing — all understandable needs and grief responses.

Ultimately, it is important to allow the person to do what feels right for them and not impose our advice and thoughts upon them.

Verbalisation & Listening

The unique pain of grief makes sharing one’s own experience with others a complex and difficult process. One of the major tasks of grieving is to realistically confront and make meaning of the loss. However, within families, individual members benefit not only by attending to their own needs but when they can reach out to and support one another.

The main challenge stems from how differences in coping styles can predispose family members to not finding solace and comfort in how another grieves. If markedly different from another, the grieving tendencies of one distressed person might even drive a wedge between those two individuals. The possibility of guilt, blame, and conflict in the family increases when individual members do not openly share their thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of a loss.

Hence, families need to be willing to self-disclose their emotions among one another while providing mutual support and reassurance. There must be a give and take, one that (over time) goes beyond a mere acceptance of different coping styles and evolves into an appreciation for such diverse reactions.

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