After high school, friend groups may become separated across various schools. When friends were once close during the four years of high school, they may find it hard to maintain their tight-knit bond after graduation. This is especially difficult if friends move out of state for college since physical separation can be even more detrimental to friendships. Even though it may seem as if all friends will drift apart after high school, there are several ways to prevent relationships from collapsing.

Like long-distance romantic relationships, long-distance friendships may also be stereotyped to inevitably fall apart because of a lack of connection. One strategy to prevent this from happening is to stay connected through social media. Through this, people can stay updated with major events going on in their friends’ lives and check up on how they are doing. On social media, friends can also send each other posts that they find entertaining to ensure that they still share a common interest.

In addition to maintaining a connection through social media, it is also important to keep communication through texting or calling. Although texting may be a more frequent occurrence, calling is more likely to establish a stronger bond since people feel more comfortable hearing someone’s voice over reading someone’s texts (UC Berkeley). To make time to call, it may be helpful to create a calling schedule, such as one phone call every other week. Frequent updates through phone calls will help keep friends updated about the more frequent occurrences in each other’s lives.

Since all friends will most like have overlapping breaks during the school year, they can arrange to meet up when they return home. If friends are not too separated by distance, they can arrange even more frequent meet-ups to catch up and even meet each other’s new friends from college. Juliana Neemeh (12) shares that she plans to “meet with [her] friends over school breaks to prevent [her] friendships from weakening after high school.”

Although most friends try their best to stay connected after graduating, sometimes it is not possible to maintain the same bond that existed throughout high school. While in college, many people become busier, leaving less time to talk with friends. Moreover, students will meet so many new people in college and build many new friendships, which can cause high school friends to grow even further apart. It is completely normal to drift from your friends after high school; if you wish to preserve your relationships, make time to communicate and stay connected with your friends.