Can We Have Relationships Remotely?
Yes, but it requires more intentionality
When I was in elementary school we all took part in a program called pen pals. I might be dating myself here, but if you don’t know, this is when you write to a randomly selected person and they write back. It was pre mainstream internet, so it was written by hand and mailed. These people could have been from other schools or, in some cases, people in corrective institutions. Everyone looked forward to reading a letter from their pen pal! It was a highlight of school in the 90’s. There were surprisingly deep relationships formed with these people, even though there was little chance that you’d ever meet.
Jumping thirty-ish years into the future we have tons of long distance relationships – to varying degrees. The idea of a remote relationship has not really been a mandatory thing though, well not until the pandemic. Prior to that we were conversing with people in different cities and countries, but always as an interim, until the next in person meeting. Now we have relationships with co-workers, friends, and even family – remotely.
Personally, I have not seen my parents in person for four and a half years. I have also not seen some of my good friends in person for even longer. This has been challenging. We want to be in the presence of people, it’s who we are as creatures. But since not being able to be in their presence I have slowly become a better communicator with most of these people. Maybe you have too.
When seeing someone in person was on the table, it was easy to save conversations or thoughts until you were in the presence of them. If you wanted to discuss something emotional or exciting you’d wait for the next time you met. You’d make an experience out of it – coffee, drinks, dinner, a vacation. Now you just text, call, or video chat with them as soon as the feeling hits. There is both more and less friction to fostering our relationships because the societal norms have shifted. But this is not new for everyone, there is a group of people that popped up since the rise of knowledge work and they know this very well.
Remote workers have walked this tight rope for a while now. These are the OG remote workers, the digital nomads, the globe trotters. They are not people that work in the same city as their employer, they are in different states and countries. Due to them being distributed from their teams, they have learned how to foster deep working relationships. They do this through intentional touch bases. They know that they don’t have the luxury of in person serendipity. They aren’t going to pass a coworker in the hallway and ask about their weekend, they need to call or ping them on Slack, intentionally. They need to have one-on-ones with their managers and subordinates to understand how they feel, rather than see it in person. They know that remote relationships require intention, but can be deeply rewarding.
We as a demographic of virtual professionals, really communicate in a way that is much more transparent and much more vulnerable and much more concise than we used to do in the office. And that really carries over into our relationships. So we tend to be much more proactive, much more clear, much more empathetic in our personal relationships, and because of that, marriages can be stronger because we're easily communicating our needs and considering our partners with more empathy, we are more attentive and physically present for our kids. We understand how to connect with people without being in the same room. And so it's more common for virtual professionals to be more emotionally available and connected to their friends and loved ones, regardless of proximity, because they understand how to nurture relationships without proximity to each other.
Laurel Farrer - The Gray Area of Remote Work
Imagine a world post-pandemic, where people have the choice to be in the presence of our friends and loved ones. We can wait to interact with people in person, but we also have been trained to not have to. We have been trained to be more intentional about communicating with people. We can keep deeper remote relationships whilst being able to feel a human connection in person when more is needed. We can use video calls as a normal way to keep visual relationships without it being strange. We can even tell our friends that we just want to talk on the phone or just text today because you were in meetings all day and they might not get offended. In a world where travel is a health risk and getting expensive, where the world is getting ever more dangerous due to its volatility, we can leverage remote relationships as a sustainable way to preserve and even deepen relationships. Just think of it as modern day pen pals.
Shoutout to Samuel Stevenson for thinking so deeply about remote relationships and how we are somatically adapting to virtually conversing. See his comment on the thread.