be a better friend and email/phone/see friends on regular basis

I’ve got into quite good habits about this in the last couple of months. I started off by doing a 30-day trial (inspired by Steve Pavlina – his website is great)so I was contacting a friend every day for a month. And I’ve kept doing it pretty much every day cos it makes me feel more connected.

Unfortunately, none of my closest friends are in the same city as me so I’m still feeling a bit isolated. I’ve got one old friend in London, though, and I owe her a call so I’ll make a note to do that.

I’m taking a much less structured approach to this at the moment but I’m feeling fine about it. Emails are going back and forth regularly and from mid-July I’ll be back in the same country as most of my friends so hopefully I’ll be spending more time talking to people and meeting up than I have been over the last few years.

My best friend is still going to be in the States, though, and we’re still being crap about getting to talk on the phone. For a while we weren’t being specific enough about the day or the time so we kept calling each other when the other was out. A couple of weekends ago we arranged a specific day and time but my friend didn’t confirm immediately so when she phoned I was out, thinking she’d forgotten! Jeez! We’ll just have to try again.

On the good side, I did send a card and present off to another friend in the UK who has a birthday next week, so I’m feeling good about myself for being organized enough to do that.

Well, the seven emails a month thing hasn’t really been happening. The last couple of months I think I wrote about three emails a month. BUT over the last couple of days I’ve emailed seven of my old friends and have already received two replies. Yay! And from the people I least expected to hear from too. And one of them is about to get married. Jeez. This is what happens when you don’t stay in good contact with people. If I hadn’t emailed this girl, she probably wouldn’t have emailed me and then I would never have known about it.

The main reason I’ve been so virtuous about emailing recently is that I’ll shortly be returning to London for a couple of weeks and I wanted to let everyone know I was going to be there just in case they would be available for a catch-up. OK, granted, three of my best friends are no longer living in the UK and all the rest except one are no longer living in London but last time I was there I managed to meet up with three people so I’m hopeful about this time round.

My best friend’s birthday is coming up and I emailed her to try and get her to tell me what she wants for her birthday. I haven’t seen her for almost a year and I have no idea what she has/hasn’t read/watched/listened to or even if her taste is still the same. Considering we call ourselves best friends (have been from the age of eight) that’s decidedly crap. Haven’t managed to talk to her on the phone since my last entry either. Must. Try. Harder.

I’ve been emailing people but not as often as I intended to. I know that not having enough time is not an excuse, so I have to say that sometimes emailing is not number one on my list of priorities. I emailed five people this month instead of the intended seven, which is still okay, as far as I’m concerned. When you always have a lot of things that you want to do, as I do, then you just have to accept that you can’t always do them all. So far I haven’t received any replies to the emails I sent which only proves that my friends are at least as bad at this as I am!

One good thing is that I spoke to my best friend on the phone a couple of weeks ago (we live on different continents) which was really nice. It was very much a ‘catching-up’ conversation because we hadn’t spoken properly in a good few months, but we’ve decided to chat every month so hopefully it will get to the point where we can have more ‘best friend’-type conversations: talk about what we’re wearing and what we had for breakfast that morning, as well as the big important stuff.

I’ve been quite good about remembering people’s birthdays and sending them cards and presents. Recently I sent a friend a hand-made card and a book and I’m waiting on another friend to remind me just exactly when her birthday is. I know it’s coming up!

I’ve been much better at this in the last couple of months. I’ve been emailing people regularly – and getting emails back, what fun! I used to wonder why I wasn’t hearing from people all that much and then I realised you have to write to people if you want them to write back! So I’ve been in pretty regular contact with five of my best friends and my best friend even phoned me from the states on my birthday! We’ve been trying to organise another chat before I fly off to Nepal for a few months but it’s proving difficult: different time zones, different weekends (here in Israel the weekend is Friday and Saturday). When I was in London in August I got to see three of my best friends despite the fact that two of them don’t even live in London. It was absolutely wonderful to see them again and catch up. I’ve also put together a birthday card and present for a friend who has a birthday in a couple of days. I feel so much better about this. It’s really worth the effort. Hope I can keep it up!

I just don’t feel like I see them or speak to them often enough to feel like they’re a real part of my life at the moment. So this is what I’m going to do:

• Email someone every day during the Mother phase of my cycle (7 emails a month)

• Speak to my best friend on the phone once a month.

• Try and see as many people as possible when I’m in London.

• Encourage people to come and visit me here in Israel.

• Find out and make a note of people’s birthdays and then send them hand-made cards or, at the very least, e-cards.

• Send Christmas cards to everyone, prferably hand-made.