“Keep in touch” is a phrase we hear often and may even have said it ourselves. But do we really intend to maintain contact or just saying it as a polite expression?
You see, executing these three little words can be harder than they sound. Why so? Too often we don’t even keep in touch with our inner self let alone with others. Speaking from experience, of course.
Life can get in the way with family, work, and everything else that comes with it. The distractions are relentless. However, is it not possible to spare, or rather, invest five minutes daily in self-reflection?
If the answer is no, are we simply being disingenuous when we are really the obstacle in our relationship?
What method do you find it best to keep in touch?
Running with Buddha 
Personally, I think people should probably just have their priorities straight and know what they want as well as have. A lot of people seem to say that without much thought into what kind of person they do or don’t need in their life, or whether or not that person is worth the time that would be taken away from other activities.
For me, I usually have a certain threshold for how many friends I have, the rest are acquaintances or just people I go to get specific things from them without truly forming an emotional connection. I think I have a fairly well defined idea of what a friend truly is in my eyes, what boundaries I’m looking to set, and what I need/value in a friend. I tend to plan a lot of stuff out when it comes to social stuff now that I think about it. Down to analyzing people I encounter and determining whether or not seemingly innocuous behaviors are indicative of potential problems in the future.
Part of the reason I do this is that I’d prefer a couple of friends I truly understand, respect, or just have an overall GREAT and healthy relationship with over a bunch of “friends” who I don’t truly know as people on a substantial level and vice versa.
Some people don’t seem interested in that kind of discussion or digging into who someone is and prefer to simply mess around or have some fun and maybe have some small talk, to which I say, to each their own. For me though…I tend to approach things differently.
Getting back to how that connects to what you said though, if you do something like what I described, it’d be easier to manage and keep in touch with others, since you’re only befriending the cream of the crop who meet your criteria and could serve as beneficial to you in a number of ways. So when you say “keep in touch” in terms of my method, you’re using it sparingly enough for you to mean it on a thorough level, and you’re not using it regularly. I certainly don’t use it regularly, if at all. I just tell someone I’m interested in potential for further conversation or discussion, and don’t really commit or set expectations particularly high or low.
There is the life getting in the way thing, though. If you do what I do, you’d probably have your priorities straight and know when to contact who and when not to. Sometimes that may naturally be longer than other times, I’ve come to accept that as a part of life, since sometimes things happen. However, if you’re able to show much you truly value someone through meaningful, and perhaps thought-provoking, conversation regarding life and how they’re doing, listening, and making an active effort to understand them, you can probably maintain that relationship. However, it seems that a lot of people don’t care to put in that effort, or simply don’t know how to due to people not really trying to figure it out to that extent.
I guess what it could ultimately come down to is taking relationships with others seriously rather than just seeing it as something for fun and messing around and that alone. Which is up to you, I guess.
I’d like to commend you for even thinking about this though, as that’s much more than most people nowadays seem to do.
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I agree Lore that quality of friends is more important than quantity, unless one is running for a popularity contest or political office. And keep in touch with friends takes effort. So it makes sense to focus on those real connectioins. Thanks for sharing.
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