[sdegutis]

The community argument isn't actually compelling. It creates "ghost-like" relationships, where you don't really know someone anymore and haven't for years, but act like you're still best friends, with occasional empty comments or likes. It's like eating cotton candy for dinner and acting like you have the energy a good steak would have given you. Many of them don't have email though, and phone chats are often difficult to coordinate. I think occasional visits is probably the best way to keep in touch with people you don't live near and thus see regularly. And if neither of you can manage to schedule that, then maybe there's no real connection there after all.

[skinnymuch]

How can you do occasional visits if you don’t live nearby? A lot of people I know live across the country or in the middle of America or outside the US. Even seeing all of them occasionally would be very difficult. Unless you mean every few years? But that’s barely anything.

[sdegutis]

It seems to me life is meant to be lived most with the people you live near. No matter how much technology improves the ability to communicate long distances, it's never the same as being with those people. So maybe it does mean visiting only every few years, and maybe even less often. It's hard when those people are family though, because then you have a permanent connection with them. But sometimes friends drift apart (physically) and you make new ones (locally) instead, and that's okay.