Healthy Denial as a Means to Maintain Friend Group Stability During Moves

Moving is one of life’s great stressors, right up there with losing your phone in an Uber or finding out your favorite coffee shop now exclusively sells “wellness tonics.” But while much ink has been spilled on how individuals should handle moves, little attention has been given to a more pressing issue: how a friend group should maintain stability when one of its members threatens the delicate social ecosystem by relocating. One underappreciated tactic is denial.

Moving to a new place can be one of the most stressful experiences in life. Beyond packing boxes and finding a new home, the emotional toll of leaving behind familiar faces and routines often goes unnoticed. One of the most critical factors that can ease this transition is the stability of your friend group. Maintaining strong friendships during a move provides emotional support, a sense of belonging, and continuity in life.

But when you relocate, you lose the easy access to friends you once had. The casual hangouts, spontaneous meetups, and shared experiences suddenly become distant memories. This loss can lead to feelings of loneliness and isolation, which can affect mental health and overall well-being. But don’t panic. With a few proactive measures (and a mild suspension of reality) your friend group can emerge intact by pretending the move isn’t really happening. Here's how.

Establish Emotional Continuity Protocols

The moment a member announces they’re moving, the group should immediately agree on language that implies nothing fundamental will change. Phrases like “it’s just a longer commute” or “we'll move board game night to Zoom” can help smooth the transition. The goal is to maintain the illusion that geography is a technicality, not a factor that could eliminate all social interaction.

Freeze the Timeline

Pick a date or event before the move and emotionally agree to live there forever. Continue referencing events as if they’re upcoming (“We should totally do that rooftop bar again soon”) even after the rooftop has been demolished and replaced with a Walgreens.

Avoid All Meaningful Goodbyes

Sincere farewells are the first step toward acceptance, and acceptance leads to change. Instead, aim for a cheerful, chaotic goodbye: a halfhearted group hug, a joke about “visiting all the time,” and saying you should get a group photo even if you don't. If done correctly, the entire event should feel less like a goodbye and more like a slightly rushed coffee catch-up.

Create a “Proximity Fiction”

If casual acquaintances ask about your friend, respond with vague, present-tense phrasing like “Yeah, they’re good.” This linguistic ambiguity allows everyone to sustain the comforting illusion that the friend is around. If pressed for details, say something noncommittal like, “They’ve been working remotely a lot lately.”

Continue Planning Events

The bedrock of friendship is mutual FOMO. Keep inviting the mover to everything: dinners, movie nights, arbitrary Tuesday hangouts. They’ll decline almost all of the time, but each “I wish I could!” in the group chat reaffirms your collective identity. Plus, it’s a great way to keep them emotionally tethered while absolving you of guilt.

Keep Reunions as a Topic of Conversation

Nothing maintains friend group stability like the permanent promise of a reunion trip. Pick a city that’s geographically inconvenient for everyone and remain non-committal on the date. The key isn’t to go. It’s to talk about going, indefinitely. The reunion is the Schrödinger’s cat of friendship: always alive because it never actually takes place.

Moving may separate friends physically, but through denial, ritual, and selective memory, your group can maintain the illusion of perfect continuity. After all, stability isn’t about proximity, it’s about pretending proximity still exists.

So when your friend finally settles into their new apartment three states away, don’t mourn the distance. Just text the group, “Same time next week?” and carry on. Nothing’s changed. Everything’s fine. You’re all still here.