After two decades of living, I’ve been in one real relationship. Crushes, yeah, we’ve all had those. But tangible relationships? Girls I’ve brought home to meet mom? Just one, and even then it was long distance. I’ll provide the history, because everyone asks for it when I tell them about being in a long distance relationship. I get the same questions, “Oh, how’d that work?” and “How was it real if you never saw each other?”.
It’s a common misconception that relationships can’t be real if you never see the other person, but I did actually see her.
We met, unofficially, via Tumblr (of all places) in December of 2010. I lived in Virginia, and she lived in Connecticut. We had gone back and forth kind of flirting over messages, and that transitioned into us kind of being a thing. In February of 2011 we made things official.
Starting out, our relationship consisted of 24/7 texting. We didn’t start calling each other until, from what I remember, March. By April’s start, I was boarding a train to go meet her in New York City. I spent my first night in a shady little hotel on 7th Avenue and the next day I walked to Grand Central. I waited for about an hour before I got a text from her telling me she was pulling in.
I’ll spare you the gooey details, but it was a very “romantic-comedy” meeting. She ran to me, I ran to her, we kissed under the constellation-studded ceiling of Grand Central and spent the day walking around the City. That was and forever will be my first memory of New York, and because I will never forget that day I will also never be able to forget her.
Our relationship lasted ten months. February of 2011 to December of 2011, though things began to fall apart about a month before I decided to call it quits.
Look, don’t ever let anyone tell you that long distance relationships can’t work. They can, but they require an extraordinary amount of work and – after time – it can take its toll. My long distance relationship was particularly expensive. Train trips from Virginia to Connecticut frequently hit $300+ round trip, and there were occasions when I paid for her to come visit me. As a high school senior/college freshman working some odd 35 hours a week making $8 an hour, these expenses added up. It was worth it, though.
Don’t let the long distance horror stories scare you. Shows like Catfish are entertainment, and while it’s possible that the girl or guy you’re seeing online is actually someone completely different, the odds are relatively low. My advice? Take time to get to know the person before you pursue a relationship. By the time I got into a relationship with her, I had talked to her and her friends from school.
The basis of any relationship is trust, and that goes double for long distance. You have to trust that your partner isn’t going to go behind your back and betray you, and they have to trust you to do the same. Long distance relationships work like most other relationships, and can be very similar to “no distance” ones. She and I frequently had Skype dates after we met, which usually consisted of watching Saturday Night Live together.
The biggest piece of advice I can offer is this: Every relationship is different. Look up how-to articles for long distance relationships all you want, but the simple fact is that what works for some people might not work for you. When it’s real, and when you really feel something for another person, no matter how bad you are with dating…things tend to flow. I’m terrible at dating, but when I was with her I felt very comfortable. Things were second nature to me.
That said, there are things that would help any couple flourish. Communication is one of the biggest factors in making relationships work. Talk to each other, but don’t smother each other. After ten months of all-night Skype sessions and phone talks, I began to feel exhausted. We started to run out of things to talk about, and it is for that reason I advocate that – unless you’re living together – you don’t talk every day.
If it’s long distance and you go to visit them, don’t overstay your welcome. I was fortunate enough to have a girlfriend whose mother allowed me to stay in her home during our first visit. That changed in our eighth month of dating, though, when her mother became hostile towards me staying there, and even though she knew that her daughter and I wanted to spend our first Christmas together, she said that I wasn’t allowed to visit for the holidays.
Her mother’s eventual resentment of me put a further strain on our relationship, and everything came crashing down about a year after we had initially met online. She took her anger over something separate out on me, and I broke up with her. It didn’t go over well, and I haven’t spoken to her since January of 2012.
You want some base rules for long distance relationships though. You want the do’s and don’ts. Well, here you go:
DO:
- Make sure you know what you’re getting into- long distance isn’t for everyone, it’s as simple as that.
- Trust your partner
- Be honest with your partner- if you have concerns, voice them.
- Set time aside for dates, even if they’re on Skype
- Plan ahead for visiting times- I often purchased my tickets upstate months in advance.
DON’T:
- Smother your partner- communication is key, but constant 24/7 texting can put a strain on your relationship.
- Get jealous if he or she wants to go out with friends for a night- I didn’t really have friends during the span of our relationship. I worked, I went to school, I talked to her. She had friends, and I was more than welcoming of her going out and having fun for a night – but the minute I made friends and got home late one night, I got the quiet end of the stick.
- Pretend that you’re more important than them, or vice versa– if he or she says anything like “You’re not allowed to have friends”, it’s best to move on.
- Carry on like you two were destined to be together- Her and I did. We made plans to go to the same college together and get married and, at the ages of 17/18, we were firm on the fact that we were meant to be. In reality, she was always going end up in Boston, and I was always going to remain here in Virginia.
- Continue the relationship if your partner is unfaithful- not two weeks into our relationship, she called me (our first actual phone call) crying one night saying that she had kissed another guy. Us being a long distance item, I foolishly let it go, thanking her for being honest but asking her to never do it again. Looking back, I would have saved myself a lot of heartache and money if I had ended it then and there.
Most of all, if it doesn’t work out, don’t beat yourself up too much for too long. There’s no perfect way to get over a breakup, but there are things that might aide in your getting over the other person. Allow yourself to be sad, allow yourself to wallow in self-pity. Give yourself a week, two weeks at most, and then realize that maybe it was for the best. Maybe you two were always headed separate ways, and no matter how hard you tried, it was just never going to pan out the way you wanted. Don’t be surprised if, almost a year and a half later, you still wonder if you did the right thing. Second guessing your choices is human, as anyone that’s ever taken a multiple choice final exam would tell you.