My whole adolescence I wanted a boyfriend. I was both brainwashed by the media and boy crazy, searching for my “Prince” (gag me). Finally, during the second semester of my senior year of high school, I got what I wanted. He was cute and sweet, (or so he seemed). A perfect first boyfriend that you can make all your mistakes on and be glad that it taught you so much (and glad that it was over).
My ex was a year younger than me, and while we liked each other oh so very much, we thought the idea of long distance was silly. The summer before I left Milwaukee for St. Paul, he and I would talk about how ridiculous it was of our coupled friends to think long distance was possible. We laughed at their naivety. Neither of us explicitly said that we did not want to be long distance, but that those relationships were pointless.
Fast forward to the day I left. Tears fell, even though I would be back in three short weeks to go see our favorite band live and spend the night together in a hotel. Sounds like a long distance relationship to me. Again, the terms of our relationship weren’t explicitly discussed, but we continued to make plans to see each other once a month.
That year ended up being my first time experiencing long distance. Mind you, this was 2014, and while many people had long ago converted to iPhones and social media, my ex and I still had our flip phones from middle school (mine was pink and square and had flowers on it). We weren’t FaceTiming every day or Snapchatting.
Despite not being able to see each other digitally as much as I could now, our relationship grew and we fell in love. While some warning signs of toxicity in the relationship foreshadowed the future, we were very happy. Still, I was ready for the long distance to be over.
Since he was a senior while I was a first year, the question of where he would be going the following year gave me a lot of anxiety. I didn’t want to lose him and he really wanted to do a gap year in Germany. I wasn’t very supportive in this goal of his (bad Phoebe), and when he didn’t get accepted into the program I tried to persuade him even more to come to Minnesota. While of course this decision was his, I did not help with my bias. He decided to go to the University of St. Thomas (should’ve known then), and I was so excited. We’d never have to say goodbye again! How wrong I was…
My ex ended up sort of resenting me for this and broke up with me in the first two weeks of the semester. I was heartbroken and spent the year experiencing a melancholy I had never known. We unhealthily went on and off that entire year, before finally called it quits in April 2016.
That summer I went home, I was afraid for what was to come. I was going to have to work with my ex at the country club we had been so happy to work at the summer before. But, I had someone in mind back home that I hoped I’d be able to have some “summer fun” with…which lead me to my second and current long distance relationship .
Kurt was someone I had had deep feelings for before I got together with my ex. He stayed in my hometown and went to UW Milwaukee, and coincidentally, had just separated with his girlfriend of two years. We have been best friends since high school, but had never been in the same mindset to get together and ended up dating other people.
Within a week into the summer we had kissed and talked about what we wanted. We FOR SURE didn’t want to be in a relationship OF COURSE, seeing as we both had just gotten out of one. I was also going to be studying abroad in England the following semester and wouldn’t that have been silly.
It may have been silly, but we did it anyway. The summer went on and we thoroughly enjoyed spending time together. I went to England and missed him incredibly. I was calling him my boyfriend by the time I got back (it had taken a while to get to that label because, surprise! He and my ex were friends and he was afraid to tell him).
We have been long distance for a year now. I go back for winter break and summer, and he visits me whenever he can. This relationship is highly different from my last because we FaceTime sometimes multiple times a day and show each other what we’re doing on Snapchat. This makes it easier to feel close, but it is still quite torturous being far away.
I definitely didn’t plan on doing long distance not once, but twice, and certainly not one right after the other. But for me, I don’t want to be with anyone else. We are in a very healthy and loving relationship and I expect it will last a long time. I see this time apart as a chance to get to know myself, to be alone during the once in a lifetime experience that is college, and to take back the year I spent being with someone who was wrong for me.
I’m a senior now, and I don’t know where I’ll be next year. I hope it will be somewhere near Kurt, but if not, we will work something out. He’s worth the wait.