From the outside, Cher* is an ordinary Berkeley junior. A Political Science and Economics major, she spends most of her week going to class or studying. On the weekends, she occasionally goes out with her roommate and binge watches Netflix over take-out. Like many other college students, she is in a long-distance relationship and Facetimes her boyfriend Sebastian* a couple of nights a week. They talk for hours about his homework for his computer science classes, the latest episode of “Too Hot to Handle” that Cher made him watch, and Sebastian’s many pet cats. Before they realize it, it’s 3 a.m. and Cher needs to go to sleep. Sebastian, though, is still wide awake because it’s only 7 p.m. in his time zone. Unlike most long-distance couples in college, Cher and Sebastian live in two entirely different countries almost 7000 miles away from each other.
Although they have known each other since 8th grade, they only first started talking during their senior year of high school when a mutual friend introduced them. Cher, Sebastian, and their mutual friend had plans to see “Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse” together. At this point, Cher already knew she had feelings for Sebastian. She confided this to their friend before Sebastian arrived, only to have him bring along the new girl he was seeing unannounced. Cher remembers the two of them leaving the theater halfway through the movie, covered in hickeys. Seeing this, she accepted that Sebastian wasn’t interested.
Unknown to her, their friend told Sebastian how Cher felt soon after. The secret came out when Sebastian started insistently asking Cher over Snapchat who she had a crush on. She gave him a few names of random classmates, but after he kept insisting, she finally admitted her feelings for him. Cher didn’t know what he would say, but braced herself for the rejection. Sebastian’s response read “haha I knew it lol” and Cher became scared that she was the butt of a joke she wasn’t aware of. In the message that followed, Sebastian explained that he liked her too and that he’d broken up with the other girl. To this day, Cher still jokes about how Sebastian responded to her confession in the worst way possible.
Cher and Sebastian dated for six months before they moved away from each other. Since then, they have been in a long-distance relationship for two years and two months. They considered breaking up before college, but ultimately couldn’t bear the thought since Sebastian intended to only be away for a year.
The first few months were the worst for both of them. Cher started school in August, which meant orientation, a week of constant activities intended to help new students socialize and meet each other. Meanwhile, Sebastian had just moved to a country completely foreign to him where he knew no one around his age. He started to fight with his family and withdrew into video games. He began to experience panic attacks and fell into a depressive episode. His nightly calls with Cher became his lifeline. Sometimes Cher would want to go out with her friends, but Sebastian would get upset.
Soon it was September, and Cher had barely stepped out of her dorm room. Often when they talked, Sebastian would get mad at Cher for not calling him more. Cher would get angry back, hang up, and cry herself to sleep. Sebastian told Cher that he wasn’t going to be able to come back to California as soon as he originally thought. Feeling hopeless, Cher considered breaking up with him. She had spent so much time worrying about Sebastian that she hadn’t had the chance to make friends. She barely talked to the people on her floor, unusual for someone living in social Unit 3, and her mental health took a turn for the worse.
It was only when Sebastian came to visit Cher in October that their relationship started to mend. They were able to talk to each other about how they felt and remembered why they wanted to stay together in the first place. When Sebastian left Berkeley, they started planning the next time they would see each other again almost immediately. They realized that their long-distance relationship was much more bearable when they had something to look forward to. It was no longer a virtual relationship stretching on with no end in sight. Every time they said goodbye, they knew when they were going to see each other again.
When I was interviewing her, I asked Cher if she regretted not breaking up with Sebastian the summer before college. She said she didn’t, but thought that if she had known how hard a long-distance was going to be she probably wouldn’t have made the decision to stay together. Now they video call twice a week. Cher is able to go out when she wants to, and Sebastian has made friends of his own. The last time they saw each other was July, in Cher’s hometown. The next time they will meet is in November when Sebastian comes to Berkeley during his school break to visit. All they need to do now is wait.
People wait to see their significant others until the next date all the time. Even most married couples need to wait until the end of the day, after work, to see each other. Cher and Sebastian, although separated by multiple continents, oceans, and a 22-hour plane flight, are maybe not that different from the rest of us.
*Fake names were chosen by Cher to protect her personal privacy and her partner’s privacy.