I used to think I was the only one. Then I started hearing about people dating other people who lived anywhere from Europe to Australia to California. Maybe I wasn't the only one who had experienced the misery and happiness associated with a LDR.
Now, if you know me, you know I am no longer in an LDR so if this post sounds a bit angsty or independent womanish...well, that's because it is.
Top Reasons why LDRs are both great and a pain in the ass:
1) Most couples who see each other on a routine basis end up getting easily annoyed with one another and, as a result, find stupid and insignificant things to argue over. LDRers (yeah, I'm not sure how to name these couples so we'll just call them that) don't really give two effs if you constantly change the channel or didn't put the toilet seat down. They're too busy gazing into each other's eyes and making up for the sappiness they didn't have a for a month...or 6.
2) Everytime you say goodbye, it will suck. It will suck more than the time before. Never goes away.
3) When LDRers are together, they are together. Every minute is about that other person whom they love yet never see and everything else comes second at best. This is really beautiful when you think about it and is a level that many couples should aspire to sometimes but it's also not always realistic (sorry for raining on the parade.) Sometimes, you don't have entire weekends or weeks to spare being curled up in bed, naked, eating Chinese when you have a paper due or a job to go to or um a life.
4) Yes, you will get your period the one weekend your boyfriend comes to visit and be deprived of the sex you've been missing for months. Yes, karma is a bitch and Aunt Flo is her sister.
5) It's not always easy to squeeze a relationship into one weekend. Most couples have the pleasure of balancing going out, arguing, having sex, having great conversations. being together while doing other things such as hw, etc. LDRers...not so much.
6) Everytime you reunite with the person after a long absence, regardless of whether you just argued via text ten minutes before or have a cramp in your neck from sleeping on a crowded bus for 4 hours, it is pure magic. It's butterflies and roses and all of that girly stuff that I never really care about. It is an unmatched feeling that makes the lonely and sleepless nights, long phone calls and 5 hour Skype sessions suddenly feel worth it.
So...my advice? Well, a few things. One, an LDR should be the default, not the standard. This means, don't start a relationship long distance. The only way LDRs have a chance of surviving is if two people have established a bond while being together...geographically. Trying to generate a relationship out of thin air when he's in London and you're in Kansas is just plain dumb. But, if at some point life takes you and your beau in separate directions, then, yes, try an LDR. Another word of advice...stop playing up the fate card so much. "He's 3,000 miles away but I know we're meant to be together!" Then it doesn't work out and you pull the "We weren't meant to be together." Ugh, effing fate, man. Life is going to do what life wants to do and chances are when you're 25 or 35 or 45 or 55, someone else will come along and that will be "meant to be" and you'll be perfectly fine. Sometimes I wonder why people my age are super obsessed with finding "the one" when I'm like, um have you even found yourself yet? But, that is a different post entirely. And, my last piece of advice is to only take the beating of an LDR if in some place in that brain of yours, whether you admit it or not, you think you could be with the person forever. It sounds silly at first but relationships are time consuming and money consuming and heart consuming and everything consuming. Yes, money is valuable and you will definitely spend a lot of it just traveling if you're in an LDR. (When I think of all of the money I spent on those MegaBus trips...ok, let me not digress.) But, time is even more valuable and if you spend it in between bouts of misery when the person is gone and happiness when the person is there, it damn sure better be worth it. It better mean that all of those lonely nights will be compensated by a million nights together at some point in life. If there's even a doubt in your mind about that...it's not worth it.
And, really, isn't that advice to ANYONE in a relationship? Your time is just that...YOUR time. Don't let anyone waste it.
Love freely,
tY
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