Do Long-Distance Relationships Work?
Most people believe that attempting a long-distance relationship is crazy—delusional, even. And they have a point. Relationships are hard enough without dealing with expensive plane tickets, time differences, and non-ironic “text hugs.” And yet, so many of us end up doing the long-distance thing, for the simple reason that, well, love is not always rational. When you are in love, the feeling is so rare and urgent that amputating it due to inconvenient circumstances seems totally insane—even more insane than, say, dating someone who lives 3,000 miles from you.
I met my boyfriend, “Lindsey,” about five months ago, while he was spending a couple of weeks in New York for work. What I assumed would be a fleeting hookup turned into 12 nights locked in a hotel suite—think Room, but with consent, and room service. When we finally said goodbye, in a West Village pizza place, I was hyperventilating like a junkie entering withdrawal. Four days later, I was on a plane to Los Angeles to get my fix. This is all to say that when Lindsey and I decided to try to make things work long-distance, the choice certainly did not feel measured or logical. It felt like holding on for dear life.
So far, we’ve managed to never spend more than eight days apart, which in one respect feels impressive, and in another, psychotic, given the physical and financial toll of flying across the country for 36 hours of hand jobs and crying. And while I don’t regret our decision to be long-distance, I often wonder: Can we defy all odds and make it work?
Relationships—particularly, new relationships—have the ability to make us feel and act epically embarrassing nearly 24/7. But the intense longing (read: desperation) that comes with being long-distance can spawn some particularly undignified behaviors—and I’ve learned that if you want to survive, you just have to embrace this part of yourself. For instance, I’ve accepted that I’m now a person who sleeps clutching my boyfriend’s dirty gym shirt, which, until recently, I thought was exclusively done by murderous women in sexist erotic thrillers. Similarly: I consciously do not wash pillowcases with his drool on them. In the past, my “sex prep” routine involved a professional wax and a bath with lavender oil. Now, I just rub a wet paper towel over my vagina inside a bathroom stall at the LAX airport.
Over these past months, I’ve often sought relationship advice from my friend Lizzi, who recently married her partner “Ann” after dating long-distance for two full years. They met in London, and after six months, Ann had to relocate to New York for work, while Lizzi had two years left at university in the U.K. And so, they begrudgingly put an ocean between them, seeing each other only during summer breaks, holidays, and the occasional long weekend.
“Honestly, when people say they ‘don’t do long-distance,’ I think it’s kind of dumb,” Lizzi told me, smugly sipping wine in Chinatown. “If you give a shit about the person, you’ll always try. It sounds über-romantic, but with us, there just didn’t seem like another option but to make it work.”
I asked Lizzi if she had any advice for an LDR newbie. “The key is to always have something on the books,” she said, “like, ‘We’ll see each other at Easter,’ or, ‘We’re going on vacation,’ or, ‘We’ll be together at Christmas’—otherwise, you’re just wandering into the abyss.” Still, there were times when the distance was daunting. “Occasionally, Ann and I would go eight weeks apart, and that was fucking terrible and would almost completely ruin us, especially because we were operating on completely different schedules, with a time difference. Not having any physical contact for two months is fucking nuts. But we had a lot of fun during that time, too,” she continued. “In a way, our relationship felt exceptional—living between two amazing cities, meeting each other for holidays in Peru. And there’s something romantic about the fact that you’re both doing what you need to be doing at that point in your lives, be it work or school.”
I can relate to that. Currently, my relationship is forcing me to be bicoastal, and while that creates obvious inconveniences, let’s be real—there’s a reason rich people don’t spend winter in New York. And there are other benefits to the LDR dynamic, too. While being apart from someone you desperately want to fuck is literal torture, part of me thinks that being forced to miss someone—instead of, say, half-consciously Netflix-ing with a hangover all weekend—might not actually be such a bad thing.
Lizzi agreed. “Ann and I were very intense from the start—we ‘U-Haul-ed’ within a few months of meeting,” she said, referring to the traditional lesbian mating ritual, where couples move in together basically as soon as they meet. “So, by going long-distance, we were given all of these artificial buffers by life, and that protracted the initial period of excitement and instability. Basically, we weren’t able to just immediately hunker down, and I actually think that may have been good for us in the long run.”
Lizzi paused, becoming suddenly serious. “But I’m not saying that I think long-distance can work indefinitely. If neither of you are going to relocate at any point, then god knows what the fuck you’re doing. But if it’s just a matter of time, then that’s different—even, maybe, romantic.”
As square as it sounds, I’ve learned that in an LDR, it can be valuable to set some very basic daily guidelines, for instance: Text first thing every morning, and FaceTime every night, even if it’s just for five minutes. I’ve found that having these marker points of emotional contact to look forward to every day really help, because it prevents your partner from feeling theoretical, like that “boyfriend from another school” you had back in eighth grade.
But there are certain LDR issues that all the “I miss you” texts in the world can’t solve. For example, when you’re long-distance, there’s a lot of pressure to make the time you do spend together extra “meaningful” and the Best Time Ever. It’s sort of like your relationship is New Year’s Eve, on repeat, forever. Also, long-distance relationships are inherently full of punctuation marks—saying goodbye, feeling disconnected, reuniting again—which can result in a weird emotional ebb and flow. Like, you don’t just pick up right where you left off. When you’re finally together after days, sometimes weeks, of pining for each other, all the nerves and unrealistic expectations you’ve built up in your Disney fantasy brain end up turning you into a nervous, awkward wreck—think Greta Gerwig . . . having a panic attack.
And it’s not just re-entry that’s difficult—separating sucks even more. When you’re about to say goodbye, one must beware of the dreaded LDR proxy fights: Rather than just admitting your separation anxiety, you find yourself spending all evening furiously disputing whether Transparent is anti-Semitic (despite one of you having literally never seen the show). Over time, you learn to factor all of this into your itinerary. Like, “Okay, so you’re coming for 2.5 days, minus the first three hours of being super awkward around each other, and the three hours of proxy fighting before you leave, plus three hours of crying and making up, which leaves us with more like 1.8 days in which to make actual plans.”
Essentially, being long-distance creates issues and challenges that you might not face in a “normal” relationship, but if you can handle them, I think it can expedite emotional growth. So often, we end up in relationships of convenience—you fuck that weird stoner guy because he lives in your neighborhood, or you keep accidentally-on-purpose sleeping with your ex because you’re lonely and there’s no better option. But if you’re willing to put up with the nightmare of long-distance, that must mean you really fucking like each other. So, paradoxically, being long-distance can create a feeling of security, because it’s clear that you’re both all in.
It’s basic psychology that when we sacrifice for something, we appreciate it more—you know, like a sorority hazing ritual (I assume?). And being in an LDR requires a lot of sacrifice—of time, money, vibrator-less orgasms, cuddle capacity, et cetera. In a way, that sort of commitment feels old-fashioned: You stick it out for love, even when it’s hard. But honestly, after having swiped myself into oblivion on dating apps, I’m finding it sort of refreshing to have to work hard for something, and someone, I care about.
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