There is a common narrative in popular culture that being in a relationship means losing out on other parts of your life.
In Friends, Rachel never starts her dream job in Paris because she runs back to New York for Ross. In How to Be Single, the lead character Alice doesn’t climb the Grand Canyon because she has a boyfriend.
Love is found at the expense of success and adventure. You cannot, it seems, have it all.
To me, this was always a frustrating storyline to follow. Raised in a matriarchal family, a man was considered a luxury rather than essential, and life never pivoted around them.
Perhaps this is why I’ve always wound up in long-distance relationships: No matter how much I’ve cared for someone, a boyfriend never seemed like a justifiable reason to shy away from new experiences or forget about personal goals.
I stumbled into my first long-distance relationship (LDR) with my sixth-form boyfriend when I moved away for university and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
Both freshers in new cities, we would call each other every day, speaking over ourselves in our eagerness: ‘One of my housemates boils chicken and it’s disgusting’; ‘There was a micro pig outside the library this morning’; ‘Shall I come and visit next weekend?’. We used up hours of phone minutes and gigabytes of data.
There were flowers, letters, handmade gifts, intense pining, and relief-filled reunions. We had a newfound appreciation for each other’s company that prevented us taking each other for granted. Then after three years, joy dwindled, visits stopped, and bitterness ensued.
But the end wasn’t a side effect of the distance, and space just made it easier to move on after the fact. There was no risk of a messy backslide when one of us felt lonely and I never had to watch him snog someone else across a crowded dance floor.
Still, each time an LDR fails you swear you’ll never do it again because of the ungodly amounts of commitment and conviction they require.
So, when I found myself in another one just a few months later, my friends grew suspicious. ‘Why do you get these boyfriends and then run away from them?!’ interrogated one. The truth was that I loved the boy, which made it illogical to give up on the relationship because of mere geography.
It’s a scary reality that ease can so often take the place of real adoration; I’ve watched my friends slip into relationships based on convenience so many times.
Being in a relationship gets comfy. You live in each other’s pockets next to the packet of gum and the house keys. There’s a groove in their sofa that matches the outline of your body from Sundays spent lounging there. You know what’s in their bed side drawer. They know what snacks you like.
I understand why people feel the need to stay in close proximity to their partners: you’re no longer just ‘you’ but ‘us’. Plans and friendships get intertwined and soon people consider you a package deal. It can be hard to find the courage to untether yourself from the routine of another person.
In young adult life it’s borderline essential, but this doesn’t mean the couple you’ve become has to cease to exist at every crossroad.
Every relationship I’ve had has been long distance for at least a third of its duration. But I would happily take this demonstration of commitment over a situationship: genuine love doesn’t depend on the close proximity that casual sex does.
In LDRs, there’s no need to safeguard against romantic opportunists. They require such persistence and are so wildly inconvenient, that no one other than a love-drunk idiot could be bothered with the absolute hassle of it.
I met my second boyfriend at a fancy dress party – I was a mermaid, he was a scuba diver – and after 10 gallons of vodka we thought our matching outfits indicated fate.
After four months joined at the hip, we weren’t ready to cut things short so started an LDR from Devon to Montana, where I moved for a year to study.
From different sides of the Atlantic, we tackled a seven-hour time difference by giving up a regular sleep pattern: I was awake well past midnight and he set his alarm for 6am.
We counted down to Christmas in messages so horrifically cringey that those with a sensitive gag reflex would have retched at the exchange.
I was entirely obsessed with him, so the mileage between us acted as a handy barrier that stopped me spending every spare second I had swooning. While I didn’t necessarily prefer to be away from him, I liked the independence that living on separate continents had granted me.
In an alternate reality, I could have stayed by his side but wouldn’t have been able to shake the resentful and ugly thought that he had held me back.
Still, we argued bitterly – just as we sometimes had when I was home. Texts were misinterpreted, call timings confused and tensions high. We’d wind up in a blazing row over something easily solved in person by a peace-offering cup of tea or an affectionate squeeze of an arm.
I was more jealous than I had ever been. He was more controlling than I’d expected.
But these weren’t problems that went away when we lived in close proximity for the subsequent two years. Back home, I felt smothered at times, while he felt regularly neglected.
When I left England once again to travel, I made the cowardly decision not to talk to him about the fact I was wondering if our three-year relationship was already over. Instead, I let things fragment until he also agreed we were done.
This is the most shameful perk of being separated from your boyfriend by an ocean: when things go wrong, you can hide.
When the pandemic hit, I realised how accustomed I was to be being away from the people I love. Group Zoom calls were fun, penning letters to my friends was soothing and I happily Facetimed my current boyfriend from our separate households until one day he said: ‘This is horrible, I feel like I’m homesick… But I am home.’
Missing me was making him miserable, I realised sadly. Distance isn’t for everyone, no matter how much freedom it affords.
I missed the minutiae of his affection: the forehead kisses and the hand squeezes.
But after five months, post-lockdown, of us living on top of eachother and learning the off-beat rhythms of the other’s routines, I left London for Spain. I had been offered a job there, which he generously told me to take.
Unlike Rachel Green, I stayed on the plane.
Slowly we started to navigate the push and pull of being together while being apart. It’s undeniably difficult but it’s not something that I regret.
I might never understand how hard it is to be the one left rather than the one leaving, to notice the gaps in your old routine while the person you love is making friends and memories without you.
Ultimately, LDRs are not radically better than any other type of relationship, but nor are they inherently worse. Although it might seem backwards, it’s the men I’ve left behind I’ve always loved the most. Why would I panic about a few months apart when I believed I could be with them forever?
Besides, yearning for another person is fundamentally romantic. Nothing says ‘I love you’ like encouraging someone to fly and believing they’ll come back.
Last week on Love, Or Something Like It: I wasn’t expecting to find love after being paralysed at 21
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Love, Or Something Like It is a regular series for Metro.co.uk, covering everything from mating and dating to lust and loss, to find out what love is and how to find it in the present day. If you have a love story to share, email rosy.edwards@metro.co.uk
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/24/every-relationship-ive-had-has-been-long-distance-13459917/
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