Relationships are hard, that’s just a fact of life. No matter if you are straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual or whatever, being in a committed romantic relationship with another person is a difficult thing to do. With that said, a lot of us make it even harder on ourselves by trying to sustain our relationships while living in completely different boroughs, cities, regions, states or even countries as our significant others. I, unfortunately, am one of those people. For almost two years I have been in a long-distance relationship with a man who lives half his life in Boston and half the life in Seattle while my entire life is in this wonderful city. But this column is not about my relationship, it’s about relationships in general and, more specifically, the relationships that college women such as you and me choose to have. So, the first topic of discussion just happens to be one close to my heart: LDRs (long-distance relationships) and why the eff so many college women like myself decide to put ourselves through this hell… can I say hell? Whatever I did it, get over it. It truly is hell most of the time!
Part of me hates to admit it, but there are some really nice things about living so far away from your boo (yes, that was a throw back to Alicia Keys and Usher). For one thing, you don’t have to put up with all the face-to-face drama all the time. There isn’t so much “well I thought we were having dinner tonight” and “God, why wont you just take this class with me?!” When you don’t go to the same school, there is no pressure to revolve every second of your life around each other. That can be nice, especially for us strong, independent Barnard types. Freedom.
Another really nice aspect of the long-distance relationship is how freaking lovely it is to see each other when you finally do. I find that every time I see B (which is how I am going to refer to my main squeeze, per his request) we are so excited to see each other we always end up having fabulous weekends together. We don’t get bored of one another like we might if we saw each other multiple times a day. Plus, once we are reunited all our problems are forgotten and we become drunk on each other – it is like we’re newly in love again every time. Who wouldn’t want that?
But, besides those few things, LDRs really blow. Very little about living far away from your lover/best friend/soul mate is fun. There is a lot of arguing involved due to the stress that comes along with keeping a relationship afloat. I’m not about to lie: IT TAKES SO MUCH WORK! You’ll get in arguments over whose turn it is to travel, your sex life will most likely go on a major roller coaster ride (it is incredibly hard to feel like a sex kitten after sitting on a dirty, smelly, cramped bus for four hours), you’ll most likely want to give up on more than one occasion. I don’t think either of us has ever worked harder at something in our entire lives (other than maybe AP Physics, that sucked). If you are thinking about venturing into a LDR, think long and hard about how much time and energy you are willing to devote to the commitment you have made to you man/woman.
I am not an expert by any means. I make mistakes all the time and I have been doing this for almost two years now. Nevertheless, no matter how hard it is and no matter how much we fight, it has been worth it to me because of the reward. I am madly in love with my fella and, I believe, our relationship is much stronger thanks to the struggles we have been through over the course of the last two years as we’ve figured out how to work at us regardless of distance.