Long distance relationships...

[Scout101]

Give it a try. Attempt to renew the relationship. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and even if you lose, you then know it was not to be. The only thing you're going to gain by ending it all is wondering what might have been, had you stuck it out and given it your best shot.

Not quite. You're also gaining the time to move on, and the ability to meet new people in a romantic setting, which you obviously wouldn't be trying for if you were still holding on to this relationship.

And in the "lose" column, gotta count all of the time and effort you'd be putting into what you've already decided is a sinking ship. Plus, you lose the happy memories of how things were, as the strain of the distance, not seeing each other, and no plans to get back together soon, slowly replace all of your good memories with depression, fighting, suspicion, and boredom. And, like I said above, you miss out on other opportunities (with regard to relationships, or even time spent with friends) as you spend that time on the phone, a webcam, or at the computer...

Not a cut and dry issue, but think he ultimately made the right one...

 

[Eric Cheung]

In the late spring of 2006 I met a girl at work in Boston. I had already made plans to move to LA in September because I had been doing stand-up and was looking to work as a writer or actor on television. We started out as friends and just hung out, but we got closer as the summer progressed and were definitely in a relationship by the time I moved.

It was a young relationship of course. We learned a lot more about each other after I moved. Technology today really makes contact so much easier. We IMed each other nearly every day and spoke on the phone a lot.

We had a vague idea that one of us would move eventually. She was looking into grad school programs in museum studies and art history in Southern California and I was trying to work on stand-up and taking improv classes.

We were three thousand miles apart, but we'd still see each other for about a week every three months or so. We'd usually take turns flying to the other's city (though for me the trips back to Massachusetts were more complicated because they involved visiting both of our families).

It was through these trips home that I realized that the real reason I left had to do with some fairly subtle conflict between me and my folks. And my girlfriend's been getting some great opportunities in the museum industry. All that combined with the fact that I found that my aptitude was less in media, and more in writing in an academic sense, complicated the situation.

I started going to therapy and realized I was, more often than not, pretty perceptive about my situation with my folks and started to change my relationship with them. Things improved sufficiently about a year ago, that I decided to move back home to get an office job that would hopefully help me go back to school to get a Master's in English.

So, since February, we've been living together and I've been between temp jobs and volunteering as a docent at a local TV station and recording books on tape for the blind and dyslexic at my local RFBD facility. Even though neither opportunity pays me anything, they each seem to be a nexus between my two strongest professional interests: media and education.

But I digress. I agree that any serious long-distance relationship must have a gameplan for living near each other eventually, as long as there is a commitment to the relationship, and a commitment to proximity as a goal, then the LDR stuff is merely a test of that.

How far apart will you be living? My girlfriend's parents were in a long-distance relationship before they got married, he was in the army (stationed in Hawaii, while she was back in Massachusetts). My brother was too. His fiancee went to grad school in Boulder, CO, while he went to grad school at UCONN. They spent their entire engagement apart, but now live in Pasadena.

It's definitely possible if you want it enough.