Happy Friday!!! It’s the final day in Relationship Week! I was all set to write about “Fags and Their Hags”, but I just didn’t feel inspired to do that today. Maybe I’ll save that topic for a future post. In any event, I decided to write about long distance relationships. I do know of two couples who have long distance relationship stories.
First, let’s start with my friend, Marcus. Marcus’ long distance relationship, or LDR, lasted a year. Marcus feels that the biggest problem with this relationship was miscommunication. Not everyone in the relationship shared his or her feelings about what was going in their personal lives, whether it was work, family, or socially related. Conversation was not always open and honest. Marcus and his girlfriend lived four hours away from each other and saw each other twice a month. While they got along fine on the phone, there were some issues when they were face-to-face. As they only had opportunities to interact 2-3 days at a time, if they had an issue that came up, it seemed really major because of how infrequently they were able to interact in person. Marcus believes that with a long distance relationship you need trust and the finances to travel often.
Erin and I became friends during our sophomore year in college, and I was so happy when she married her long distance boyfriend, Jemiel, last fall. They began dating in the Fall of 2004 and dated for 4 years before coming engaged. While they have a happy ending, things weren’t always easy. The couple didn’t share the same reality, as Erin lived in California and Jemiel lived in Connecticut, and the social activities on each coast were vastly different. In order to make their relationship work, Erin and Jemiel inserted communication, transparency, and monthly visits into their relationship. It also helped that the couple had a strong foundation, as they were friends were four years before they started dating. Now, they are happy living together as husband and wife.
Just like all relationships, long distance relationships can be tough. Both parties have to trust each other, commit to have effective communication, and make efforts to see each other on a regular basis, which can be costly. Do you think you could be in an LDR? Have you been in one before; if so, what was the end result? Please share your stories. Until next time, I’m just a Southern girl…in the city.
Southern Girl in the City 
The only LDR I have had in my life lasted a series of weeks (not exact on how many at this point) it was a match up wth a guy that lived in Kansas, I am in Arizona. We met on a online dating site named eHarmony. Maybe you know of it. Anyway, I was so excited to have finally matched with someone after almost an entire year and he and I had a lot in common. I am completely positive that if we had met face to face, we would be together to this day. Unfortunately as things go, distance added too much time and space between us. I am fully aware that I was not his only match on eharmony as I had others too, but the fact of the matter is I was emotionally connected more so with this guy than I had ever been with any of the others. We wrote back and forth, sent photos, shared about our lives and even talked on the phone a time or two. The moment I knew it would not work out was when he wanted me to go to Kansas to see him. I could not afford the trip on my salary and stated that I was just too broke to make such a trip. You would have thought, this being the “perfect” match, he would have taken the time to come see me or paid a partial amount of my travel expenses. He did neither, instead….he stopped communicating. I tried to call him and he strangely developed amnesia and didn’t know who I was when I called. So….after that experience, my thoughts on LDR’s isn’t a favorable one. I am not saying they don’t work for wveryone, but obviously that’s the case for me. As far as sites like eHarmony are concerned…I see them as nothing more than a way to pass the time and throw your money out the window. I’d prefer to meet a man in my hometown and spend actual time with him as opposed to cyberspace mediation with the aid of electric glow of a computer monitor on a dark and lonely night.