Dating : This is For Skeptics of Long-Distance Relationships

I won’t spare the details

Two years ago I was completely closed off to the idea of being in a long-distance relationship.

Ten months ago, after a relationship failed the test of distance, I vowed I would never put myself in such a vulnerable position again.

I know I’m not alone in thinking that a long-distance relationship sounds like a terrible idea.

Going to bed every night without your Significant Other is hard. Navigating communication in different time zones is hard. Throwing yourself into a blind trust is hard.

I’ve lived outside of the United States as a researcher for the better part of the past year, and I now have a SO who has shown me that long-distance doesn’t have to be terrible or difficult.

Don’t get me wrong — it’s definitely not ideal.

It’s clearer to me now than ever before that taking on long-distance is not the right choice for every relationship. I have in the past committed to a long-distance partner that made every long-distance horror story you’ve ever heard a reality.

So how the hell did I end up in another long-distance relationship?

At my lowest low, when I had no faith in relationships — let alone long distance— I met my current SO. It was the day I arrived back home from Nigeria for the first time and went out with friends in San Francisco. I knew when we met that night I would be on my way back to Africa soon. After quite an unbelievable whirlwind of pure fate and chance, we kept seeing each other.

I was upfront with him about preparing to be back on my way across the globe. I expected we would agree to either stop seeing each other to save wasted efforts or keep it casual until I left. Turns out what we both really wanted was to make it work.

I was conditioned to believe that even if we wanted to make it work, that doesn’t mean everything might not blow up in my face again.

Although I still fight this feeling, I open the most vulnerable and insecure parts of myself for him to see so that he knows what I need most. That has been vital to our harmonious long-distance relationship, going on 6 months.

Relationship dynamics change from person to person, but there are a few things at the core of why long-distance is working shockingly well for us.

We Love Our Independence

We both work full time and enjoy our jobs. When we aren’t working we can easily fill our alone time with other things we both look forward to doing outside of talking to one another. I have hobbies, he has hobbies. This has been essential because the time difference doesn’t allow us to be reachable to one another all the time.

A relationship is not a hobby. It’s okay — even recommended — to enjoy space.

We choose to sometimes read the same books, watch the same shows, and share recipes (mostly banana bread), which allows us to share our thoughts on it later.

Dedicating more mental space to our self-care and creative minds has been extremely rewarding to our relationship.

We Still Share So Many Moments From Afar

Facetiming and WhatsApp calls are daily and reliable. Sometimes we catch each other at the same time we are both eating. I don’t know why it’s so ridiculously comforting and warm to watch the person you love just chew their oatmeal right after they wake up while I shovel rice in my mouth, but it is.

Movie dates are even made possible for long-distance in this day and age with facetime and Skype. Okay, it’s obviously not the same, but we have a lot more to work with now than just handwriting letters. Because we are active people we even use facetime to workout together… complete with all of the weird and unflattering angles that come with working out together in person.

Prioritizing Our Time Is a Priority

I’m never too busy or too tired to talk. My eyes might already be closed and I will still answer his call. Truthfully, this is how 75% of our calls go. Lunch break calls. Bathroom break calls. Fleeting calls and voice clips can turn my whole day around; sometimes I don’t even realize it until I hear myself laugh for the first time that day.

We have the same 24 hours in the day despite the distance, so a part of the commitment is devoting some of that time to each other.

Making Each Other Feel Wanted

This can come in many forms. You know what I mean. Spicy pictures. Flirty texts and wink emojis. Reminiscing about the first time. Talking about that one thing we really like and can’t wait to do again.

Pro-Tip: Shower face timing is all at once spicy, funny, and practical.

Sharing All the Feels

Simply put, It’s harder to interpret feelings when you aren’t there in person to read body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice.

What made you smile today? What frustrated you? What are your worries?

Sometimes at the end of my workday, I feel like a roasted potato.

One of my solutions to this has been to share my blog posts with my SO because the time I set aside to write is the time I dedicate to processing many of my feelings and inner thoughts. I do this best alone. When he reads my blog posts, he sees into a part of my day and my mind that doesn’t come out when I’m normally talking to him. If I’m sharing all of these thoughts with the Medium world, I want to share them with my partner as well.

Surprising Each Other

Doing long-distance for even short periods of time can be particularly difficult when we miss out on spending special occasions together. The internet is helpful by allowing us to order pretty much anything online to wherever we want in the world.

I wasn’t there for my SO’s birthday, so I did what I would have wanted to be done for me: I ordered pizza delivery to his house without telling him.

I’ve done the same with sending flowers to my mom every year since I moved out of Florida, which would also be a great surprise delivery for a SO.

I would argue ordering a surprise gift is actually less effort than gifting if you were there in-person. Mainly, when ideas like this make a loving thought into something tangible, it will mean the world to bae in your absence.

Continue Making Plans Together

There’s really nothing better than imagining and planning for the day long-distance ends. The light at the end of the tunnel can shine even brighter if there are already plans in place to spend quality time together.

My relationship has a hypothetical “cart”. It is full of things I really miss, like lattes. My SO loves coffee and I drink more coffee when I’m with him. We had a coffee-and-cake-date ritual, which we can only continue once I return home. So, I have added 1 latte per day to our “cart” for the whole duration of the time I’m gone. As of today that is 98 (and counting) lattes together, and I can’t wait.

It’s a silly thing, but it’s the way we both know that we’re going to pick up right where we left off once I return home.

Oh, you had my favorite type of smoothie today? Also add that to my cart, please!