kingandy | Reevaluation

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courting

Reevaluation

I've never been a believer in the long-distance relationship. I mean, I know they exist, and I'm sure that people get a lot out of them, but personally I've never seen the appeal. Commuting across the country, shuffling your life so you can snatch a few scant moments with your honey, then driving home again. Somehow this is referred to as "going out with". It seems to me an exercise in futility, and one which will inevitably end badly, with one party or the other on the short end of the commute, or simply growing apart. The Sims, after all, teach us that relationships need to be constantly reinforced by social contact.

That said, today I find myself driven to distraction by an unreasoningly strong urge to reevaluate my position on the matter.

Damn his eyes

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I am equally suspicious of the LDR though I know people who seem to be able to make it work. In theory at least, inconvenience should be no impediment but instead a spur to the relationship. It does, however, expose and widen cracks that might already be there.

One presumes from this that your speculative trawl has resulted in the attentions of an exotic fellow from below the Tropic of Capricorn. You filthy boy. I imagine an exchange of lewd epistles and you setting off, pith helmet at a jaunty angle, into the wilds in search of treasure.

Meh. Do, or do not. There is no dither.

Not directly from the trawl but certainly from resulting discussions. And definitely exotic ~~judging by the pictures~~.

That's all you'll get from me, continue to imagine me in hats.

I close my eyes and all I get is ladyboys after reading that.

Long Distance Relationships, in my experience, are OK in the beginning, in the short term.

Or to put it another way, Drive Thru is OK good once in a while.

If it's a long term thing you're looking for, then distance is just another challenge to be overcome (and can work to your advantage sometimes).

If it's a short term thing, or if you're not sure, then stop fannying about and have at it.

All, of course, excellent points.

That's all you'll get from me, continue to imagine me in hats.

As instructed, I am imagining you in a hat. And nothing else.

My, my, that's quite the peculiar Hat Stand, isn't it?

I PLAY YOU LIKE A FIDDLE, OLD MAN.

It is a Noddy hat, and has a little bobble on the end.

Let's hope Big Ears doesn't miss it.

The disadvantages are obvious, so I won't list them.

There are some advantages too. Travelling up or down the length of the country to visit someone means you actually do stuff. Nobody drives for 5 hours to sit around watching TV, so when Karl was living in Dartford and I drove down for a weekend we'd go out and visit places, we'd have picnics, we'd meet up with friends, we'd find out about what cool stuff was nearby. Similarly, nobody drives or sits on a train for hours to bicker pointlessly - the effort involves in some ways makes you really appreciate the time you have together and make the most of it (similar to the theory that people take free things for granted and appreciate things they have to pay for, I suppose).

I've seen it work too many times for too many different people to retain much cynicism on this particular issue.

You could, of course, also re-evaluate your position on living in Manchestershire, but obviously we'd rather you didn't.

Just over a year ago, my initial romantic enquiry with your then-not-housemate Anne was for a date in September with a view to a relationship post-London. This she renegotiated to the following Bank Holiday Monday, which was then by happy coincidence The Day After Tomorrow (or a year ago yesterday).

Thus began a very happy long-distance relationship largely revolving around weekends. (Hoorah for £12 single fares to London). Indeed, our holiday in the Lakes was the longest contiguous time together.

Of course, the big difference there was that she was always coming back up to Manchester. So there was never any awkward conversation about which of us moved to where. Now, with the relationship more solid, I'd follow her to the ends of the earth (or at least Bolton). But in the early stages I would have been unlikely to have pursued a long-term relationship if she was always going to be long-distance. Especially not seeings as how I'd only been single for a few months and wasn't quite at the stage of desperation of increasing the radius of my searches (literal and figurative) to cover the whole of the UK.

Incidentally, it's not a commute if it's home > fun > home, and thinking of it as a commute will, at a deep neurolinguistic level, only make you consider the whole relationship a necessary chore.

But if you know someone enough to know that it's worth the travel, then it's worth trying. I now know Anne's worth the time/trainfare. Gareth's girlf is, from what I know of her, worth the time/petrol.

The flipside is that it's actually quite nice to have time and space apart.

Hypothetically speaking, he's originally from Manchester and his parents still live up here, and he's thinking about moving back if and when his current job falls through. Hypothetically. So it's a not entirely dissimilar situation.

Incidentally, I feel like mentioning that this is not about desperately casting the net wide either - there is a specific person making me reevaluate things.

More as it develops.

Hoorah for Manchester origins.

I didn't mean to imply any desperation on your part. More that in my case if a specific person hadn't come along, I would have reevaluated things anyway given enough time, on a fish-in-the-river/fish-in-the-sea basis.

Also, it occurs to me that I have had at least one relationship where proximity was a large plus factor. The other factor was quantifiable (in handfuls) but less rational. In retrospect, the rational factor of proximity was the least pleasing and least memorable part of the relationship.

I knew you weren't, just thought it worth clarifying for everybody else.

I am King of the long distance relaionship. I dated Michelle twice long distance wise and it didn't work then because of the distance and our age....saying that we had so much time to get to know each other without the 'pressures' of a relationship, and became the best of friends over the years. The upshot of which is that eventually I couldn't see a future without her and we got together for the final time in January 2005.

There was a lot of discussion regarding moving as it is such a big commitment to make, and for us, like with Paul and Anne, you kind of get the feel pretty soon of whether or not it's worth pursuing. Like Paul also says you can't think of it in terms of a commute...Michelle and I looked forward to the weekends together, and hated the travelling, over 3 hours on the train and £52 quid out of pocket each time....no wonder I never came out...I was too skint. It's great fun to be able to do 'romantic' things whilst you're apart too, and makes it more interesting...phone sex for example....(Michelle will kill me if she ses this), and in fact can be quite a positive thing for this very reason 'absence makes the heart grow fonder...' and all that.

It's nice to see people in love....

I wouldn't say love yet, I've only known him three days and haven't actually met.

But damn.

(deleted comment)

I will post links to his internet presence at some point. That seems to be the best way not to accidentally reveal anything that was told in confidence.

sees

On a vaguely related note, go and listen to "Seperated by Motorways" by The Long Blondes. It might make you feel more confident about this.

While every long distance relationship I have ever had (save one) has ended badly, it ought to be pointed out that every single relationship of any kind (save one) that I've ever had has done the same.

I don't think you should fear the distance. If it doesn't work, you'll be glad they're far away, and if it does work you'll think of a way to be together.

I've had two long distance relationships - one successful, one not.
Its possible to successfully have one if two criteria are met: First, you must both be committed to the relationship and willing to work through the difficulties of distance. There is no halfway (well unless you're meeting there). Secondly, I think there has to be the idea that at some point it stops becoming a long distance relationship. My second experience with it was only a success because after 4 months of long distance (2100 miles) the distance became a 30-45 minute drive. After the previous distance that wasn't nearly so bad. Then we lived together. Then we moved together. Then we broke up. So actually, for us long distance was probably the better option *irony*

Is there any chance that this person is a crazed serial killer?

nope, i know him quite well, and he still hasn't shivved me up

Damn. There goes my chance of appearing in a TV movie played by Hugh Jackman.

who would play andy? and more importantly, who would play me?

Such minor concerns are for the casting director ...

My fiance and I had a rather back and forth not LDR, LDR, not LDR. At first we both lived in Chicago, but in traffic it would still take nearly an hour to get across the city. We'd spend every weekend together. After six months, he moved back to his hometown, which was 100 miles away. We dated long distance then for two years. It was hard to manage weekends, sometimes, but summer's weren't bad because he was in grad school and I am a teacher.

Additionally, it was nice because we had sort of the best of both worlds. I could see him on weekends and be romantic and whathaveyou. But my weeknights were still open for friends. I had specific dinner nights, nights where we'd play billiards or darts, or go to a certain Irish pub to watch baseball. And he would do the same with his friends. And there was never any of that "Oh, you'd rather see your friends then me" sort of thing.
So, when I finally moved up here to be with him, I felt satisfied that I was still able to "go out" as much as I wanted without the obligation of someone sitting at home.

The long and the short of it is, it can work, if you work on it.

The long-term relationships that I've failed at all failed for other reasons. It's easier to blame the miles and the free time on your own for a split, when, in reality, it was probably due to you both thinking the other is a bit of a tosser. LDR's can drag out the death of a relationship by a few months - but they can't kill a good relationship all on their own.

For that you need infidelity ;)

Rich and I went out whilst he was in Manchester, I was in London (which was hard, because he had loads of friends and distractions nearby and I had none) and then between London and Oxford, which was much better.

I missed him and Manchester really badly but it probably deepened our relationship whilst in London/Oxford as we realised how much we meant to each other.

LDR's are expensive and tiring. We ended up doing a one week one way, one week the other, a third off and fourth to SoS. I'd agree with Katie about spending quality time doing things together though.

I thought he was in London and you were in Manchester.

There were meals.

You cooked!

Rich in Manchester and Al in London happened many years ago in the before-time when you hadn't started uni yet.
Then where was Rich in Oxford, then both of them in London, then we finally managed to get them both in Manchester at the same time.

Ahhhh. Retroactive continuity, I see.

I think it was Rich in M/cr, Al in Berkhamsted (1996), Al & Rich in Manchester(1997), Rich in Oxford, Al in M/cr (1998), Al in London, Rich in Oxford (1999,2000), Al & Rich both in London (2001-2003) and then a move to Bolton.

You asked!

Speaking as someone in a LDR I'm quite happy although one day(poss soon) a move is in order. I can understand the problems, certainly from travelling to work from their and having to get up half n hour before I go to bed (tell kids that nowadays they'll not believe ya) to catch the train, not to mention the cost! However we can't help who we fall for and we can't help where they live. Hers is also the nicer area scenery wise and health wise so it's me that's moving.

I can also see why they'd fail, we've had our fair share(possibly more than) of text conversations gone bad because of context problems and come close to splitting a few times due to not seeing each other regularly.

I have to speak out for the good of LDR's.

When I met Jeff he was in Manchester and I was in Irchester - approx 200 miles and 3 hours apart. On top of that I was limited to the number of weekends I could see him as he didn't have transport and he saw his daughter most weekends.

It allowed us to take things slow and really get to know each other properly as well as savouring and making the most of every moment we had together. After a year he moved down here to live with me. 4 years after we first met, we're married and little Jeff Junior is due any day.

My advice on LDRs is that a) if they're not working you have a great excuse to break up. b) You learn to really appreciate each other's time and c) You know for sure when someone really loves you if they relocate or you relocate for them.

Give it a go!!

I had an LDR where I lived in Manchester and she lived in the Wolverhampton area for a year and a bit. I think her LJ is

suziehill...

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Reevaluation

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I'm now married to my long distance relationship

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