Reevaluation

[kingandy]

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

Comments

[paulgregory.livejournal.com]

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.

[kingandy]

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.

[paulgregory.livejournal.com]

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.

[kingandy]

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

[gowhonker.livejournal.com]

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....

[kingandy]

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

But damn.

[kingandy]

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.

[gowhonker.livejournal.com]

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