What’s it like being in a long distance relationship? We’ll let me tell you this for sure, you are in for one hell of an emotional thrill (Hell) ride! The short answer is emotionally draining, tiresome and complicated, but sprinkled through out are moments of joy, new experiences and a dull sense of love and not feeling completely alone in the world. My experiences may not mirror those of others, but that’s why they are mine, if you can relate maybe you’re not alone after all.
Let’s get social.
If like me, you met your long distant partner in reality in another country, you fell instantly in love and didn’t want to get on that plane back home, we have a starting point. Social media will be your new best friend when it comes to staying in contact with your long distant lover. At first it’s exciting, your talking to your long distant lover constantly through the prison of “chat” box and constantly making plans to video talk later. These video talks make you feel like your relationship is real, you can see your partner, your telling them about your day and learning new things about each other, you’re beginning to make plans for the future! But there’s a digital boundary between you both, you crave the intimacy you once had with that person in reality…you start to get a little hot under the collar…
Cyber sex, the instant humiliation.
There’s nothing worse in life the catching your own reflection masturbating in your iPad mini 2 screen. Even though you can see your transatlantic lover thumping one out in front of you, the disconnect when seeing a vague shadow of yourself climax is well, for lack of a better word haunting. Cyber sex can become a daily routine, which can then swiftly move into a monotonous act of lying there, cock in hand, about ready to cry because you want to feel the human touch of another person. You want something real.
I’ll catch a plane and empty my wallet at the border.
Unless your dripping in money at some point your long distance relationship is going to cost you…big! Travel isn’t cheap but you want to be with your boarder bending woman (or man) so you will take the financial hit and visit them, or they will come to you, or you will do both for an elongated period of time. You’ll spend time together, fall in love all over again and see the world. It truly is beautiful but with each trip your wallet is getting a little bit lighter and for me resentment started to settle in. Before you know it your back home staring into your ipad mini 2 screen again trying to recreate that banging sex you had! Ah but you just caught that reflection again and to make it worse you’ve gone over your over draft and consider selling your online wanking services to others to top up your bank account!
Arguments. Kiss and make up.
If you have ever experienced an argument with an online lover we’ll let me tell you. It’s twice as hard as having the person next to you. “Your’e a fucking bitch and…” Chat window closed. “oh no, she hung up on me. What have I done? Oh shit! Oh Shit!” Arguing with someone in another country is hard because essentially you have to sit and wait out the storm. You can’t physically talk to the person and show your remorse for what you have done. You have to sit on your hands and either wait for them to re approach you or type a well thought out essay about how “wrong” you were and you “didn’t” mean what you said. Arguments are then never truly cleared up and moved away from because your so confined in a chat/video box there’s no real room for movement. You then start to think about other things, like what’s really going on with your roaming lover.
Paranoia, in it’s purest form.
Ahhh paranoia. Where would we be with out you. Let’s get down to brass tax here. Your online relationship will suffer this because you truly never know what the other person is doing. You trust them sure, they have agreed to this and are going through the motions like you, but doubt always lingers at the bottom of your soul. “Where are they?” “What are they doing?” “why haven’t they logged on in 43 minutes?”. You become a bit lost. Your investing all your time into a computer screen and you know if that person was here you wouldn’t feel that way. You’ve truly become something different, you’re not the fun loving 20 something you once were, just an emotional mess sat in your pyjamas waiting to talk to your girl again. You cry.
Decision time. The end.
You’ve exhausted all forms of conversation in the video chat, you’ve travelled round the world and your iPad mini 2 looks like a Jackson Pollock painting. We need to make a decision now! You talk about your options and realise that one of you needs to make the move, start in a new country, leave everything they have behind. A stalemate, the silence. Communications dwindle, you both know something is wrong, the last year of your life has solely been in the pursuit of happiness via a computer keyboard and you become lost, even more so. You realise that all of this has been a facade. You don’t actually know who your talking to anymore, everything you felt is now being funnelled into a choice that could effect the rest of your life, good and bad. It ends, you both log out.
The dawn of realisation.
Despite any happiness you have experienced over the past year 80 percent of you has just been talking to a fictional version of your loved one, a digital representation of them. You feel empty, even more so than before because you can’t just login anymore and talk like you once did. You question ever last thing you did and said and the choices you made. You realise that it all wasn’t right and real love shouldn’t be so hard. There’s relief. You can now start over and leave all the heart ache and pain behind. You can be real.
