Long Distance - A Guy's Perspective
Just like Shellie and John, Nick and his girlfriend, Alana, have been dating for a bit over two years now. But unlike in Shellie’s case, Nick and Alana didn’t talk about a long distance relationship (LDR) until halfway through the summer before they would be going off to college, Emory and Vanderbilt, respectively.
Q: So what made you guys decide you wanted an LDR? “I don’t know, when you love someone you love someone.” At this point I was giving him those puppy dog eyes and “aww-ing” at the fact that guys can be cute and loving, too. After the blush in his face faded from a hint of embarrassment he continued, “I don’t know why I would break up just because. Just because it’s long distance doesn’t mean that it’s worth just ending.” I couldn’t agree with him more. If you find someone that you truly do love, like he and I both have, then having an LDR is 100% worth it. Q: So how has your relationship been going since you’ve been here? “She’s actually not that far from me, so she visits a lot.” I was obviously a little bit bitter about this particular comment because unlike the 3-4 hour bus ride it takes for Nick and Alana to see each other, it takes me a plane ride or a 16 hour car ride to see my boyfriend, and we haven’t nearly seen each other as much as Nick has seen his girlfriend. After he stopped laughing and bragging about often he gets to see Alana, he then, to my surprise, talked a little bit about jealousy. “At first it was easy to get jealous of the other person when they’re going out and drinking and partying and stuff, and you’re just like ‘uh-oh, I hope nothing bad happens.’ But then you just kind of get used to it.” At the beginning of this school year, I definitely got upset about a lot of little things that I had no control over. But as the semester progressed, Nick was right, you just kind of get used to it. It’s college, and you have to be okay with your partner having a social life, and if you both truly trust each other, then jealousy should never be a serious issue. Q: So what’s it like to be the guy in the relationship? This was a question I was just personally curious about, but his very quick answer didn’t surprise me. “You have a girl that’s freaking out all the time and you can’t do anything about it. And then they will randomly say “oh my god I miss you so much you have to text me!” And then I’ll tell her that I’m studying and that I’ll just text her later in the night and that just doesn’t fly with girls, it’s not okay, they’ll just freak out.” |
While I personally don’t feel as though I’m like that with my boyfriend, there are definitely those times when, as a girl, your emotions just storm over you and you can’t help but miss your guy more than usual. And this can happen on any given day! And then under those circumstances, all you want to do is talk to him – forgetting that he has other commitments and things to do besides talk to you.
Another point Nick made was the importance of having the same level of “business.” “I feel like she has more down time than I do. And in general, when one of us has more down time than the other, the one with more time is always nagging the other to talk or hang out.” Nick was saying how important it is to try to stay at the same level of business, because if one person is super busy and the other is not, there’s a huge imbalance and it makes things much more difficult. But if both people have about the same amount of free time it makes it much easier to understand each other. Q: How is your relationship different now than it was back in high school? I wanted to end with this question, wondering what he felt has changed since high school. He described his college relationship as more “valid, adult-like, and legitimate.” He was saying that when in high school, everyone’s always like “oh yeah I have a girlfriend,” or vice versa, and it just isn’t as big of a deal. “But when you go to college you assume a lot of responsibilities and you also grow up as a person and as an individual and in the process of assuming those responsibilities and growing up, your relationships and everything you do starts to be taken more seriously by other people. So other people’s perspective of your relationship changes.” I definitely agree with him here. I’m not taking anything away from high school relationships, but in college it just feels and truly is much more serious, especially when it’s a long distance one. In an LDR you are fully committing yourself to someone possibly thousands of miles away that you only get to see three or four times in a school year, a school year where most of your peers are hooking up, sleeping around, and getting the full “college experience.” It’s a huge and serious commitment. But just like Shellie and Nick, I can vouch for the fact that when you find someone as special as we all have, it’s completely and entirely worth it. |