We've all heard the story. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, they vow eternal commitment to each other ... and then they go to different colleges.
From there, the story seems to fall apart. Whether they try to stay together, decide to see what college has to offer them separately or even end up forgetting the other exists, the long-distance relationship just doesn't work out. It's better to be honest, isn't it? Face it: The allure of hooking up with another drunken freshman is just too much to resist. The time spent apart is unbearably hard when you've spent the whole summer whispering sweet nothings into each other's ears. And you have more important things to do than comfort your sobbing girlfriend. Whatever the reason, it hardly ends up in a proposal and a white dress.
I sound bitter, but I know from experience: My freshman year was filled with tales of friends' failed attempts at the long-distance relationships, regardless of the actual length of distance. Couples who had spent the whole of high school together seemed to fall apart with the first frat party of the year. Friends who had been so in love the week before found somebody new in a heartbeat. It was a heartwrenching reality, seeing broken heart after broken heart on my Facebook newsfeed.
But deep down inside, I secretly never believed that it could work out. Think about it: The chance that you'll marry your high-school sweetheart, let alone after going through four years of college apart, is slim to none.
Combine that with today's impatient society in which both e-mail replies and coffee are expected at a moment's notice, and it's got to be doomed from the start. (After all, it's pretty hard to text your boyfriend to come over when he's in another state). On top of that, it seems that infidelity and promiscuity are becoming less taboo by the second - even more so when there's a low risk that your partner might catch you in the act.
So after all that, why would someone even consider trying long-distance? The risks more than outweigh the small chance that you might make it to reap the benefits - the longer you hang on, the more time you've invested and the harder it gets to face the fact that it just might not work, no matter how hard you try.
And yet I stupidly took those risks. I started out my senior year with a boyfriend, despite the fact that he was already a sophomore at a college three hours away. We started out long-distance (even though I'd vowed it off after a bad experience in the 10th grade), and very quickly, I learned how badly it hurt to say our goodbyes and watch him drive away. By the time college acceptances came around in the spring, I'd lived through too many weekend visits of inexplicable highs and inevitable lows. Could you imagine the agony I faced once I finally decided to come to Hopkins, a clear 3,000 miles across the country? It didn't make sense to stay together, in any aspect.
But we did. Being the blind fool I was, I didn't even think twice about it. Here was somebody whom I truly loved, the first guy I'd ever imagined in my future, and I didn't want to lose him when I hadn't even tried to keep him. It would be worth it, I decided, to spend months apart, to have to deal with time-zone changes and little-to-no sleep, to live through eight years of college, medical school and who knows what else! It was naive, I admit - but we're actually still together (though I am, thankfully, no longer pre-med). I survived long-distance through a year of high school and a year of college, and hopefully this article will not jinx it big time.
Though I really don't think it's for everyone, long-distance is definitely conquerable. I can't speak for being in another country, but with a little luck and the good grace to have the same cell phone service as your significant other, the months in between visits fly by. Every time I see him, it makes it that much better; Every time I leave, it's that much worse, but I genuinely believe in us. If you believe that it will work, then try it. Don't let your friends or some silly opinions writer tell you otherwise. You only have yourself to prove it to.
Despite reason and logic, and against all odds, I took a shot at the challenge of the long-distance relationship. I won't say I've won yet, but two years of phone calls, Webcamming, one $500 plane ticket and a whole lot of anticipation have taught me more than I could have ever imagined.
I've laughed and I've cried, but I haven't cheated and I definitely haven't fallen out of love. And after everything I've been through, I would still do it all over again.
