Long Distance Relationships

Distance seemed to matter little as we talked and talked over the net, hours and hours they would last, indeed our record duration for conversing like was an hour shy of 24!  Yes,  I kid you not,  it really was that long,  I know that might sound a bit over the top,  but we just couldn’t stop talking.    This may sound a little sad, perhaps even a little creepy to some of you,  but on more than one occasion we even watched each other sleep on webcam.   We went to bed together,  albeit on different continents!

The attraction we held for each other was exhilarating, exciting and the most powerful I’ve ever experienced, and god knows I’ve had a lot of experience!

We had to see each other, yes there was the age difference, he was 20 and I was at the latter end of my 30’s, yes there was the distance nearly 4300 miles, yes we met over the internet, yes there were dozens of reasons for us not to go ahead with meeting up, but hey life is for living, isn’t it?

I jetted over, for a two week vacation, which was absolutely wonderful and I wished it could last forever, the bond we found online only multiplied when we met in the flesh. Cupid sure pulled back his bow and let those arrows flow, love was all around and we had a blast. I didn’t want the vacation to end, nor did he, but end it had to and flew home I did, with a heavy heart.

Matt must have felt the same explosion of emotion as within two weeks of my return to the UK he’d booked a flight and was on his way over to England and to cut a long story short, he ended up staying with me for 6 months. I’ve since been back to the States and stayed for three months in ‘our’ apartment in Illinois. I’ve never known three months fly by so fast as those three did and to old England I returned a couple of months ago.

We now face the prospect of a long distance relationship, an LDR, an ocean divides us, but do such long distance relationships work, can there be such a thing as a bi-national partnership. Can love conquer all or will distance divide? Does distance matter?

Some say distance matters and love can never last, Andrew a thirty-something gay guy from Brighton England says “There is no way such a long distance relationship could work, the distance is just too great, seeing each other would be so difficult, not to mention expensive. Sooner or later one or the other or both are gonna get board and fuck someone else”

Other’s are less vehement in their negativity, “Long distance relationship may last for older people, but younger ones, no, when your old you know what you want, but when you’re young you don’t know what you want” Tells Carman,  a sweet Italian girl, who doesn’t look a day ofer 25 but is beyond 30, who had a lover in a different country between the ages of 14 and 24!  But she does admit that they were not perahps a normal relationship.  “He was my first love, my first boyfriend, which is different,  but you really don’t know life at that age.”

“Of course a love affair that is honest and true can survive great distances in a short term, maybe two or three years, as long as in the future they will be together. It’s like something to look forward to!” Comments hopeless romantic Maureen 59 from Kettering.

As the internet grows, the world gets smaller there are more and more LDR’s, partly due to internet dating, social networking – MySpace, Facebook, Gaydar and partly due to a global market place where companies become international employers and they move around their employees. Dean, 36 works for and English company with interests in the far east, three years ago they sent him to work in their Hong Kong office. “Steve and I had only just started dating when I got the Hong Kong position, so it was really easy for me to up sticks and leave. It got harder and harder the more we fell in love with each other. By the end of the first year, it was touch and go if we’d make it, we’d see each other for a week every two months or so, but the price of flights is astronomical, so we had to cut that down.” He says they havekept the magic alive by being romantic, even though they are half the world away from each other. “I surprise him by sending little silly gifts, like a plastic banana, or a pair of jeans for a doll saying ‘if you carry on with the diet you’ll fit into these by Christmas!” We are also able to talk a fair bit, thanks mainly to Skype” They also make time to do things together, well sort of, for example they will both get a DVD of a film and sit and watch it together, at the same time and talk on the phone as they watch. “It’s the little things like that which keep us sane and together, things that may seem silly and foolish to others are normal and rational to us”