This thread may have been done before and, if so, apologies in advance.
I am in a long distance relationship (LDR) at the moment and have been for coming up to 18 months now. I met Rhino in Yahoo Chat in June 2001 and we were friends up til the end of September/early October. He had a car accident and was off sick - we were chatting online and he asked for my number, he wanted to hear what my voice sounded like - so I gave it to him and he called about a minute later. It was a fireworks moment, literally! - up til then, I thought he was incredibly funny and a lovely, sweet guy - but the second I heard his voice, I knew it was something else. He knew before that I think - but I was just coming out of a not great relationship and was a bit bruised and battered emotionally to really understand it; until I heard his voice and then it was like WHAM!!!
Anyway - I find the long distance very hard at times - I found it next to impossible at the beginning but found a Yahoo Club (as they were known at the time) where I met some very very cool and clued up people who helped me out hugely (who are now my most solid and great friends online). They listened to my fears and hopes and dreams and despairing moments and carried me through. He finds the distance easier to cope with than me - but he’s not the obsessional worrier I am lol…
I was thinking lately (and it was mentioned by a few people over various threads) how many people have long distance relationships? How did you meet? If you met online, do you get that “look” from your friends and family when you say you’re in love with someone you never met? If you had your time over, would you choose long distance again? How did you cope with the absence of a physical relationship? Did you discuss the issue of exclusivity and how did you manage that?
Rhino and I have found our ways of dealing with the issues that have arisen (and believe me, we haven’t had much of a smooth run at it - but we have come through everything together and are still strong and very much in love)… I was just wondering how others dealt with it all or what people’s opinions of long distance and net relationships are?
Again, apologies if this subject has been done to death - no doubt, I’ll hear pretty soon if it has :p.
He’s kidding you, Rhino’sHoney. IIRC, Geobabe & UncleBill met on the Dope, got married, and are now expecting a baby.
I’m in a LTR that is about to convert to regular old “living in sin”. (See “location”.) I met my boyfriend 2 years ago, through my little sister. She had been friends with him for a while, and he came to my town to visit her. We started talking and didn’t stop for 4 hours. About 9 months ago, I got dumped, and he was the one who talked me through it and became my Rebound Guy. He officially converted to Boyfriend in December.
It sucks being so far away. (Although I’m not stuck with the same mileage as you. I’ve only got to drive 566 miles to see him.) I hate the fact that our entire relationship is based on short visits and mental images of our daily lives. I can’t wait to move in with this guy, and have a more realistic relationship.
Good luck! I hope things work out for you like they did for me.
Wow, so have you ever met him in person? That’s crazy. And I wouldn’t know if this has been covered here, since I’ve only been lurking for a few months, and just recently started posting
Right now I’m in a “LDR,” as I mentioned in another thread, but we were together for around a year and a half before this, and knew each other for almost a year before that (we met at the end of college). I decided to take a job somewhere she didn’t want to live after I finished grad school, and now we’re here stuck in a crappy LDR, living 1500 miles apart. It’s supposed to be a temporary fix, but who knows now. As far as if I would do it again, no. I think I’d rather be poor and with her than making the money I am now and living in a city where I don’t really know anyone. But what’s done is done, so I can’t worry too much about what I should have done vs. what I did.
Your last two questions are the most difficult for our relationship. Basically, she’s perfectly ok with our current lack of a physical relationship. I’m not at all… this has led to the whole exclusivity thing, in that she has said that so long as she feels “ambivalent” about the whole weekend-sex-visit thing (ie, as of right now I may not be getting any until we can live together again, for reasons she has tried to explain but that I fail to understand), I can do whatever I need to do to deal with it (ie, see other people). This is pretty recently, and has yet to be tested by me, as I don’t know exactly how I feel about the whole thing yet.
Alright, I don’t know how much sense that made, but I’m kinda running out of time right now, so I’ll come back later to clear anything up. I only tried to fit the last two months worth of late night phone conversations into one short paragraph, after all…
How many people have long distance relationships?
I am in a long-distance (1,700 miles) relationship with Gunslinger.
** How did you meet?**
Right here on the SDMB, in a thread titled “Very Vaguely Creepy” back in fall of 2000.
If you met online, do you get that “look” from your friends and family when you say you’re in love with someone you never met?
Not anymore, because we have met, quite often - but I know what you mean. Even still I get that from my parents - most of my friends and acquaintances are sufficiently net-savvy and know me and my devotion to Gun well enough to know that it’s entirely possible to fall in love with someone you didn’t meet in person, just as much as it’s possible to fall in love with someone you pick up in a bar.
**If you had your time over, would you choose long distance again? **
I would choose to be with Gunslinger under any circumstances. However, I’m a little soured on LDRs in general because they’re extremely hard, emotionally.
How did you cope with the absence of a physical relationship?
Nekkid pictures and candid discussion of sex once we reached that level of intimacy, and the “screwing like bunnies” approach when we finally get the chance to spend face time. Since we were both virgins, the not-getting-laid part didn’t bother us because we really didn’t know what we were missing. Things are actually harder - both the physical relationship part and the emotional relationship bit - now that we’ve been together and are apart once again, because we do know what we are missing. But I will be with him once and for all in July, when I move from New York to Texas for that express purpose.
Did you discuss the issue of exclusivity and how did you manage that?
There wasn’t any competition to worry about, so we didn’t have to discuss it in the beginning. By the time any competition showed up we were already serious about each other. Funny how it took me getting engaged for guys to start to hit on me and that sort of thing (I’m a late bloomer, I guess, or maybe I just gained enough confidence from being with Gun to make me more attractive to 'em). It hasn’t really been an issue for us at all.
when i was 16 i met a guy online. the conversation started simply because we shared the same birthday. the conversations were purely platonic for almost two years. then the oddest thing happened. neither of us planned on ever meeting, but his girlfriend wanted to meet me. so a week before our 18th birthday we meet. two months later we start dating. at that time we were 60 miles apart. it doesn’t seem like much, but we were only in high school at the time. we dated for two years… funny thing is we broke up while we were living together.
so on with the ldr… three years later, i’m still in college here in tennessee. he’s joined the navy. we’re back together talking about marriage. he lives in charleston, about 350 miles from where i am. he lives in the barracks where his phone rarely, if ever gets reception. the only contact i really have with him is online. the relationship is really hard right now. there are a lot of times when i completely freak out. but it all comes down to i have been in love with him for five years now. am i really going to let all this go because we can’t physically be together every single day? even though this is all really painful to deal with, it would hurt even more to let it all go.
and i don’t get the looks as much now when people found out how we met since we’ve got such a history with each other now. but i will say that i tried to hide that fact from my mother for as long as i could. she wasn’t too happy about it, but she also realized that it isn’t common for me to meet people from online.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRR @ Eutychus lol… I went to bed thinking “WTF” and woke up this morning thinking “WTF” lol… ok now I get it (and vaguely remember reading a thread congratulating them on the baby - :smack:@me!
Technically I suppose my bf was my rebound guy too as I was just coming out of a pretty nasty/user of people type so called “relationship” (only thing that guy knew about relationships was sexual relations - the creep). Anyway bf always talked me through the hard times - then I’d tell him to piss off when me and the other guy were doing ok. When I think now of all that lost time - I deserve another :smack: for me lol…
We are 2,995 miles away - across an ocean too (and I can’t swim that well lol)… as with you, we both know each others daily lives, our friends, people we work with - we both have pics of everyone around us and talk twice a day (or more) on the phone and online at night too - so we definitely have a life together, just not on the same continent lol…
Thank you and I hope your move works for you - God, I do love a success story
Not yet - there are lots of reasons for this (primarly financial but also some serious illness issues)… but we will this Summer - date TBC.
Hmmmmm personally, I would have major difficulties with this. I never thought I was a jealous person but I am to an extent about him. Not a bunny boiler though but just because I care for him soooooooo much, I couldn’t bear thinking of him with anyone else (and vice versa). Exclusivity was extremely important to us both - he brought up the suggestion and I agreed totally. Our agreement is no messing around anywhere (in real life, on the net, anywhere). It works for us because exclusivity is very important to us.
Cool !!! Congrats on the baby too - my sis was just over from London with her 7 week old girl and she is such a dote … I miss her now (bf was getting a bit scared with all my baby talk lol)…
I don’t know the exact miles . . . think Boston vs New York. I met her at a party three months ago (new years eve), then came back to Boston to finish my master’s degree this semester.
I think it helped that we knew about the distance when this all started (in fact, I used to think that with all my school work, I wouldn’t have the time/money to sustain a relationship any closer). We usually found an excuse to cross paths every two weeks or so, but this time around it looks to be a bit over a month.
Since I’m in grad school, my presence in Boston is nothing permanent. However, that doesn’t mean I’ll be living near her when I finish. That part of it’s uncertain, but the rest isn’t. It’s working pretty well, everything clicks emotionally and physically, and we’ve talked on the phone or online every single day since we’ve met, so we’re definitely a big part of each other’s lives.
In my experience LDR’s have one major flaw in most cases: they tend to fail when they become short-distance relationships. You get two people who are living their relationships 99% in their heads, and when it becomes real and close sometimes things are different than one envisioned when seperate.
However there is the aberration of finding the true love of one’s life, spending 14 months seperated by 8,000 miles only emailing and the occasional phone call, then moving in together and finding the dreams match the reality, get married, move to Prague, have a wonderful daughter in your 5th year of marriage and celebrate your 6th anniversary in two weeks…
How did you meet?
Technically, here at the SDMB, when he was my victim in a White Elephant exchange. However, nothing came out of that - we actually started talking at the UnaBoard after he asked me to check into a thread, thought I’d have something to add.
If you met online, do you get that “look” from your friends and family when you say you’re in love with someone you never met?
Well, we never said the L word until we actually met and knew for sure. But family was rather gobsmacked when I told them. Gobsmacked, but supportive.
If you had your time over, would you choose long distance again?
I’d choose him again, every time. The associated heartache of being half a world away (he’s in the US, I’m in Australia, and we’re planning trips every five or so months) are just things we have to go through for now.
How did you cope with the absence of a physical relationship?
Very bloody badly at times.
Did you discuss the issue of exclusivity and how did you manage that?
Earlier on, we did say that, if we wanted to date others, that it was okay. That was before we actually met, though; although we haven’t discussed it since, it’s not going to happen. And it didn’t before we met either.
The long absences hurt - but they make the presences all the sweeter and to be treasured even more. One of these days, we’ll be together permanently.
I’m currently in a 3000 mile LDR.
I’m in Ireland, she’s in NY. We met when she took a year out to travel after college. She ended up staying in Ireland for longer then planned, but eventually left to go to law school last August. I’ve been over to visit 3 times since then.
I’d say the hardest part is the time difference and our schedules. We can sometimes chat online while I’m at work if I’m not too busy, but otherwise she doesn’t normally get home from school till after 6pm, which is 11pm here, so I’m often tired and ready to hit the sack by then.
Also, when we do see each other, sometimes it takes a while until we adjust to each other again, and then when we do, it’s time to leave.
But I love her, and am currently trying to get a green card so I can get over there. Plus, she’s doing her summer study abroad course here. 7 weeks to go!!
I guess mine isn’t really a LDR, more of a ShortDR - 40 miles, but with work schedules it’s far enough that we usually can only see each other on weekends. We try for “one day in the middle of the week” but with traffic and pets we can’t work it in. We met on-line and have been dating since last September. I had been dating other women, but exclusivity was extremely important to her, and after our second date she asked me if I would not date anyone else while we were dating. I didn’t have a problem with that and agreed. We are in the same dailing area so we can, and do, spend a lot of time talking on the phone. It seems to be working out well as is, but if we take the relationship to the next level one of us will have a long drive to work.
Well, I think it was more or less an effort to make me feel better about the fact that she wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to come see me. She felt that if she wasn’t willing to visit me for a while, she didn’t really want to tell me that I had to stay faithful to her if I wanted to stay in the relationship. I appreciated the gesture, but honestly, I was much more preoccupied with the way she felt about seeing me again than I was with her suggestion, so I really didn’t give it a lot of serious thought.
Personally, I don’t think I’d want an “open” relationship, because I can’t imagine her being with someone else, so I don’t think it really would have been fair for me to go off and have a fling. It seems to me it would just create more distance between us, and that’s not exactly what we needed. However, having that option there provided me with some amount of comfort, I suppose. As of now it’s kinda looking like I’ll be able to see whoever I want from now on, though, so I’m definitely not the one to be talking about LDRs that work (I’d put a smiley thing here, but none of them really fit…)
Philly/DC LDR here. I have so many freaking Amtrak miles I don’t know what to do with all of them…
How did you meet?
We met in college. I graduated a year early, he was on the 5 year program… He is finishing his undergrad and I am getting my law degree in DC.
If you had your time over, would you choose long distance again?
Sure, it sucks, but it sucks so much less than not having him.
How did you cope with the absence of a physical relationship?
Large vibrator and homemade porn. Sorry, you asked.
Did you discuss the issue of exclusivity and how did you manage that?
I trust him, he trusts me. If there was no trust we would not be able to make this work.
mmmmmmmm lets just say, neither myself and my bf are stangers to any of the sexual stuff any other LDR couple are invovled in !