Return of the Relationship Fairy

In My Humble Opinion
1

Despite an unprecedented effort to destroy her, including joint military efforts from the world’s great nations and a special mission run by Jack Bauer, the Relationship Fairy managed to escape to safety. Now, six months later, she’s returned to wreak more havoc. And she’s starting with you.

Assume, if this is not true in your life now, that you are single. The day before the Relationship Fairy’s return, you’ve met someone new of your preferred sex for the first time. The person was visiting from out-of-town. It was a really pleasant meeting, you both got along well, you thought the person was really swell. You haven’t really reflected beyond that. And now, the Relationship Fairy tells you the following:

"You know that person you just met yesterday? If you allow it to happen, you are going to fall madly in love with him/her, and vice-versa. You two will find that you are very well matched and have wonderful chemistry. You’ll love each other, treat each other with tremendous respect, and the sex will be wonderful. You’ll find it hard to be apart.

Unfortunately, apart is exactly what you’re going to be. You two live thousands of miles away from one another. And circumstances in your life are such that you’ll be able to visit each other every couple of months or so for brief trips, but you won’t be able to live together or in proximity to one another for somewhere between eighteen months to two years from now, no matter how badly you want otherwise. And you will definitely pine for one another in the meanwhile because the love will be so strong."

With that, the Relationship Fairy flits away before you can even so much as flip her off. After letting out some choice expletives, you use your sources at the NSA and their advanced FutureScope technology, and you’re are able to verify these predictions, but without any more detail than you’ve already been given. So, now you know that you can have a wonderful connection with this person, but that it can’t be truly fulfilling for quite some time.

Do you avoid the situation to prevent the potential heartache? Or do you let it happen? Please explain why or why not.

2

Pfft, I’ve done that before. Twice! Bring it on, Relationship [del]Bitch[/del] Fairy!

3

Been there, done (half) that. If I’m madly in love, it’s worth the wait.

4

I’m as callous as they come, but even I’d never pass up the opportunity. I’ve done long distance before (1 1/2 years and 2500 miles apart) for someone who wasn’t The One. How could you pass this up? Unless you’re terminally ill, it would be crazy to pass it up.

Crazy!

ETA: Who are you people who would run the other way? Explain yourselves!

5

When certainty is offered this is a fairly easy choice. 18 months of waiting for a lifetime of happiness, assuming there isnt the ‘die in a car accident’ a day afterwards evil fairy twist involved.

In real life, long distances can work, but the odds arent great. Id do it for someone Id already committed to and had a history with even given that, but the amount of long distance ‘we met overseas for 3 weeks and one day we’ll really be together and it will be just great’ stories Ive heard end in tears isnt small.

Otara

6

I’d let it happen because if I were to move in with this person, I’d soon be visited by the entity outranking The Relationship Fairy . . . The Reality Fairy.

7

I can afford to be patient. Plus, after a lifetime of solitude, I’ve grown accustomed to my own company, so this would be a gentle reintroduction to couple-dom.

8

I’m going to fight the hypothetical here. In your attempts to shut down any attempt at taking a third option, you’ve constructed a situation in which free will apparently does not exist, making the question of what I would do meaningless. In other words, your hypothetical sucks.

9

Well, it’s a stretch, but okay.

Let it happen. What the hell else would I do for the next two years?

10

This.

11

Just to buck the trend, I’m a ‘no way’.

I’ve come to realise that I’m somebody who is happiest in a close relationship where I get to share my life with someone - full time. I don’t particularly enjoy being single and wouldn’t enjoy the feeling that I’m dating part-time, whatever the long term pay-off. In fact, I think it would make me pretty miserable what with the combination of feeling like I’m mostly single AND missing this other person. Having experienced a period when I was involved with someone I could only see sporadically, I know how unhappy it made me.

I’ve also been around the block enough to know that there isn’t just ‘One’ potential perfect mate, so if I pass on this one, I will still have every chance of meeting ‘The One’ around the next corner.

12

The only way this hypothetical makes any sense is if the OP is in his 50s or 60s. Otherwise, anyone that’s even marginally tech-savvy knows that a long distance relationship is not the hurdle it once was thanks to Facebook, IM, Skype and dozens of other applications. On top of that, trips to see the other person are allowed.

And 18 months isn’t really that long when you know for sure this relationship will last a lifetime.

13

The Relationship Fairy is so misunderstood. She’s just trying to spread knowledge and love and a little bit of misery!

Justin_Bailey, as someone who’s in a LDR I can agree that it’s not the hurdle it once was, but it’s still much harder than a local relationship. It’s worth it, but it sucks.

14

Don’t think I meant it would be easy, but even compared to just five years ago it’s a whole new world for LDRs.

15

Well, I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t know if I’d be willing to commit until we were able to see each other on a regular basis.

16

Repeated the OP to M’Husband.

His response?

“Do I have the option of thumping the Relationship Fairy?”

17

I vote for let it happen, but be careful. One problem in this kind of situation is that every time you see each other in person, it will have an “on vacation” feel, which makes it harder to know how things would be for you as a couple if you were together in a day-to-day circumstance. If you’re in love after the 18 months are up, great! But if one of you decides to relocate at that time, I would say you should live apart in the same city for a while to see how things go.

That said, I would definitely go for it!

18

Well, not really. I was in a brief LDR in the late 90s and the basic technology is still the same. There’s text chatting, there’s phone chatting, and there’s video chatting. All of these things existed in 1996 and 1997. We used them.

I don’t know what relationship value you’re seeing in Facebook beyond that, but I don’t see it. Of course, I remain baffled by Facebook despite using it to some extent. It just seems like a clunky waste of time to me mostly.

19

I said yes. But there’s a caveat: Are there any other prospects in my life at the time?

Because if there are a half dozen girls who I think are interested in me, I might just rather date one of them than wait two years.

20

Even being married and living in the same house as my wife, it makes me smile when she’s posted a funny link to my wall. If I were in a LDR, that kind of interaction would be even more important.