Written by 
Once upon a time, long distance love affairs must have been rare. Most people didn’t travel, and only through travel would people meet each other. Then all you had to maintain the romance was letters, which would have been slow. When it took a couple of weeks to cross the Atlantic, mail didn’t swap continents at any great pace.
Travel is both faster and a lot more affordable, and the internet makes it easy to stay in touch. So at least in theory, long distance relationships ought to be easier. Certainly more people seem to be going in for them. I know a fair few people who have had international affairs, sometimes meeting in person, sometimes never moving out of the virtual realms. These days, meeting people online is a daily event. Can you fall in love in cyberspace? Can you have a meaningful relationship with someone you’ve never met in person?
Sometimes, yes.
I say this with the absolute confidence of someone who has done it. I met my other half, appropriately enough, through a publishing company a lot of years ago, and we were emotionally involved before we met in person. It was strange though. It took me a few hours to mentally reconcile the virtual person with the actual one, to map my perceptions and emotions onto someone who was finally in the same room as me. I had also spent a lot of years not being entirely sure if this virtual thing could be really… well… real, but it was, and is. We’ve been married nearly a year now.
But I’ve watched friends form relationships and not be able to sustain them. The distance and the not being able to touch can be lethal, even if you do feel strongly about someone. People online often lie as well, talking themselves up to attract a mate, or saying whatever it takes to get the ego boost and sex play they require for private kicks. It’s easier to lie through a screen than it is in person.
Long distance love affairs are challenging in every way. They hurt. If you do get time together in the same place, they hurt even more. I used to wake on my own in the mornings and roll into the empty bit of bed where Tom wasn’t, and cry, on pretty much a daily basis. You’ve got to be very serious about someone to keep putting yourself through that, and you’ve got to feel that they’re worth it. That kind of emotional pressure puts extra demands on a relationship. It’s got to be more than the average hook up. It’s got to be epic to survive, but it also means the smallest of setbacks can look huge and insurmountable. The slightest misjudged remark can seem like the end of the world.
I could have piled a lot more angst and misery on my guys in The Price of Love. If I’d tried to realistically show what a long term, long distance love affair does to your heart, and your head, I’m not sure anyone would have believed me. It took a year from first getting together in person to being able to live together. Plenty of regular relationships don’t last that long. But I didn’t want to tell a story in which two sexy men spent most of their time being anxious, struggling with paperwork and trying to keep hopeful. I let them off lightly, all things considered.
Related posts:
