by Mj Ferruzza

Created on: December 05, 2008   Last Updated: April 02, 2009

Love has been defined on many different levels. The aspect of love in a long distance relationship has levels of its own. Some people enjoy distance in their romantic affairs. Distance protects them from intimacy issues that they may have a hard time trying to overcome. Distance keeps the relationship spicy, so little time leads to so much passion. Distance can be a necessity when lives and jobs call for one to be away from the other. Distance can be disabling when one or both partners crave contact that close intimacy provides. In a fulfilling relationship, I believe that close contact will always win out.

By being so far away from a partner, one tends to pigeonhole the relationship. It's a syndrome I call "I'll get around to it when I get around to it" or "out of sight out of mind". One of the first aspects of a romantic or loving relationship is building the other person up in your mind. Of course reality can come crushing down in an instant. Long distance relationships work that way, but detrimentally too! What is he doing? Who is she with? Why won't they commit? These are ponderous questions that plague the parted partner.

Gifts, flowers, cards, calls are the modus operandi of sending long distance love tokens. But they pale in comparison to personal contact. Is the relationship real or just a matter of convenience, when possibly convenient. Many long married people dream of the joy of having two residences, one to use as an escape. But in a long distance relationship that reality comes to light. These are two people. They live in two different worlds, better stated environments. They possibly have separate friends.

They possibly have different goals. There is possibly a comfort zone, but at any moment one or both partners can feel animosity. I see a long distance relationship as self serving more than anything. Set the parameters, set the boundaries and move on. It's long range practicality is suspect. And it takes little to upset the apple cart. We are no longer world explorers though some salesmen would beg to differ. We are now a generation of nesters. home bodies.

Trying to get two long range partners live this way is more an impossibility than an improbability. Have such relationships ever worked? Sure. But that number is quite low in comparision with couples that have devoted there life to closer or more intimate daily contact. Sharing is what builds the strong bond in a loving, caring relationship. Distance askews the sharing process, trying to make up for lost time. Partners who try to make it work by long distance may have heated moments, IM chats and phone calls, but they lose out on the reality of the day to day. It then becomes a question of is it love or fantasy?

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