Long-distance. Do you think you can do it?

If you’re stupid enough to accidentally (or deliberately) engineer a long-distance relationship for yourself, here are some things that will by their nature thwart you at every turn. If you don’t believe you can address all these points, it is better not to go. Paradoxically, if you can address them all, you’re probably not on holiday. Again, it’s better not to go. Empirical testing at the risk of my own relationship (actually I think I may have killed it) has been used to produce these results.

• Time. I was prepared for the timezone change. It’s just three hours behind, right? Yes, but in addition to the change in time-zone, you need to factor in the lifestyle changes.
  • Destination-related changes: in Argentina, for example, things seem to happen later in the day, from breakfast to dinner. If you’re already a late riser, things are going to get tough and your contact window to people back at home diminishes rapidly.
  • Holiday-related changes: You’re on holiday, right? I’m not a routine person, but even I have some semblance of order in my day. It takes about a week to get that back. It wouldn’t matter so much if the main person you needed to stay in touch with was there with you. I’m on tango time. That means quite often I’m still up at 0400. The rest of the maths is an exercise for the reader.
• Communication. Koki and I agreed that I wouldn’t send text messages due to the cost. I often didn’t take my smartphone out with me anyway. The result? You lose all the little “thinking of you” message opportunities that you used to have. And if you only think it and can’t act on it, the moment passes. Both partners feel unhappy.
• Distraction. The emotion gap. Change a lot of things at once (last month: I moved home, then left the country) and you create a huge emotional workload to process. You’re likely to be either down or elated. As a positive person, I’m normally the latter. Just imagine what that sounds like at the other end of the phone where everything is more-or-less as you left it.
• Cost. Enjoying yourself can be expensive. But in some ways, I’m spending the money twice. and not in a good way. Every time I have a meal out, not only am I paying for it but it’s also money that I haven’t spent with Koki. The first few times, you can reason it away. I’ve been doing this for two weeks now. I’m eating and sharing with a lot of people, and they’re great, but they’re also really, conspicuously not Koki.
• You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone (or nearly 7000 miles away). Never has this been truer. And when the “got” “went” because it was the only logical result of your selfish decision-making, you really know what you lost, because you can look back and see how you did it.