Someone Special lives 1060 miles away from me. I don’t think I mentioned that before, here.
A long-distance relationship isn’t something that is all that new to me. I’ve done it twice before, although I wasn’t looking specifically for a long-distance relationship in any of the three cases (wasn’t looking for a relationship at all when I began having feelings for SS or the person my prior relationship was with). It just seems I tend to meet people that way (twice online and once through a mutual friend who gave us each other’s phone numbers).
Because it feels more natural to me to live in my head than in the physical world, it stands to reason that I would find it easy to feel drawn to a person by connecting mentally first. (Of my four closest local friends, one is my sister and the other three I met online, on varying types of message boards or networking web sites.)
For a romantic relationship to develop, some people’s brains are wired to need that face-to-face initial contact, and some people need a physical attraction to happen before emotional feelings can develop, but I’ve never been either way. For me, the connection always begins at an intellectual place and then goes from there. I really don’t feel physically attracted to someone until some level of mental connection or feeling has already begun. This time was no different in that respect, but is very different in many other respects.
I’ve been happy to find that the reactions of others, with regard to the whole long-distance aspect, are much more positive now than in years past. I suppose, rather than “more positive”, I should say that people seem “less baffled”. It’s so much more common now to meet a significant other online than it was ten years ago, and it was 19 years ago when I met someone through a mutual friend and carried on a long-distance telephone relationship before finally meeting face-to-face. People seemed to find that really weird, back then.
I don’t think people are as baffled after the initial meeting has taken place, but when there are strong feelings and even future plans being discussed before that point, that’s what seems to throw those who aren’t inclined themselves to connect with someone that way.
My parents met in a long-distance relationship sort of way, back in the mid-1950’s. My dad was in the Air Force and mutual friends introduced them through the mail and they became pen-pals. I hadn’t consciously realized, however, until just recently, that they met face-to-face a total of three times before their wedding day. That blows even me away. They just celebrated their 53rd wedding anniversary and they are still the very best of friends.
But, in spite of my parents’ obvious success and the acceptance and encouragement of others around me, one of the biggest hurdles for me to get over in the early stages of this relationship has been the long-distance thing and what I’ve done with it in my head.
This is the healthiest relationship I have ever had. Some might argue it’s the first healthy relationship I’ve had. The communication is amazing, as is the ease with which we can talk about anything. Seriously. Anything. I so often hear myself saying something and mentally acknowledge that in X or Y relationship, I could never have said that, or if I had, I’d have been criticized. I’m sure that over time I won’t compare this relationship with past ones so much. I have already begun to not do that as much as I did earlier, and I’m completely enjoying it for what it is, and for who we are, individually and as “us”. But the fact that two of the three most serious relationships I had before SS began as long-distance relationships, even though the reasons those relationships didn’t work had nothing to do with the distance and they wouldn’t have worked no matter how we’d met, doesn’t escape my notice. Illogical as it may be, I have that connection in my head, and I’ve been working hard to overcome it.
Still, I’ll feel better after we’ve had our first face-to-face. It isn’t that I need that to prove anything to myself; it’s just that I think it will be easier to talk to others about it once they know that yes, we have met in person. And of course, there is the fact that we miss each other and are just really looking forward to being in the same space.
This will happen in December. We began acknowledging our feelings for each other back in August, but decided to set the date of our first visit in December for a few reasons, the biggest being that I need time to prepare. My hoarding / clutter problem has been out of control since sometime in 2005, and even though I’ve been making some very good progress, it’s a time-consuming project and I have a lot of work yet to do. I feel good about it, though. That’s the coolest part. At some point, I’m not sure exactly when, I relaxed from my tense-to-the-point-of-nausea state, panicking every time I looked around and thought, “I’ll never have this done in time,” to suddenly looking around calmly and knowing that, as I told my therapist, “I’ll be ready enough.” I may not have every single thing perfect, but life isn’t perfect. Life is a continually ongoing and evolving process, so nothing could be or remain perfect anyway. The best we can hope to achieve, I believe, is a state that feels right to us. This relationship feels right to me, and each weekend, I take another giant step toward my living space feeling right as well.
And this seems like a good time to share some Tips For Feeling Closer And Remaining Connected While Miles Apart. These tips would be good for folks like us, who met and have been getting to know one another from a distance, as well as for couples who are temporarily separated physically due to work, military, or other obligations.
- Utilize every form of communication you have at your disposal, whether you use a telephone, email, postal mail, chat, texting, what-have-you. SS and I talk every evening, sometimes engaged in active conversation and sometimes just hanging out and doing what we individually need to do in our homes while spending time together and talking about whatever. (Bluetooth is our friend.)The connection we feel is so strong that we sometimes forget we haven’t been face-to-face yet. Once in a while, I forget she isn’t local and hasn’t been here. I’ll refer to a particular intersection or town and forget that she has no conceptual idea of it yet. One day, she mentioned that she was going to go mow her lawn and I opened my mouth to say, “But it’s raining outside,” before I remembered that it was only raining here.It’s amazing, how, when you have spent hours at a time talking with someone, you reach a point where you learn their auditory cues and know how they are feeling based on vocal tones or how they sigh. You can “hear” facial expressions, especially if you share photos often.
– - Share photos or video often. As often as possible, anyway. Even photos that may seem silly can make your partner feel closer and more included in what you are doing. A pretty flower that you see while you’re out doing your errands, or a photo of something cute your pet did, or pictures of the progress you made organizing a particular room or section of your home . . . they all make it feel a little more like being there. Make the virtual visual. SS made some video clips of the rooms in her house this past weekend, and I enjoyed them immensely. It gave me so much more of an idea what it might like to actually be there. I’m planning to make some video also, but I’m still a bit hesitant to do it right now, before I’ve accomplished more in my de-cluttering, although SS has seen several photos I took in April, and she is the only person besides me who has seen that many of those pictures. My therapist hasn’t even seen them yet. She will. In time.
– - Watch TV or movies together. SS and I have movie night, usually one night a week unless we’re really busy with other stuff, as we have been lately. We take turns choosing a movie and then both order it from Netflix, and watch it together over the phone. It’s easy enough to sync up by saying, “One, two, three, go” and pressing Play at the same time. We have regular TV shows that we record and watch every week, also. It’s still a shared experience, even if we aren’t able to be sitting in the same room.
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- Send care packages whenever possible. Surprise each other. Pick out romantic greeting cards that describe how you feel and write a note inside. The surprising-each-other thing keeps reminding me of All My Children, back when Ryan and Greenlee were married and they’d made a vow to surprise each other every day. Of course, every day is most likely impossible, but it’s so much fun to surprise your partner with something you’ve put a lot of thought into, and it’s also a whole lot of fun to receive that surprise and to be reminded that your partner was thinking of you. The care package before last that I opened from SS contained gluten free cookies and muffins that she had baked for me. Talk about feeling loved! That was awesome. In my last care package to her, I sent some printed items I’d made up (hat, note paper, calendar) with a quote about wine (she makes wine) and some neat wine images. I also sent some framed note cards that match the decor in one of her rooms. I’d had the note cards for quite some time, in a drawer, because I loved them, and now they can be displayed on her wall. She is always sending me practical items that I need, as well . . . I believe the next package is the one that will contain new guts for my toilet . . . should I explain that one in more detail? If the definition of romantic is “thoughtful”, it actually does fit.
More in a future entry . . .
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So, I saw on Friday that 
