Wish You Were Here

Taking sides: Absence makes the heart grow fonder VS. Absence makes the mind wander.

Depends on what you mean by distance.

Judith Chalmers once read my name out on telly.

Well, people can answer anyway they want regarding distance. But in my case it might be other-side-of-the-planet for 6 months to a year. Maybe 1 or 2 visits during that time.

Were you having a long distance affair with her?

if you are talking physical distance then, yes, it can work. but i think it depends on the distance (or more precisely, the feasibility of semi-regular seeing each other), and then, whether it is a permanent or temporary distance affects too

other side of planet for 6-12 months isn't that long. if s/hes worth it, you can stick that out

I tried it, didn't work really, it's just fizzled out since new years. ah well.

I'm having a no-distance relationship with her now and preparing for an impending separation. I actually don't forsee it being a big deal, we've been together for years and gone through shorter periods of the same thing a couple of times without falling apart.

But this isn't about me, it's all about you.

A snowball's chance in hell. But hey, there's always that one in a million chance...

I have a friend who has been going out with the same guy for seven years, despite only having lived in the same city as him for the first and latest six months of their relationship. She amazes me. In my experience, it's a bit rubbish. But I think it can maybe work if both of you are v.independent and tend to feel crowded with a partner around all the time but at the same time don't want to be sleeping around.

Also depends on how long you've been together and what you think your intentions/expectations over the longer term are, maybe?. The friends we had staying at the weekend are v long term couple (7 or 8 years, I think) who've gone through most permutations of couple- contact: dating, living together, living in different cities seeing each other most weekends, so on. Now he's in Manchester and she's in the states, longish visits 3 or 4 times a year. They're pretty happy for now; it means living with a radically moot future but I think that's less important than it's often supposed to be for lots of people. Friends of mine who've been together 12 years or so and have ALWAYS lived together (and pretty much in each others' pockets - are essentially married in all but name) have always thought my other friends' relationship incomprehensible/superficial/doomed to fail, but it turns out the married ones are more likely to be split up before the end of this year. I like to think there are no rules, or don't need to be.

I have a friend who was in Norway about 2 years ago and he met a girl he liked but had to go home in ten days. So they decided to keep going out. He ended up cheating on her about 5 times, however she forgave him and he lived over there last summer. Then she came over here to do Aupair work and he's cheated on her some more. She's kind of his live in slave actually. I'm not sure how this story is relevent, I just wanted to tell you about my friend.

How does he live with himself? I really don't understand people like that.

I have a strage feeling of deja vu

YOU MONSTER

or maybe I mean dejà lù

He's a selfish dick. I mean having said that he's still one of the people I get on best with in the world, even more than lots of other close friends, but this is possibly because I'm not the type to tell him to stop acting like a dick. I never see these things as my business, and I can't bring myself to lecture my friends or even advise them.

Also he has a big self denial thing going on, I mean he denies cheating on her or makes excuses for it. I don't know, when they're together they seem to get on. The rest of us gave up trying to do anything about it ages ago.

Furthermore the girl actually has some idea of all this and seems to be his willing slave. And er.....it makes me feel guilty but I really dislike her for not telling him to fuck off. As harsh as it sounds I can't help it.

Nick and I are morally very similar, this scares me for some reason. It should scare Nick too, as a good friend of mine decroibed my morals as crazy and fucked-up.

You should exploit this crazy and fucked-up morals thing more shamelessly, Chris. Chicks love it!

descroibed

I better post less, Chris has started to get an Irish accent.

really? Chicks are weird.

Actually Ronan there was no 's'. It's not Irish but a peculiar Yorkshire/Walthamstow hybrid accent spoken only by Chris and a toothless barrowboy in Chesterfield.

I lived apart from my fiancée for the first nine months of our relationship so I'll say: yes.

ahem, Derbyshire.

I had a feeling I was wrong but I was too lazy to check. Sorry Chris. Incidentally, yes, chicks are weird. They're from Venus or something.

that would explain a lot.

Do they have sex tourist trips to Venus? You two should go.

No, they all became illegal aliens here, silly.

You missed your calling, you should be writing gags for bazooka bubble gum wrappers.

Scott P's engaged! Unsurprisingly, as Scott P is awesome.

I had no thoughts on this matter until my girlfriend moved. Now I have a very long and whiny take that I won't even go into except to note that (a) it depends on what other sorts of life-development changes are going on based on the movement (i.e. "I'm moving back home" is more workable than "I'm moving to a whole new city to start an exciting new life that you won't be around for") -- and (b) as soon as "arrangements" start being made about who's allowed to see other people and what who's allowed to do with them, a major threshold in the tits-up probability has just been crossed.

a major threshold in the tits-up probability has just been crossed

Might be me, but I think the phrase 'tits-up' is probably not always best to use when talking about romantic travails.

Yeah, all my friends are probably still together because of a congenital resistance to "exciting new lives", and a tendency to fail to wholeheartedly embrace them should they present themselves. I can't say with any certainty whether this is a good or bad thing. I include myself in this group, by the way.

I think I've said this on ilx before, but every Bazooka Joe I've ever seen here has been imported from israel, so I don't think I've ever read a Bazooka Joe comic in english. My hebrew is a little rusty, but I think this is the joke:

Bazooka Joe: Why did you take the stairs?
Other Guy: Because it's written on the lift that it only holds twelve people. And I didn't want to wait till 11 other people arrived!
Bazooka Joe: !

I'm not sure about the "Did You Know.." bit.

Ellie: I used to write a lot about whether or not that was a good thing, but never got much beyond the "moderation" cop-out. It sometimes strikes me as possibly the single most important thing human beings have to deal with, this question of how radically and how reasonably the can (or are willing to) alter their lives and lifestyles: it's like this ring to be grabbed that nonetheless seems tainted enough to keep you away from it. It's massive, trading yourself in like that.

I used to be very disinclined to do such things -- which is frightening insofar as it makes me think maybe I was happier then than I am now. (Following this logic means you and your friends have always been happy: hooray.) Currently I remind myself that the "exciting new life" transition tends to be far more crushing than one imagines it. But this is also sour grapes, really: aren't people always getting those satisfied looks on their faces and talking about how much they prefer where they've gotten to? (Or is this just sort of self-fulfilling hindsight?)

Do you see why I think this is so important?

The answer to the question is yes.

Christ, I really know how to stop a thread dead in its tracks these days.

When I met my friend K, she had just broken up with her boyfriend. He was in Ireland and she was in the States. But then they got back together a year or so later, and now they are married and have a child. So it sometimes works.

Usually it doesn't, but currently it does. For me, not seeing them that often just makes me more fond of them. This, of course, brings up the question of whether I am really seeing them for who they are, since time and exposure to them is limited. But there are other modes of communication that make love through long distance so much easier (IM, email, etc.) I agree that long distance may damper love sometimes, but it can also make it that much better. I think sure, of course it can - anything is possible.

Do you see why I think this is so important?

Yeah yeah yeah, of course (and Nitsuh you are no thread killah). I can't elaborate on why without activating my patented phd rant and entering into depthless pools of bitterness and self-pity, and I don't do that in public so I won't, but yes, it is important (though by no means for everybody, historically or socio-economically) - the sense that there's a better version of your life to be lived, and the transformation it might involve, and how that might disrupt your self-narrative to the extent that you become unrecognisable, and whether resisting that is wallowing or authenticity.

by no means for everybody, historically or socio-economically

It's definitely more pronounced for modern first-worlders -- where the opportunities for reinvention are unprecedented and massive -- but I'd actually argue that it's largely universal: the difference is that in some circumstances it expands to be more about familial history or social structures than "self." There have always been families and professions and hometowns to take leave of, guiltily.

But the only other option is to stop thinking of one's "self" as a coherent linear narrative, which is probably neither possible nor desirable -- not even jump cuts or chapter breaks.