Long-Distance Relationships

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I think what I miss most about being in a relationship is being the most important person in someone's life ? even if I don't see them for long periods of time, which was the case in my last one (over 4,000 distance between us). Being apart for long periods never seemed to bother me all that much.

I'm not saying that if I found my soul mate (I kind at hate that term, actually) that I wouldn't want to be with person full-time ? I think. But I can deal with lost of separation. Perhaps I just need to get over the whole idea of needed someone in my life and just be happy alone, which I am most of the time ? I think.

Paging a crack team of psychiatrists. Put me in your lab and have at me!

I'd rather just be AN important person in said someone's life; there aren't really any superlative human traits relevant to this discussion, save for the one that says you can still appreciate someone whenever you can't see or hear them. I'm perfectly happy alone any time I know I might've helped people reach that same goal.

I do okay with long-distance relationships, too. For awhile, anyway. At some point, if that person becomes really important to me, I *am* going to want to be with them full time, or at least more often than once every few weeks or so.

Most of my long-distance relationships have been in the "3-5 hour drive away" category - how the heck do you *ever* get together if you're 4000 miles apart?

I think being happy alone is something we don't value so much in the West. If you are happy alone, there must be something wrong with you, right? Maybe what I'm really saying here is that I'm OK alone, as long as I have some sort of intimate contact to regenerate me on occasion.

Ok, I'll be totally honest here -- and probably shock you and a lot of people with this exposition. ALL of my relationships have been long-distance (there have only been three). The closest was actually 600 miles.

In the case of the over 4,000 mile separation, she lived in Switzerland. Yeah, we didn't see each other that often -- the longest we were ever together was about six weeks. I guess I'm just so used to being alone, that these arrangements don't bother me all that much.

Heh. I enjoy sex too much for that to work for me.

Oops, TMI?

Nahhh, it's just being honest. I think most people would feel the same way.

Well, IF, and I stress IF a serious long term thing is your goal, what I've found is that if you aren't happy alone, you're not going to be happy with someone.

I dated a girl for a few years, even got engaged to her, and the whole time I got blamed for all the ills of the relationship. Towards the end, I started to realize the reason I couldn't "make" her happy was because she was an unhappy person and thus there was nothing I COULD do.

If you haven't found your happiness outside a relationship, don't go looking for it in a relationship. The only way someone can be happy in a relationship is if he or she is a happy person. An unhappy person in a relationship makes everyone miserable.

^^QFT.

There was a saying in the military that long distance relationships never work out. Not entirely true of course, but the odds it did seem were stacked against them.

I personally no longer think of long distance contacts as entirely real. They seem to exsist in a sort of separate space outside of reality. So if I was looking for a relationship that is not where I would look.

If you want a relationship then, I suggest looking around you, at the people you can actually get to know IRL.

Too many people go into relationship looking for the other person to fill the holes -- it's never a good thing. Yes, you have to be happy with yourself, first or it's not going to work out well.

Oddly enough, I never really sought out the long-distance relationships I'd had -- they just sort of developed.

Ended an LDR a couple months back-we're both liberal childfree atheists, a rare demographic indeed.
I wasn't into the idea of long-distance, but it did feel good (to us both) to have someone to type back & forth to each day.
That was what I missed the most when it ended, because it constituted most of our interaction-t
hough we did have a handful of occasions where we spent a few days together.

On the one hand, long-distance is often a practical choice because I live in a location with low population density,
and it's very difficult to find someone with whom I'm compatible.
On the other hand, long-distance was inherently problematic for me, because I want & need to be able to physically be with someone (and I don't just mean sex,
I mean all the other stuff) regularly, more than once a week-and in this relationship, it was more like once a month or once every few months.

By the way, OP, I had a look at your blog & agree with you about the disparity between a person (singular) vs. people (plural).

Interesting, Belfast. My last partner was an atheist and childless like myself. as well. Not sure about the liberal part, though. She was more of a socialist, while I'm a left-leaning moderate (I think).

I'm glad you found something on my blog with which you agreed. That reminds me, I need to get back to work on that site.