Long distance relationships are hard for everyone involved. If you’re involved in one, they’re hard for you—for obvious reasons—because you don’t get to see your significant other nearly as often as you’d like. They’re hard for your friends because they have to hear you complain constantly about missing your significant other. Plus, they’re hard for your parents because when you do finally come home, all you do is hang out with, you guessed it, your significant other.
But, there’s something about the college setting that makes long distance especially hard. You’re with your friends 24/7, to the point where your friends become an important part of your family and your life. While you’re with friends constantly making incredible memories, all you want is your boyfriend/girlfriend to be there with you and to meet all of these people who mean so much to you.
Not that I speak from experience or anything.
I won’t even attempt to undermine the struggles with long distance relationships, but I do have some helpful tricks that I’ve picked up through my experiences.
First, it’s not good to communicate too much. Communicating with your boyfriend/girlfriend 24/7 can lead to clinginess and, on the flip side, it removes you from your day. If you are constantly on your phone texting or snapping someone, you have less time to enjoy the company of the people actually there with you and you don’t enjoy things nearly as much as you would if you would just put down your phone.
To combat this, I suggest calling/FaceTiming your significant other at the end of the day. I’m not suggesting that you don’t speak to them at all throughout the day, but if you save some of your day’ s events and news for the end of the day phone call, it gives you something to talk about and gives you and your partner the opportunity to recap the day for each other.
My second bit of advice is certainly easier said than done, but try to see the distance as a positive. From my experience, distance does, in fact, make the heart grow fonder. Long distance is very much a learning experience as well. Not every couple has to endure long distance and it’s a telling sign to see a couple not only live through it, but thrive. Through that experience, the both of you will grow stronger, together.
Unfortunately, there is one kind of long distance relationship that I truly have no advice for because it’s one of the worst pains and saddest goodbyes when going away to college. That is, of course, to your pets. Everytime my sister FaceTimes me, I always make sure to talk to my 11-year-old golden retriever, Rex, and everytime I do, he cries and barks at me through the phone. If you’ve ever experienced this then you know it’s 100 percent guaranteed to break your heart.
If you happen to find yourself in a long distance relationship with your significant other, I hope my bits of advice were of some use to you. But, if your long distance relationship is with your dog or cat, then we can certainly hang out and cry about it together.
