The Long Road

This post is supposed to be about long-distance relationships and whether I think they are viable or not. I'm not sure if that's what it's going to end up being about, but that's where I'll start. Having two "homes" for at least the next two years means that unless I end up swearing off women, which is unlikely, that I have a fair chance of ending up in one of these situations. I used to think that long distance relationships were silly and impractical, but since I have gotten to know people who have dealt with said relationships I feel as if I have moderated my position. That said, I still feel like you should never enter into any sort of long-distance thing without a certain commitment. People often say that for long-distance to be viable, some substantial groundwork has to already have been laid in the relationship. I don't entirely agree with that, in the sense that you have to have been dating for a long time. Obviously you can't decide when you fall for someone, that's up to fate. I think that the prerequisite for a long-distance relationship is mutual willingness to commit to the timeframe. You don't have a LDR for it's own sake, the idea is that at some point it will no longer be an LDR. For example, if I were to start dating a girl now, we would both have to be quite sure that we would be willing to date the other person for a minimum of 9 months, plus some time to actually reap the fruit next summer. I think it is difficult for people to internally commmit to a lengthy time frame such as that on short notice, but it certainly isn't infeasable. Larissa and I were only good friends for two months or so before summer, and should the opportunity have been afforded me then, I would have been willing to commit for quite a length of time. In that particular case I knew after only a couple weeks. I think cases like that are rare, and it is rarer still for it to be reciprocated, but my point is that the time you know someone beforehand is not as important of a factor as some might think. As in any relationship, the key to an LDR is trust. It is even more of a key in that case. LDR's will not work unless both the people have complete trust in the other's fidelity. This, I have observed, is the downfall of many LDR's. The second key factor is communication. In an LDR, communication is key to maintainting a strong bond. Probably 90% of the LDR's I have observed have either succeeded(to this point), or failed bacause of one of those two factors. I guess my conclusion here is that in my case, for the next two years, if I find myself in a potential LDR, 100% trust and 100% communication have to be deal-breakers. They both are already important and are in the top 10 on the test, but there is a difference between the levels of trust and communication I would normally require and the 100% that I believe is neccesary to an LDR. Speaking of communication, I had a great conversation yesterday which I feel derserves some words, but since it is on a totally different topic, I feel like it needs its own post. Maybe I'll do two posts in one day (woah) or maybe I'll wait till tomorrow. We'll see if work picks up here. Plus I have to think of a good title. Coming up with post titles that encompass the content is one of my favorite parts of blogging. The next post will need a good one.