The Distance Between Me and You

13 Nov

A long time ago (so long ago it seems like it happened to someone else) I met a girl that I fell in love with. Hopelessly in love. We were living at the Jersey Shore at the time. A couple of months after we met I lost my job at WJLK AM/FM. Six months later, my unemployment insurance near it’s end, I found a job (my last in the radio biz) in Stamford CT at WSTC/WQQQ. I had to leave the Jersey Shore and my love behind. Sorta. We decided to keep the relationship going despite the distance. We alternated weekends at each other’s apartments.

It was not a fun drive. [Google maps link]

If you look at the map link or are familiar at all with the NYC Metro area, it looks like taking I95 (the NJ Turnpike) south the whole way would be much faster than the route shown which takes you over the Tappan Zee Bridge and down the Garden State Parkway. It isn’t. And for one very good reason: New York City. If I took that route it added an hour to the trip. If the weather was bad add another hour. If it was snowing add two more.

So from July of 1990 through February of 1992 we kept the relationship going. Alternating weekends at each others apartment. I discovered some interesting things about what distance does to a relationship.

 

  • When you are not together your life during that time feels almost surreal or dreamlike. So for five days out of every week I was in Stamford at the radio station or at home in body but not in spirit. 
  • You spend a lot of time missing the other person. Usually five days a week. The worst time was the drive back or watching her drive away. 
  • Driving to her place felt like a race to the death and every car or slow down an obstacle. 
  • Time together is precious. So much so that you have no time to have a normal relationship. You miss them too much to have even the littlest difference of opinion, time is too precious for that.

 

Because of that your relationship is not really growing. You are trapped in a Groundhog Day of your own devising.

But eventually I quit the job in Stamford and moved in with her. That as they say, was the beginning of the end. Just over two years later, it was over.

One of the things that I learned from that relationship is that our long distance dating routine probably did nothing more than delay the inevitable.

Needless to say, my intimate experience with long distance dating cured me of ever wanting to do it again. I know this is not a preference shared by everyone but long distance dating is just not something I care for. Because of that I am careful to mention that preference in any profile I post on an online dating site.

Forward some fifteen years and I am corresponding with someone through OKCupid for a week or so. And all of a sudden she stopped answering messages. It happens all the time, rather than saying “thanks but no thanks” many women just stop answering. Just to be sure I write a couple more emails in the next couple of weeks. A few days after my last message she answers.

Since it has been a while, I re-familiarize myself with her profile. That’s odd, now her location is listed as San Diego. It used to be Austin. I ask about that.

She answers with the somewhat puzzling “I like to keep my options open.”

Huh? A couple more emails later I manage to pry out of her that she actually lives in New Mexico.

So why wouldn’t you just come out and say where you live instead of wasting my time and effort?

While I was writing this post I got to meet a woman I have been corresponding with on an off for a while but never met. This lady. We met and talked about blogging and online dating and some other stuff. She is beautiful and exceptionally bright. But there was something she said about her online experiences that turned the light on over my head. About why the girl from New Mexico wasn’t honest about her location.

Being online allows you to easily be impolite and dishonest with no real consequences. In fact it actually takes an effort of will to treat someone with consideration. I guess it’s just the nature of the beast. It’s like the bathroom at a gas station, you don’t care if you make a big mess, you don’t even think about it because you won’t be back.

Lisa and I talk some more and we both realize our experiences have been similar. In that all the crap we put up with to meet someone whom we hope will be special makes us wonder if there is something wrong with us.

“If I am not connecting with anyone there must be something wrong with me, right?”

No in fact there is not. I approach an online relationship the same way I approach any other one, with honesty, consideration and respect. I don’t want to over generalize here but most people I have met online don’t seem to put the same effort into it. So Lisa and I, two interesting considerate and whole human beings, are treated like a used tissue. And that’s too bad.