Online Dating - Long Distance Dating
Keeping love alive from a distance
After a cautious start with online dating you finally found your feet and figured out a system for screening out the possibles from the improbables and you've narrowed your search down to a few people. You've been organised about the whole thing, being lead by your brain and not your heart and whittled it down to a few candidates.Having met them, you've decided that they were nice but they didn't quite ring your bell. You've parted on good terms, been perfectly civilized about it and moved on ever hopeful that one day you'll come across your soul-mate.
Suddenly, and completely without warning you hit upon someone who just seems to be your missing part. You chat at length on the internet but you desperately need to meet up in person. Unfortunately there is one 'small' problem - you live hundreds of miles apart and neither of you are so flush with cash that a regular flight or train journey is a viable possibility. Can the relationship be made to work?
The short answer is 'yes' - if you both really want it to.
It's not going to be easy, though, and it will be a real test of how strong a relationship you have. Most couples will fail but a small percentage to succeed and those benefit from this stringent test early on in the relationship. 'If it don't kill you, it'll cure you' as they say.
The two biggest problems are talk and trust and, if tackled properly, they can be dealt with together. There are a few simple ground-rules, though. Lack of trust is an insidious destroyer of relationships. You both need to recognise this and kill it dead at the outset.
- Sign up for a low-cost VOIP telephone service like SKYPE so that you can talk for hours without worrying about the bill.
- Share the journeys or, if this is not viable, share the cost. If one person is making all the moves or picking up the tab more times than not, then he or she will come to resent the other partner.
- Decide early on about sleeping arrangements. It is unreasonable to expect the travelling party to pay for hotel accommodation and then take a taxi to come and see you. Likewise this does not mean you have to have sex on Day 1. If you don't have a spare room, then make up a comfortable sofa bed or buy an inflatable mattress.
- Keep something at each other's apartments as if you had moved in together (even if you aren't sleeping together). It makes it feel more permanent.
- Always respond to emails, texts etc from your partner the same day if you can. Don't make them feel that they are only a minor, transient part of your life.
- Don't make expensive purchases without talking to each other about it. How do you think your partner will feel if they see you buying a new outfit and then saying you don't have enough money to come and see them?
- Do silly, corny romantic things like toasting each other from a distance or reading to each other over the VOIP service.
- Decide at the beginning that you trust the other person completely with regard to their fidelity. If you don't or feel that it would be inappropriate then don't suggest or go along with long-distance dating.
- There will be times when you feel insecure, when you wonder if your partner is cheating. Unless you have something concrete to say, then keep your thoughts to yourself. Insecurity is a huge turn-off and will destroy a long-distance relationship in seconds.
- Never listen to other people who will try to fill your head with ideas for other dates or who will set out to introduce doubt into your head about whether your date is seeing others. If they have facts then they should tell you. If they do not and they still persist in trying to destroy your long-distance relationship then they cannot be considered to be friends.