By Kelly McPoyle, Lex Pryharski, and Sydney Mahmood
Tips
Kelly McPoyle (4 hours away from significant other)
Long distance relationships are a reality many college students know. With midterms approaching, and everyone's lives getting busier, it can be hard to see your significant other if they live farther away. Showing your affection from far away can be difficult, but there are still things you can do to make each other feel special, especially by showing your love through your partner’s love language.
1.) If your partner’s love language is physical touch
This is the most difficult love language to fulfill in a long distance relationship. Something that can help your partner feel like you’re physically close by is having something that smells like you. Spraying a stuffed animal or article of clothing with your perfume or cologne before sending it to them may make them feel close to you.
2.) If your partner’s love language is words of affirmation
Love letters! This is the perfect way to articulate your feelings for your partner. Getting mail is also fun, so it’s an added perk. You do have to take into consideration shipping time, which can be inconveniently long. If this is a problem you can always send them a text letting them know how much you love them.
3.) If your partner’s love language is gift giving
If you plan on exchanging gifts with your partner for the holiday, you can send it directly to them. This lets them know that you are thinking of them.
4.) If your partner’s love language is quality time
Today’s world of technology makes doing long distance a little easier. Facetime is the new hangout for couples that can’t physically be together. Making it a point to Facetime during the week is a good way to spend time with each other even miles apart.
5.) If your partner’s love language is acts of service
Sending your partner their favorite food through Grubhub or UberEats eliminates the chore of having to cook. While this could also fall under gift giving, helping them out with a daily task is always appreciated.
While long distance relationships can face obstacles not faced by partners who live nearby, there are still ways to make each other feel close. Take the day to make your partner feel special, and to love yourself a little extra also.
Personal Stories: ”The best and worst thing to ever happen to my love life“
Lex Pryharski (10 hours away from significant other)
Okay, okay, I’ll admit it, I haven’t had an affluent love life for most of my twenty years of living. However, my friends have deemed me as their own personal Cupid, so I must have some authority to talk all things love.
Two years ago–January 2020– I was a senior in high school and met the most handsome boy I had ever seen. He was everything and more: tall, blonde, blue-eyed, smart, and could melt my heart into a million pieces. After a date and a half we were dating, both of us over the moon. Nowhere in my mind was the prospect of long distance, as he was a year younger than me and I hadn’t committed to a school yet. Time went on and my lust for him grew into love and I knew it the same day I got my acceptance to the University of Pittsburgh. My heart flew out of my body with excitement, came back on it’s lasso and sank to my stomach: I got into my top school and I had to pack up my bags for a ten hour trip from him. I was told by virtually the entire planet to break up with him; it was as if the US census that year had the question “should you break up with someone because of distance” and the overwhelming population said yes. Despite the ballads, we went with our gut, and did it anyway. If you heard that laugh, and felt these butterflies you would too.
After almost two years of long distance, I can be your personal guide to say it’s 100% worth it. I have cried a hundred times over because loving this deeply with distance is exhausting. I have danced in my own company to the blistering lights in Lothrop Hall to our song –Bennie and the Jets if you’re interested– to stimulate the feeling of the serotonin rush that is the two of us together. There’s no WikiHow guide to this, it’s pushing through until the distance gets shorter and shorter, eventually so small it closes and I’m suddenly back in those arms with ease. However, I can say that a “ldr” has been incredible. Being able to watch someone grow into themselves, play the sport they love, and study what they’re passionate about is sublime. If I let the fear of distance get the best of us, I wouldn’t have met some of my best friends, experienced a Pitt ACC championship win, or eat Szechuan Express three times a week. I love this school and I love him so much. I couldn’t be happier that seventeen year old me didn’t let those voices get the best of us. After all, we’re too good, too frickin in love to not fight our hardest for this one.
Sydney Mahmood (4 hours away from significant other)
Long distance is challenging. Don’t ever be convinced it isn’t- sometimes couples learn that the hard way, others are able to work through it. It doesn’t make anyone’s experiences less valid because it works for one, but not the other. “LDR” shaming is something I have experienced more than I count. I don’t take it to heart because most of the time it is from people who would never put themselves in that situation-and that’s also OK.
Jake and I have been together for almost 2 years, long distance for 6 months. We first met in high school…became best friends…fell in love...all those exciting things. When it was time for me to actually leave, since I was home for my first year because of COVID, it wasn’t easy. I had many long nights where I was lonely, when our schedules just couldn’t work out, and suddenly there wasn’t time for each other. And that’s where it went all wrong.
To be frank, long distance didn’t work for us at first. We put too much stress on how stressful and annoying it was to be so far apart, but not enough on trying to grow together at a new stage of our life. We ended up growing apart in the beginning, and it was a long stage of my life trying to feel comfortable again after feeling secure for 19 years.
The biggest advice I could give anyone is how crucial communication is to making a “LDR” work. When we got back together, things changed. We went from a one minute conversation to say goodnight, to facetiming every single day and always keeping each other motivated. Always having a date to look forward to when we see each other again has been an amazing motivator to get through the distance.
We are stronger than ever, and even though we will be having years more of this, it isn’t something we have to worry about. We make it work, and anyone that puts enough effort into a relationship can make it work too.