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Volume CXXXIII, Number 13 |
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Long-distance love can sing or screech; choose carefully
KARA OPPENHEIM
COLUMNIST
I recently saw Cold Mountain, which is a very good movie. But I had one fundamental problem with it-and, for the record, my problem was not, as some critics have complained, that the casting made it seem as though the Confederate States of America was populated with only attractive people because let's be honest, Jude Law and Nicole Kidman are just nice to look at.
But I digress. My issue was that I really didn't buy the idea that, after having known each other for a few weeks, this couple was so madly in love to spend the entire Civil War pining after each other and braving hell and high water just so they could have sex. Once. In a cabin. Again, yes, they may never have found a more attractive rebel, but honestly, all those years just for that? How did they even remember each other?
I'd like to think that maybe I'm just more of a realist than a hopeless romantic, but I decided to do a little research on the topic, which opened up quite a Pandora's Box of stories and advice. It seems that at college, especially at a campus-centered, more isolated school like Bowdoin, we are often faced with issues of love and absence. So this week I've chosen to focus on LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIPS.
Eve, who has been in both long distance and non-long-distance relationships (what are those? Close-proximity relationships?) explained the pros and cons to me.
"It's great to have your own sets of friends," she said of the long-distance variety, "and be able to just care about each other without the social pressure that can come from being at college together. But the phone bills and plane tickets get so expensive, and it just sucks not being able to see each other. It's always better to be with your boyfriend than not."
Stewart told me he didn't ever want to date someone at Bowdoin. When I said I found such a statement somewhat exclusionary, he explained that the strain that comes from being together at a school like this can be much more harmful to a relationship than just missing each other. And, of course, there are people like Chip and Anne who are just so in love that they don't care where they are.
But isn't there something to be said for shared experiences? Love is based on more than just someone who listens to you complain about how much work you have when it's only the second week back. Does that constitute a strong enough foundation on which to build something? No matter how often you email or talk to a person, you still don't know what it's like to be with them. Can it really be that intimate?
Yes, it can, if you're like Blair who spent four years of college visiting her boyfriend. She certainly did maintain their relationship, but it makes one wonder if she really got everything she could have out of her collegiate experience.
Unfortunately if you don't put in the effort, you risk the whole thing fizzling. As Bob said of a long distance relationship he had in high school, "Out of sight, out of mind, you know? It feels like a lot of effort for not a lot of return." And to tell the truth, it sort of makes sense.
Now I want to be clear that I am not denigrating the long-distance relationship. If you are in love, you should not let anything get in your way. But it appears that long-distance relationships can also be somewhat of a cop-out. It is neither good nor honest to maintain a long-distance relationship because a) you just want to say you have a boyfriend or b) it easy to tell your girlfriend you love her when you don't have to see her and she is kind of fun for a weekend every now and then.
Don't even get me started on the people who have a boyfriend or girlfriend away from Bowdoin and use that as an excuse to string people along. For the record, it is not fair to anyone to monopolize the dating pool if you are already taken.
Unfortunately, at Bowdoin, the social pressures of roommates, teammates, and friends, not to mention a past you can never hide, make it pretty hard to date someone here too.
So what's a Polar Bear to do?
Well, love is love, and it should not be ignored. And putting in the time and energy when you will spend your breaks and summers and perhaps your years after Bowdoin with someone is different than wasting your years beneath the pines wishing you were somewhere else with someone else, or even worse, always being somewhere else with someone else. Some relationships can stand the distance or even get stronger, and those are wonderful. It's just those that can't but are dragged out, whether by fear of change or reliance on image and labels that shouldn't continue.
I just read somewhere something along the lines of: "Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great." Now, I don't actually know who said this, or when, or why, and for all I know I may have gotten some of it wrong, but I do know that whoever, whenever, or whatever it has to do with, it's a pretty good analogy.
So take that into account when you're considering your own love life, and perhaps use it to make an assessment. Don't lose the best thing you have, but make sure you don't waste your time either.
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