Long Distance Relationships.

September is upon us! Which means that thousands of new students will be joining the university ranks, which, in my opinion, is the best experience of your life! But anyway, as I thought about all the new freshers, I recalled last year, when I myself was just a teeny tiny newbie (not that I’ve grown much in the last year), and how, despite how excited I was to be going to uni, I was nervous about whether or not my relationship would last.

I’d say I’m pretty qualified to talk about long distance relationships, as my last two have, at some point, involved distance. I was with my ex for 2 years prior to uni, and we were in a pretty good place as far as I can remember. When applying to unis, we knew that we wanted to do different things, so we both applied for different unis across different parts of the country. We didn’t worry about how hard it was going to be to stay together, as we knew that whatever decision we made about our uni choices was far more important to our later lives.

He ended up going off to Southampton, and me to Canterbury. That meant that if we wanted to visit each other, we’d have to get a train/coach into London, then back down again. We discussed everything before we left, having every intention of making things work, but as soon as we moved, I knew things weren’t going to last.

That sounds bad, but I did. It was inevitable. We were both enjoying ourselves far too much, and I’ll admit, I didn’t want to make an effort, because I was having too much fun where I was. I didn’t want to take a weekend out to go and visit, and I could slowly feel myself losing interest. As much as I still cared about him, it didn’t feel like a relationship anymore, and when we went home for Christmas, things weren’t the same in the slightest. We broke up soon after that.

Another example is with my then uni boyfriend, who lives in Cambridgeshire, about a 2 hour journey from me. When we went home for our Easter break, the distance had an opposite affect on our relationship. Instead of making us drift apart, I found myself making a ridiculous amount of effort to make contact with him, that I’ve never experienced before. I longed for our nightly 3 hours Skype chats, and I was so excited when we did get to visit each other. If anything, the distance made me love him even more, because of all that anticipation.

There’s no telling what way a relationship can go when it’s long distance. All I can say, is that if you’re both willing to make the effort to see and talk to each other regularly, I don’t see why things couldn’t work out. But I can’t stress this enough: never choose to stay close to home or go to the same uni as your partner, just because you’re worried about breaking up. You’re still young, do what’s best for you, and if it’s meant to be, you’ll find a way to make it work between you.