The End of Semester Blues

As I walked around the quad of my university today, I noticed many couples, hugging goodbye, and straggling around kissing each other for the final time.

It's a heartbreaking scene watching the person you care for, walk away not to see them for three or four months, maybe an entire summer, and the next semester if God forbid they're going abroad, but after the pain and tears and the tearing of your heart, I wanted to let the couples out their know something...

You will survive.

Summer is not an eternity, soldiers have gone off to war for years at a time, with only a pen and paper to keep them tied to their loves back in the states. People can survive without physical intimacy for months, if not years. It's only in this fast paced world of globalization where we begin to doubt that we can survive within a relationship without physical contact.

Now I have been in numerous long distance relationships (LDR) and have survived the months of separation endured through semester/summer breaks as well as LDRs where neither party saw each other except for a passing glance of a couple of days for months at a time, and after all of these experiences I can guarantee one thing that will help you hold onto that love for the entirety of the relationship, no matter the distance.

There's this little invention called the phone. Telephones can allow you to communicate over states, countries, and continents. In order to keep a relationship working you have to be willing to put in the time necessary to make your partner and you happy. My roommate will talk on the phone to her boyfriend, who lives many, many states away for hours on end. They have agreed to make this commitment to each other where they converse about every aspect of their lives via the phone and in some cases skype. Skype is also a brilliant invention which allows you to see your love across distances. While I'm not currently using skype to talk to a boyfriend, I do utilize its marvelous powers to converse with friends from California to Cairo, Egypt, and let me tell you this, even though I cannot see my friends in person, it is a comfort to know that we can set up a Skype date and just talk to each other as if we were sitting with each other in the same room.

It's my experience in LDRs that if a party is unwilling to meet the minimum requirements of the other party, then it should be noted that perhaps that person will never be able to give you what you're looking for, and as someone who deserves to have their needs met, you should really reconsider the relationship. Thirty minutes to an hour every day is not a lot to ask of someone who claims to love you, and if they are extremely busy one day, a little leeway should be given. However, if they blow you off continuously over and over again, because they spend too much time in the library or find their friends at home more interesting than their significant other who is 1000s of miles away, you should really sit down and talk to them about what's bothering you, because it will only escalate should you ignore the problem.

What I'm trying to tell you is that even though the end of the semester may be approaching, it is not necessary to immediately break up with your significant other because the long distance will kill you since you wont see each other every day or so, and if you break up with them because the long distance wont allow you to have the physical gratification usually alloted with dating someone, then maybe you should invest in materials or a sexual therapist who would be able to help you work out your sexual frustrations.