““And one by one the nights between our separated cities are joined to the night that unites us.” ”
As I hung up the phone last night after a very long conversation, a topic close to my heart sprang to mind - about potential physical distance between partners. Now that the world is in so many ways a smaller place, we tend not to think so much about actual bodily separation. But when it comes down to it, relationships are not usually based on being hundreds of kilometres and states - or for that matter countries - apart.
Ask yourself the question; If you were separated from the person you love most for longer than a day, a week, a month - do you think your relationship would survive the travel test?
Obviously there are some partnerships which are more inclined towards this way of working than others (military and miners spring to mind), and hopefully people go into them with their eyes wide open. But for those who perhaps meet one day and strike up an unexpected romance - or even acquaintanceship, return to their separate corners of the world, then decide to make a go of it via e-mail, and phone, and text, and the wonderful world of the interwebs - is long distance love a realistic proposition or a romantic dream?
When it comes to keeping the flame burning bright over the boundless shores that constitute our wide brown land, I always think of the precursor to the horrendous You've Got Mail, the wonderful The Shop Around The Corner, with its post-war ideals of long-distance friendship and love between the literate. And yes, for me personally, there is no doubt that unless you have some serious electronic scribing skills going on, there ain't going to be much emotion across the ocean.
Don't underestimate the power of snail mail either; handwriting has its own mystery. And the joy of receiving a parcel in one's letterbox?
Grin.
But it's not just about an ability to write what the other person wants to hear. It's about whether the relationship has more behind it than immediate physicality. Is there friendship? Is there a partnership? Are you happy for the other person to be doing things without you - probably with people you have either never met, or maybe never even heard of?
Perhaps most of all... do you trust them?
And - do they trust you?
That's the biggie.
You can write each other all the pretty words in the world. You can phone each other until the cows come home. You can use FaceTime, Skype, whatever technology is available to you. But trust...
Old-fashioned? Perhaps.
But nonetheless valuable.
Whether you are trying to make a long-distance love work for a month, six months, a year, or longer (frightening thought), the essential question - and indeed the essential answer - will always boil down to that one word. And behind it is another word. I used it before.
Friendship.
With those two things well in hand, I believe you can span a country.
Or even a globe.
And of course, eventually... well, eventually you will both move mountains - or at least pack large numbers of boxes - and meet somewhere in the middle. Because that's the way the destiny cookie hopefully crumbles.
That's how it goes in the movies, anyway. So why not in real life?
Just this once.
