Long Distance Love

Love can be hard, put a long distance in with that and it can be even harder. This story is all about the experience I had in one. We will call her LDL to keep her anonymous. But settle in this might be a long one.

I came across LDL on a forum, back in the day of MSN messenger. When I saw her photo I knew I needed to speak to her somehow. I don’t believe in love at first sight, but LDL, wow, something about her made me want to be with her.

Fast forward maybe 6/8 months. A lot had changed in my life at this point. Luckily one thing that hadn’t changed was her MSN address. I don’t remember lots of things but even now I could tell you her MSN address. Don’t ask me how or why. I struggle to remember my own number.

However, this story doesn’t start at the 6/8 moths stage though, oh no. The first time I saw her in person she looked amazing! A gorgeous black dress, immaculate make up, hair and style. You’re probably thinking “Paddy I bet you were smooth as fuck and nailed the opening line of you look stunning” you’d be wrong. I couldn’t even say hi, the first thing I said was “Would you like a drink?” I walked to the bar kicking myself. However, in my mind I was thinking “At least her boyfriend isn’t here dragging me outside and beating me up!”

Yes, she had a boyfriend. Something I never thought I’d end up being involved in. Its not my proudest moment as I’d met her just before I broke up with my ex as well. Now i’m not looking for excuses but me and my ex were done for. It was all but over. I’d been sleeping on the sofa, we’d not had sex for some time and we just didn’t get on. I didn’t know what would come of LDL at this stage but I knew no matter what I wasn’t going to stay somewhere I wasn’t happy. Days later I ended it with the ex. This is a different story though and I’m not sure i’ll ever write about this ex in great detail.

Shortly after this wild night with LDL, something I won’t go in to here, we stopped talking. That brings us to the 6/8 month part mentioned above. She messaged me, shit SHE messaged ME! I’d not heard from here for some time. She wanted me to go down to see her, one bank holiday evening, not to stay over like before, just to see her. I didn’t think about booking anywhere cause I didn’t realise i’d be down there until the small hours of the next morning. A dark park car park in my car wasn’t the place I thought i’d say i’d ever have sex. It was a small car, tight squeeze but it was good sex. Luckily she didn’t rest up against the car horn after.

I drove back home and I knew then I had to have this girl. I was in love with her. She was talking to her then on and off boyfriend, the bloke from up there, I knew I needed to make a move fast. I invited her up, I took her to see every family member I could. I wowed her with a nice weekend full of things to do and made her feel how she should’ve felt. Then it was time to take her home.

As I drove her home I could feel her eyes burning in to me. I turned and smiled at her, she was already smiling at me. Then it came “I know what I want to do” I thought “Shit this is either going to be one amazing drive or really fucking awkward.” She took my hand and said “I want to be with you!” I wanted to grab her and kiss her. I couldn’t I was driving. And so was the start of the long distance relationship.

We lasted 3 years. It was a great 3 years, some great times and breaks away and some great sex, i’ll write about some of that later. We were young though, we met probably too soon in life.

We saw each other pretty much every other weekend. Being the only one who could drive it was hard work sometimes. I’d stay down there one week and then the other i’d pick her up on a Friday, bring her here and take her home on the Sunday evening. I loved it, she loved it. When it was great it was great. The problem was when we fell out/argued, which didnt happen often, you couldn’t just pop round to see each other and sort it out. Phones could be turned off or ignored, MSN settings could be set to away, or you could just block until you wanted to speak to them again. This was hard. Worth it, but hard.

We rarly argued. We got on well she took to the family and friends straight away. The thing with long distance relationships is you need to make the time count. For us, it felt like we were in the honey moon period for a long time because we didn’t see much of each other. You need to trust the person from the get go. In a month we would see each other for 5 days, normally. Thats a lot of time to be apart from each other. Without trust you can go mad wondering what someones up to if they don’t ring when they say, go out for nights out with friends or other things like that.

We had that trust. I knew at times she’d ignore her phone cause she didn’t want to talk I was fine with that. I’d sometimes ignore MSN when she messaged. We didn’t lose trust though. It was key not to.

I’d spend hours on the phone to her, we bought webcams so we could go on cam together, yes there were times they got a bit steamy but again when you are apart from each other you need to keep things exciting. Now theres things like FaceTime and What’s App, video calling is much easier than it was back then. It’s also a lot easier to have some form of sexual fun. Its hard trying to balance a webcam and laptop and make everything look good.

We spoke constantly about a future, this is also key because without discussing a future after a while its hard to see how things can progress. She wanted to move up north to be with me and my family. She loved them and they loved her, which made the split even harder.

I always said I’d do it all again, the long distance thing, it worked for me and her at the time. Her family told her i’d given her the spark in her eye back, she had amazing eyes, my family said I was happy again, both were true.

We had our ups and downs, who doesn’t. We fought, we made up and got things on track. However, in the end she met someone else on holiday, a holiday I could have gone on with her family. I turned down the chance to though. Everything happens for a reason right.

3 years of great times, fun trips, great memories and great sex and yes, I will write about some of that at some point. But it ended. We met up a couple of times after we broke up, 3 if I remember correctly. Once for a week away to see if we wanted to get back together. We didn’t. The other times were just a weekend thing.

For me I’d highly recommend a long distance relationship. The pros for me far out weighed the cons. Even the lack of seeing each other was made up for with how much fun and how good the time we got to spend together was.

All I’d say is be ready for a bit of a slog. Distance can be a good thing, it can help your relationship. If you like your own time its a great place to start a relationship. You have space and a lot of time to yourself. Make the most of that time. Don’t waste it, just like you don’t want to waste the time you have together. It makes the time more precious when you have to drive 3 hours to see someone.

It was what it was. We had good times as i’ve said a few times already. It was enjoyable I had some great times driving down to pick LDL up or to meet her. I’d do all that all over again for the right person. Don’t rule it out, we live in a world where we can see more of each other now in different households or countries than ever before. The right person might not fall in your lap, they may need to drive to you or vice versa. But, if they are worth it, they are worth it. Nothing will get in the way of love.

Paddy