Why do I always have multiple parts to posts? I’ve got to stop doing that. 

Remember waaayyy back in January, when I had just ended things for good with Mr. Potential and I wrote this post about long-distance relationships?

Well, I was talking about this exact same notion with a friend of mine a few days after I posted it because she wanted to know why I had actually ended things with him. It was simple: he put literally no effort into us. None. But let’s not get back into that.

The point is, I keep a little note file on my phone and had this little note tucked away from January (I actually put the date beside my blogging ideas so I can try to remember why I wrote down that little half-sentence). This note just said “01/28 re: long-distance, all are long-distance” and I finally remember what I wanted to say about that because I asked her about it on Monday.

While talking to my friend about Mr. Potential and how he basically forced us into having an “in the same city but having a long-distance relationship” relationship for our super short time dating, she made the comment that 95% of my relationships are long-distance. She didn’t mean just romantic ones, but that most of my connections with people are over long-distance. And it’s basically been that way since I was in university.

Here’s her rationale:

Le Brother started university in Ottawa (6 hours away) so that’s been long-distance since 2005. When I was in my last year of university (in 2010), my parents moved to where they live now, which was an hour and a half away. So that relationship turned into long-distance. Then I moved out to where my parents are now, breaking from all my friends which meant that all those relationships were now long-distance. Then Korea so literally all my connections with people were long-distance. And ever since then, I’ve lived at least an hour away from people that I’ve cultivated some form of relationship with.

Looking at my life now: my closest friends live an hour and a half drive away, my parents are 2.5 hours away plus my friends there, my brother is 4 hours away. So all the core relationships that I put time and effort into are long-distance. So maybe it’s not the long distance that is has been the problem, but it’s been the other half (or possibly myself) that’s been the issue?

She brought it up as something to think about that when both people in the relationship (let’s take her and me) want it to work out, then it works out. We make time and put in the effort to connect (text, Facebook, emails) and see each other (random, spontaneous lunches anyone?) and that works for us because that’s what our connection needs. My parents and brother I text constantly, I call when I need to hear their voices, and make the special effort to drive out and see them when I miss them.

Some friends I had in high school live in the same city as this friend and I have them on all the same social media sites and can connect just as easily, but I literally have no idea what is going on in their lives. I’ve put in no effort to stay connected, they’ve put in no effort.

So maybe she has a point. Maybe it’s not the long-distance that’s the problem, maybe it’s the intention of the two people who are in that connection that determines if it works out or not? But then I’d like to think that that’s how all relationships work, not just the ones where you don’t see the other person as much as you’d like to.

I don’t know. Just a thought. And now I can finally clear that from my blog post note and make that list a little bit smaller.