Long Distance Relationships

So. It’s the big one. Long distance relationships.

It’s taken me a long time to write about long distance relationships. This is partly because it has taken a few months for me to fully understand what long distance relationships mean, but mainly because relationships are incredibly personal matters and I wasn’t sure it was something I wanted to share with the world-wide-web. Yet here we are. I obviously changed my mind.

 I think long distance relationships – both with a partner, with your friends and also your family – can be one of the hardest parts of the year abroad. You go from a comfort net in which you have support in every area, and then you end up in a country where you know no one and know nothing. It can be a lonely experience. It is when you are in very alien situations that you crave the company of those you care about the most, and this is exactly when you cannot have it. So seeing as I have lived through 6 months of long distance relationships and now only have 3 months to go, I thought I would share my experience and potential new-found-wisdom with those of you that may be facing it in the future. Hopefully it will make you feel better about the situation.

I think first of all I need to address what I mean by the term “long distant relationship”. If you know me personally, or even have read any of my other blog posts, you’ll know that I have a boyfriend (Jamie) who I have been with for two years. So obviously when I am referring to long distance relationships I am referring to him. But there is much more to it than that. “Long distance relationships” are not defined to only a partner – it can also refer to your friends, family and even pets. Any relationship you have with someone becomes long distance when you move abroad, and therefore any relationship can be challenged.

So what do you need to bear in mind when thinking about long distance relationships?

In my personal opinion, there is one underlying factor that makes long distance relationships difficult: the time difference. The time difference is undeniably the biggest b*tch of the year abroad. There is an 8 hour time difference between England and Vancouver – 3 hours more than for the provinces on the East coast. It is difficult to arrange phone calls because any time it is the evening in England it is actually the middle of the day in Vancouver, and so I am usually at Uni, or doing a shift at work, or, on some special occasions, skiing. Then, as soon as it is the evening for me and the most ideal time to phone my family, it’s the middle of the night in the UK. It is an endless cycle of annoyance. As a result, phone calls have to be organised and scheduled. “I’ll ring you on my lunch break at 2pm which will be 10pm for you, okay?” I find this incredibly restrictive. Gone are the spontaneous phone calls when you just fancy a chat or need some advice. The only person that I don’t have this problem with is my friend Kyle who is nocturnal and is happy to stay awake until 5 in the morning, granting me the perfect time for a phone call. All of this said, you do eventually get used to the time difference. In the end, it is not that much effort to schedule phone calls. If you really want to speak to someone, you will make the time to do it.

The other thing to keep in mind when thinking about your long distance relationships is that you can go home for Christmas! I personally chose not to go home for the holidays and for me this was definitely the right decision. I am not the kind of person that gets very homesick, so I didn’t feel like I needed that family comfort. Plus, being on the West coast of Canada means that I am that much further away from England and the flight is that much more expensive, so going home isn’t that easy! I also had a huge number of my exchange friends staying in Vancouver, so I definitely had someone to spend the Christmas holidays with. But this was just my experience. If you are the kind of person that needs to touch base with your family and friends in order to propel yourself through the year abroad, than by all means do it. After all, Student Finance England can help to cover the cost of 3 return flights! If this is something you can benefit from (it is means-tested – just ring them to find out) than you should definitely use and abuse it. So if you are really worrying about long distance relationships, than you don’t need to worry too much, because you can always go home for Christmas if you need to.

With all of that aside, how am I coping with my long distance relationships? Starting with my family. I didn’t really expect to miss my family that much while I was away. This isn’t because I don’t care about them or don’t love them! But my family members are all pretty dispersed – we live across 4 different British cities – and we haven’t lived collectively as a family for a number of years now. I am used to not seeing them all the time. That said, I have actually missed my family a great deal more than I had anticipated! I think there is one central reason for this. No member of my family has been to visit me (yet), and so when I talk about my friends or the places I go they cannot contextualize it in any way. I haven’t been able to share my new life with them. In particular, I am very sad that my siblings won’t be able to come and visit me, but I suppose that is what I get for travelling 4000 miles and £600 away. However, thank you to Whatsapp’s free video calls, staying in touch has been relatively easy, and both of my parents are coming to visit me later in the semester, which I am really looking forward to! I can’t wait to see a face from home. Even when you don’t actively miss someone every day, it is still amazing when you do finally get to see them. 

Next, my friends. I miss my university friends a lot. Most of the time, your university experience is shaped by the people you know, and so to have these people absent from your new university setting is very strange at first! I study the same course as my two best friends, Eva and Lois, so I am used to seeing them every day in class. Also, American and Canadian Studies at Birmingham is a really small course, so I generally know every one within my lectures. This meant that when I arrived in Canada and knew no one in my classes, I found this pretty lonely! Every class I take at SFU has different people in it, and when you only see people once a week it is hard to build good friendships with them. Plus, sometimes when they realise you are on exchange, people stop making an effort to be friends because they know you are going to leave eventually. So in my experience it is harder to make course friends, which makes me miss my university friends a lot. I also miss my friends from Solihull. It takes a few months to build really solid relationships, and so for the first few weeks of the year abroad, although you have many friends, you don’t have many good friends, simply because you haven’t had the chance to get to know them well enough. And so in this case, I really missed my housemates and friends from home. Now that I have been in Vancouver for 6 months I do have a solid group of awesome friends that I could turn to with anything, but it does take a few months to get to that point – naturally – and so before I had that well established base I missed the comfort of having my best friends near-by. Plus, the majority of my friends have turned 21 this year, and so I have missed endless parties and gatherings! I know this is a superficial thing, but it is still tough when you see all of your friends reunite for a big event. In particular, I facetimed my best friends Caitlin and Poppy during Lottie’s 21^st, which actually left me feeling pretty homesick, which for me is a rarity! But I have loads of exciting things planned with my friends this summer, including some more 21^st s when I get back, so this is far from the end of the world!

And that brings me to the last person. Of course, my boyfriend, Jamie. Being in a long distance relationship is hard, there is no denying it. I miss Jamie every day. Especially in the first month of exchange I missed him constantly. The hardest part of being in a long distance relationship is that you have to change what your relationship is built on. Jamie and I loved going on adventures, watching films together and having sleepovers. None of these things are possible when you are 4000 miles apart. So instead you have to build your relationship on other things – FaceTiming each other, sharing stories, discussing the TV shows you love. We had to learn how to be just as involved in each other’s lives without actually seeing each other. And that is hard! But we learnt how to do it. Jamie and I definitely have benefitted from the fact that we are both on exchange – he is also having a year abroad in Copenhagen. This means that we are both in new cities and new countries, having exciting adventures with new people. This removes any sense of jealousy that may exist if one partner is still at home. Plus, we’re both getting two incredible holidays out of it. Jamie came and spent two weeks in Canada at Christmas, and I am going to Copenhagen in March. These are both incredible opportunities! And yes, flying to see your significant other during your year abroad is expensive, but in my opinion it is definitely worth doing. I knew I would really struggle if I did not see Jamie for 10 months, so we prioritised and saved up for those two holidays to guarantee that we would see each other. And I have been able to go on other trips in North America as well, so it has not detracted from my experience here! So with foresight and planning, it is definitely possible to meet up. What I am essentially trying to say is that being in a long distance relationship is difficult, but it is completely do-able, and if you committed to that person you will make it work. In my eyes, I have the best of both worlds – I have managed to come on this awesome adventure while maintaining my awesome relationship.

And there we have it. The long distance relationships. I think the biggest take away from this is that everything gets easier over time. The more settled you become in the place you live, work and study, the less you miss home. It is just the transition that is difficult. When you get into a routine, you can overcome the time difference. When you make a good solid base of friends on exchange, you miss your home friends that little bit less. In terms of relationships, you learn how to love each other in a different way, which I actually believe makes you a stronger couple. So long distance relationships are tough, but they will always get easier, and it is always worth it. And anyway, rather than the people at home, what you should really be worrying about are the long distance friendships you are going to have after the year abroad! A few of my best friends from exchange are Australian – from Sydney and Melbourne – and so these friendships take the term “long-distance” to the extreme. Who knows when I will be able to see them again! In comparison, 10 months away from the people in England doesn’t seem as bad. 

I usually try to keep my blogposts relatively short, but this week I have apparently failed to do that, so well done if you made it this far! I hope it was useful in some way.

***Also, a disclaimer: it is actually complete coincidence that I have posted this two days before Valentine’s Day, so don’t read too much into that!

Carrie x