This Friday is Valentine’s Day, a holiday combining pagan festival with the honoring of Catholic martyrs, including a young priest condemned to death for officiating illegal marriages under Claudius II. Lore goes that he befriended his jailer’s daughter and left her with a letter that closed with “From your Valentine” before his beheading. Over time, the day has evolved into a date to celebrate romance in literature, popular culture, and sales on prison-made lingerie. Continue reading
romance
Our dear CaptainSnarky recently posted an image of LL Cool J and Chris Dorner remarking on their resemblance and noting that he’d bang Dorner silly if he wasn’t, you know, a psycho killer.
Snark’s confession has prompted me to come out of the closet and share my deep dark secret. There are celebrities hated by most Crassies and probably most right thinking people, who make my naughty parts tingle. When others are slamming these celebrities, I sit quietly, maybe nodding as if in agreement, but inside I am thinking, I’d do him in a heartbeat. Who are these doods? Continue reading
There’s an old joke in the gay community:
What does a lesbian bring on a third date?
A moving van.
Despite never having been party to anything involving ladyparts, I found myself this past June, if there is a kernel of truth in this joke, in a very lesbianic situation. The difference being that the moving van I rolled up in to my third date with Boyfriend was one that would take me some 3,400 miles and an ocean away from him to London. Mind you, he wasn’t boyfriend at the time, and we had an agreement to live our own lives after I moved away (I mean, it had only been 3 dates to that point), but as time went by we realized, even across the miles, that we wanted to be together, even if we were apart. Ten years of dating in New York City and I meet the love of my life 30 days before I leave. Fuck you, irony.
People always ask me: Isn’t it hard? Once I’ve reigned in my desire to throttle them while screaming “OF COURSE IT IS, YOU HALFWIT! DO YOU THINK BEING 3,000 MILES AWAY FROM THE MAN I LOVE IS FUN?!” I tend to reply “We make it work.”
And we do. Modern technology has made life for the long distance couple much easier, and we take full advantage of every possible tool available to us.
These things make it easier, not easy, which is an important distinction. If you’re going to be wading into a long distance relationship, there’s one thing you have to ask yourself before committing to long periods of emotional and sexual frustration, spending your days wishing your significant other was there, holding your own hand at the movies and trying to coordinate phone calls across time zones: Would I rather have this person, thousands of miles away, knowing that they’re really the one for me and that I’m willing to face some really difficult stuff to have them, or would I rather look for someone who I can see every day and touch whenever I need/want.
If you can honestly say that you’d rather hear “I Love You” from this guy/gal over a long distance line than look for something else that lives in your major metropolitan area, then you’d best read on and familiarize yourself with your Long Distance Love Toolkit, Crosby, Stills & Nash be damned.
1) Skype: Reliable online chat and video chat between free Skype account holders, now also available on iPhones and other smartphones. Using Skype only allows you to chat for free with other Skype users who are online, and allows you to make calls to any phone number from your computer or using the app at rates dependent on where you’re calling. Using it on a smartphone will tear through your data, but you can’t beat Skype for online video chatting for when you need to see your honey’s face, stare at each other longingly, or have a little cyberscrump. Skype also allows you to purchase a US phone number which will ring to your computer/app no matter where you are in the world. Buying a Skype number has, however, pretty much been rendered obsolete by the free service offered by:
2) TextFree: Textfree, while not the most reliable app in the world (the “Sorry, our servers are down” message has made me curse at my phone in public on many occasions), is still a Godsend. The app assigns you a free dedicated US phone number that uses your data network to transmit text. So instead of each of us paying 25 to 50 cents per text, you can text all day long for free. Happily, in November, Textfree added voice service – anyone in the US can call your Textfree number as though they were calling a US mobile. It will eat through your data as quickly as Skype – so try to get to on a wireless network before taking the calls – but I found that calls on my Textfree number are easier to pick up (Textfree takes about 8 seconds to pick up; Skype takes about 20, and by then you’ve likely missed the call) and are of great quality. Calling out will cost you, but I don’t know how much, because I make all outgoing calls with:
3) 1899: 1899 is an indispensable service for anyone in Europe calling the States. I didn’t realize until I moved how much Sorkin-esque walk and talk made up my days, and being able to do it for 1p per minute while power-mincing around London is so much more time-efficient than waiting until I’m home every night. You register with the service and calls from your registered landline or mobile numbers are 1p per minute to any number in the States (cost of calls to other countries varies). This particularly useful for when there’s an emergency or a need to talk immediately and you can’t wait to get home to your computer or landline. This will use your mobile minutes (but saves your precious data) so be sure your plan has enough to account for your international calling.
4) Apple’s iMovie: This is a handy way to see each other in spite of time zone issues. When Boyfriend and I know we’re not going to get a chance to Skype (or when we just want to be overly sweet), we’ll make short iMovies and email them to each other. A lot of the time he’ll make one for me before he goes to bed, so it’s waiting for me when I wake up, and I volley one to him before I leave for work, so he wakes up to me. This can be done in total from an iPhone 4 as well, which is great for mid-day messaging. It’s a nice alternative to email, and it’s equally good for being a little dirty when you want.
5) YouTube: A nice way to make emails a bit more interesting. Google “Long Distance Love Songs” and send a video along with any given email. I recommend starting with Snow Patrol’s “Set the Fire to the Third Bar”. You’re welcome.
6) Hand-Written Love Letters: All this technology is great, but old school romanticism is the stuff that melts me like a Cadbury Creme Egg in a cast iron skillet. Emails and videos can’t hold a candle to finding a hand-written love letter waiting for you after a long day. And it doesn’t have to just be letters – for extra adorableness (seriously, I fucking love this man), Boyfriend takes and prints photos of Hearts he sees graffiti’d around New York and writes love letters on the back of them, like personalized postcards. *Swoon*
More important than how you’re able to keep in touch with your Sweetie is setting some guidelines to keep you both from going insane. Obviously these will be different for each couple, but here are the rules Boyfriend and I have to make sure we both keep our heads on straight:
Never part without having plans for the next time you will see each other. This not only gives you something to look forward to, but removes the uncertainty that can destroy a long distance relationship. Setting a maximum for time apart (we don’t go longer than 8 weeks, no matter what) helps as well, though may not be realistic depending on your finances and the cost of getting to each other.
Have a Long Term Plan. No one can carry on like this forever. As much as I love him, I couldn’t see myself living 3,000 miles away from him forever and being happy with that. The “with” is the most important part of “Spending your life with someone”. Even if it’s a few years off, talk about where and when you will ultimately be together. It will remove some of the futility you might start to feel creeping in.
Get Comfortable With ______ Sex. Phone, Cyber, text, video… you name it, you’ll soon be engaging in it. When you’re monogamous and the object of your affection is far away, getting off with each other means taking to the spoken word, the webcam, the digital cam… essentially utilizing any and all of the tools above to get dirty with each other. AT&T’s now-defunct instruction to “Reach out and Touch Someone” will take on new meaning. Embrace it. It only feels weird the first few times.
Talk to Each Other About Your Frustrations. You’re in it together. You’re both going to get upset. You’re both going to be tempted. You’re both going to question it. Be honest. Be supportive. Talking about your frustrations will help you find a way to deal with them together. This includes airing your jealousy and insecurity – passive aggressive behaviour and jealousy are relationship killers when can read each other’s moods in person; when you’re separated by distance they lead to resentment, infidelity and misery.
Enjoy Your Time Together. We are not allowed to fight when we’re in the same city. We have limited time together, so we enjoy every second. No arguing. If one of us is angry, we put it out there immediately and calmly deal with it. Don’t waste your precious time together with bullshit. Have as much sex as possible, hold hands as much as possible, appreciate that the person you’re sitting with has worked as hard as you at this and must really love you to put up with the same obstacles that you have.
Good luck to my fellow long distance lovers out there (particularly our newly-minted long distance Crasstalk couple). And if anyone asks you “Isn’t that hard?” I hope this helps you be able to truthfully respond “We make it work.”