I was talking to Luke about one of his friends whose girlfriend had recently broken up with him. She had been living with a guy while she studied abroad in Australia and eventually they entered a relationship and she broke up with Luke's friend, saying that she "needed more space." At first, I was really pissed at the girl because she was dishonest and she followed the cliché of moving to a foreign country and hooking up with a guy there. However, Luke then told me that the guy had previously spent a year working overseas. So basically, they had been forcing each other into "long distance" mode for a year and a half. And after hearing that, I'm no longer surprised at all.

This gets me pissed at both of them. We've all heard about friends going off to school or studying abroad or going to Swaziland for two years. The friend is in a relationship, though, and so is confronted with the choice of either breaking things off, or feebly trying to enter long distance mode. And my opinion is that long distance mode basically doesn't work. I realize I'm not exactly an expert on this, but that's what I think. I'm sure you can think of an example where it has worked, but also think of all the times it hasn't. It's just not feasible.

So the only other option is to break things off, right? I would choose that over trying to do a long distance thing. But the real choice is even simpler: if your relationship is important to you, don't horking go on your year-long trip. I know it might be important to you to go "discover yourself" in Europe or some such nonsense, but when you choose to go on the trip, you are basically ranking it higher than your relationship. And that's ok - maybe it is a really horking important trip. But then don't expect your relationship to remain intact.

Basically, I view leaving your significant other behind while you go off to another country as a slap in the face. If I had a girlfriend and said to her "It is more important to me that I play video games for the next eight hours than it is to see you," you'd want to hit me, right? What if I said the same thing except I went to Australia and it was six months instead of eight hours? Is that really any different? I certainly don't think so.

So, after ranking your trip higher than your relationship, how can you be upset when it fails?

Comments are welcome.