If you can't see the person on a bit of a lark, it's a long distance relationship. Or maybe better: if you couldn't concievably live together without one or the other making enormous sacrifices, it's a long distance relationship. I could easily imagine a 3 hour trip being sufficient to declare a relationship effectively long distance. I think you just hate love.
It's funny how different distances are once you leave the East Coast. I think of a three hour drive as very far away -- unambiguously a long distance relationship. Out in those big square states, three hours seems to be what you drive to go to a movie.
Uh huh. You know what they call a bunch of tractors around a McDonald's in Iowa?
Prom night.
Or maybe better: if you couldn't concievably live together without one or the other making enormous sacrifices, it's a long distance relationship.
This could easily include too much.
come now. If you live in two distinct metropolitan areas, you are in a long distance relationship. I don't care if it's Washington D.C. and Baltimore.
There are certain sister cities -- St. Paul and Minneapolis, Oakland and San Francisco -- for which this is not true. You could also argue that those two regions constitute single metropolitan areas.
Even if you are making that three hour drive every weekend, it is a long distance relationship. You have to drive for three hours to see the other person, who presumably, lives in another city.
Anyway I grew up in the East Coast so perhaps that colors my understanding of the phrase.
ok, if you live in two distinct metropolitan areas, you may be a bigamist with a double life or something.
please replace with: if you and your lover live in two distinct areas.
text: your definition is a little restricted, I think. I used to live in Bahlmer and commute to WDC, and dated girls in both (nb: not at the same time). I would even say that a Philly-NYC relationship is doable. Considering people in our society will commute 90 mins one-way to work, being in two (proximate) metro areas might not necessarily by long distance.
I think the "unacceptable amount of time/energy" definition has a certain amount of truth to it.
But "undoable" and "long-distance" are not same thing, though they often overlap. And perhaps we need better definition of what you mean by "doable" and thus what you mean by "relationship."
what SCMT said. Some long distance relationships are more doable than others, and one important factor would be how long the distance actually is.
Totally OT, but I saw something at Gawker that needed to be noted. From a Frank Rich column, apparently: "But despite its minor adjustment for a Starbucks that didn't come, it has less often bent to shifting trends and times than bucked them, staying largely the same while all around it changed, while the muscle of the Mineshaft gave way to the Manolos of Spice Market and risqué was usurped by chardonnay."
Can there be any doubt that ogged is really 40-something Frank Rich?
3 hours isn't too bad, but what about 4-5 hours?
Maybe the index should be: are people too tired to have sex after the journey, no matter the medium?
Another issue is reciprocity. Some people get into situations where one person is doing all the traveling (perhaps the job is out in the middle of nowhere...).
Even if it's not too bad in terms of hours, there are psychological dangers in that...
Data point: for several years my wife and I worked in Midwestern cities that were a three hours' drive apart, and we (mostly) lived together. We certainly didn't consider it "long-distance." Academics do this kind of thing all the time, which doesn't mean it doesn't suck.
Tweedlegirl and I live 4.5 hours away from each other. I make this drive two or three times a month? Is this not a long distance relationship? Also note that if either of us had to commute from the other's abode, it would end up being more like 5 and a half or six hours. I say, if you can't plan to wake up at a reasonable hour and make it to work from the other person's residence, it's long distance. Distance isn't really a factor. It's not like it changes overnight and I can't drive back because it's longer. The traffic does get worse though. How about this. If going to the airport and flying there is shorter than driving, then it's long distance.
Tripp--Why do you make a joke about Iowa in response to a comment about big square states? Iowa's one of those little bitty eastern states like Wisconsin. (Seen from Salt Lake, and probably from Lubbock.)
I agree with Mike D, anyway. Maybe the test should be: Could you stay over on a work night?
Wow. I am geographically innumerate. I went looking for some data to back up my impression that Utah was really hardly any bigger than Ohio. So I could make a snarky comment at Matt's expense. Turns out it's more than 50% bigger.
I blame that damn Mercator.
"'What's the use of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian lines?'
So the Captain would cry, and the crew would reply,
'They are merely conventional signs!'"
Lizard, you rule.
Chop; yeah, you move out there and your concept of distance gets reoriented completely. Salt Lake City is just completely not near anything. Really, one of the reasons I was happy to move to Milwaukee is that I was getting back east--I can drive to Pittsburgh in, like, 10 hours.
Really, one of the reasons I was happy to move to Milwaukee is that I was getting back east--I can drive to Pittsburgh in, like, 10 hours.
That's about how long it takes to get from Irvine to the Los Angeles Amoeba.
B-wo won't be posting again until May 4, because I just smacked him into the middle of next week. Dissing Lewis Carroll and LizardBreath in one sentence? Shame on you.
(It's actually "So the Bellman would cry," but that makes it even cooler 'cause it proves Lizard was typing from memory. Like those errors they introduce in maps to protect copyright--which, I just read somewhere, are not legally enforceable. Anyone got the cite?)
Drat -- I thought of googling it, but thought I had it right.
I too just read they are not legally enforceable, probably on Language Log. Anyway, saying "Tropics, Zones, and" really breaks up the rhythm. I say this as someone who has impersonated Carrollian figures (pron. "figgers").
Oh, the commas are extraneous. It's a fair cop.
I certainly don't have a cite, but might it be that the cts. actually said that the errors are not sufficient to be protected by copyright, so that where the errors are the only protected material available, there has been no copyright infringement?
Eh, you can slur it into a sort of 'gz' sound. LB--really, being able to quote that accurately from memory is way cool. I'm on the verge of asking you to set me up with your sister.
Should we just devote the entire blog to begging to be set up with LB's sister?
I hope you're flattered, LB, since we're all assuming that your sister is like you.
See, without the commas you can pronounce it as "Tropic sZONESand", which works; with them, I at least feel compelled to honor their presence with a pause between "tropics" and "zones", which mucks it up.
Hmm... I'm not sure how she feels about Texas. (And of course, there's the whole "would kick my ass if she knew I were shopping her around the Internet" problem.) But other than that, aw, shucks, lots of people can quote Carroll.
My trying to get set up with LB's sister is on-topic, anyway, since we can all agree that NYC-Lubbock is long distance.
I hope you're flattered, LB, since we're all assuming that your sister is like you.
Except without the husband, kiddos, and all-too-natural ogged hatred.
32: I might be willing to move to New York and become a kept man.
I hope you're flattered, LB, since we're all assuming that your sister is like you.
She is, pretty much. Except she's usually nice.
35: Well, as I've said to w-lfs-n, nothing says status like a philosopher at home making you cookies.
Excellent! No mights about it—I am willing to move to New York to become a kept man.
I understand that the whole 'kept man' thing has a tendency to break down over the issue of where to house the kept man's girlfriend.
As if moving to New York were an evil to be weighed against something else.
w/d--the thing is, right now, if I'm going to move to New York, someone's going to have to keep me. You think I'd rather live in Lubbock?
Whatevs, LB. Something can be worked out.
(w/d, damn straight. I could live at the Stone.)
I say, if you can't plan to wake up at a reasonable hour and make it to work from the other person's residence, it's long distance.
You guys have totally moved on from it, but this is a brilliant rule of thumb on the long distance thing.
brilliant rule of thumb
But this is really not true in some metropolitan areas. If you live on opposite sides of L.A., or Chicago, or the Bay Area, you won't make it to work, but would you really call that a long-distance relationship?
Have you really never watched Seinfeld, ogged? This issue is addressed when Kramer dates someone who lives in the Village.
I've seen a few episodes. Not that one.
I used to think that I wanted a houseboy/kept man rather than a husband. But then I read some article about how David Geffen had a constant stream of boys playing volleyball on his lawn. I know I'll never achieve that vision, but it haunts me to this day.
Addendum to the rule quoted in #44 (since it's mine, i can make shit up):
If you live in a different metropolitan area, if you can't plan to wake up at a reasonable hour and make it to work from the other person's residence, it's long distance.
Or
If you can't plan to wake up at a reasonable hour and make it to work, even if there were no traffic, from the other person's residence, it's long distance.
If you want to be uncharitable, parts of the same metro area can count as "long distance": when I lived in DC proper, for a long time I refused to date women who lived across the river in Arlington, because that was "too far away", even though it's a half hour drive (nb: I didn't have a car).
My shame in that statement is that I'm from Arlington.
I think here "too far away" is cover for "lives in a déclassé part of town".
You've found me out B-dub, I'm from the wrong side of the tracks.
In my defense, being dependent on public transportation turned that half-hour drive into an hour-plus trek. I did it for work for six months, and that was more than enough.
Fine, ignore my volleyball comment.
My shame in that statement is that I'm from Arlington
That sounds like identifying with the aggressor.
ac, i don't have to identify with the agressor- i am the agressor
Weenies! I spent two years in an LDR where my Significant Studmuffin lived 2057 miles away. Three hours? Ghod, it takes that long to get to the airport from my part of LA, much less fly cross-country.
B-Wo: Imagine living in Irvine and commuting to Paramount Studios. Then imagine changing that commute to Universal Studios. Then imagine why I moved north.
Time zones, airplanes and passports are all sure signs of an LDR.
I submit that the "too tired to have sex" test is not a good one; absence making the heart and all that. In previous DC-Birmingham and Munich-Katowice (Poland) LDRs tiredness was never an issue, but the distance was indeed long.
Up to a certain point how doable the relationship is obviously correlates strongly with the same characteristic of the person. Or is that a comment for the feeling pipes thread?
B-Wo: Imagine living in Irvine and commuting to Paramount Studios. Then imagine changing that commute to Universal Studios. Then imagine why I moved north.
Because you were living in Irvine?
Matt,
Tripp--Why do you make a joke about Iowa in response to a comment about big square states? Iowa's one of those little bitty eastern states like Wisconsin. (Seen from Salt Lake, and probably from Lubbock.)
Because I'm in Minnesota and all we know are Iowa jokes. But are you saying that you consider me "cosmopolitan?"
Wow. La dee da.
What do you do when an Iowegian throws a grenade at you?
Pull the pin, throw it back.
Because you were living in Irvine?
Actually, I lived there before you were born, back when it was a pleasant place. Come to think of it, your birth presaged the tearing out of the strawberry fields, the advent of those mini-malls, the diabolic traffic patterns, the utter destruction of the hitherto pastoral paradise that had been Irvine...
Oh, dear, it appears that B-Wo is the Antichrist.
Actually, I lived there before you were born, back when it was a pleasant place. Come to think of it, your birth presaged the tearing out of the strawberry fields, the advent of those mini-malls, the diabolic traffic patterns, the utter destruction of the hitherto pastoral paradise that had been Irvine...
1. I wasn't born in California.
2. The orange groves in which I used to play as a child, how well I remember them! I assure you, I had nothing to do with their destruction.
3. At least the John Birchers aren't out in full force these days.
It doesn't matter where you were born - it's like that death-of-a-butterfly-destroying-the-rain-forest thing. The timelines converge too well, ergo your birth=the apocalyptic moment.
Irvine was small and largely inhabited by underpaid academics and impoverished grad students when I was there. Fairly liberal zeitgeist. I hear that the place has become somewhat of a fascist state since I fled north, and that the previously laudable police force has developed a stormtrooper mentality - and not the can't-hit-anything-with-a-ray-gun George Lucas kind.
Tustin used to be and perhaps still is where the JB HQ was located. The police there still aren't the bastards you find in Newport, at least.
Back to the long distance relationship thing, the F+R Hugs shirt, designed for LDRs, is a bit creepy.