From June 2008.
I had coffee this week with one of the girls from my old youth group at All Saints church. “Brynne” has just finished up her junior year, and in the past few months, has started dating “Scott”, who is a year older and has just graduated. Scott is off to university in the fall, hundreds of miles away.
In many senses of the term, Scott is Brynne’s “first.” He’s the first guy she’s ever fallen in love with, certainly, and before they started dating this spring, they had been friends for two years, since they first met in youth group. I know Scott almost as well as I know Brynne: he is a remarkable young man, outgoing and ambitious and passionate. These two teens, so bright and sensitive and driven, are as near-to-perfect for each other as could be.
When we met at Starbucks, however, Brynne was anxious. Practically the first words out of her mouth to me were “September 18!” I asked what that date meant, and she explained that that was the day Scott was heading off to college. “It’s less than three months away”, she said, “and I don’t know what’s going to happen.” As we talked further, Brynne made it clear that both she and Scott had talked about wanting to stay together in a committed relationship after he goes off to university. “I know that’s what I want”, Brynne told me. “I also know it’s what Scott says he wants, and I believe him — now. But I don’t want to be the reason why he misses out on ‘college’ experiences, you know? I don’t want to be this stupid high school girl who is his ball-and-chain preventing him from having fun. Sometimes I think we should just break up, as much as that would suck, just so he could be ‘free’”.
In my role as a youth group leader and mentor, there are few questions I get asked more often than the one about the viability and wisdom of long-distance relationship. “Should we break up or stay together?” is a query I get every year, usually in the summer as a couple moves inexorably towards autumn’s physical separation. I never answer the question definitively, because each situation is in some sense unique, and each couple’s set of abilities and desires is different. But if I have a bias, and based on my own experience and that of a great many people I’ve worked with over many years I do have one, it is towards saying that yes, a couple that is in love ought to make an effort to stay together when separated by different colleges.
I asked Brynne: “What sort of experiences do you think Scott would miss out on because of being in a long-distance relationship with you?” She winced a bit, and I pressed on: “Is he going to miss out on great classes? Miss out on joining the right club or fraternity? Miss out on making great friends? Miss out on learning to surf, skydive, or mountain bike?” Brynne laughed, saying “That’s not what I mean.” “I know”, I said, “you’re worried he’s going to miss out on the chance to ‘be with’ new people, with other girls”. She nodded.
I asked Brynne a simple question: “Do you want the best for Scott? Do you want to see him grow as a person?” “Of course”, she replied. I pointed out to her that doing the maintenance work of a long-distance relationship, work that would involve both sacrifice and effort, would be an amazing catalyst for growth for both her and her beau. If Scott misses out on a campus culture of “hooking up”, what harm has there been to his emotional development? If he doesn’t sleep with the same number of people his friends do, what loss has there been to his growth? I hastened to tell Brynne that I wasn’t suggesting that experimentation was in and of itself an impediment to maturation — merely that in my opinion, most people grow more quickly as a result of the work of active relationship maintenance than as a result of non-committal liasons with random folks.
It’s true that wisdom usually comes as the result of experience. But what experiences are most likely to produce wisdom? Surely the discipline and the restraint that a long-distance monogamous relationship require offers the chance for a more useful set of learning experiences than a series of hook-ups. To be fair, it’s a false dichotomy to suggest that Scott will choose between promiscuity on one hand and long-distance monogamy on the other. Perhaps, if Brynne “sets him free”, he will find himself in another committed relationship — though such relationships are increasingly rare on today’s college campuses, for a plethora of reasons. Though I have no interest in joining the chorus of conservative voices complaining about the “hook-up culture”, I am not prepared to say that an ethos that discourages monogamy is somehow more conducive to maturation than one that does.
Conventional adult wisdom, the sort that is foisted on to teenagers by the likes of me, argues that young people should “keep their options open.” There’s truth in that, of course. I wouldn’t encourage Brynne and Scott to get engaged any time soon. On the other hand, a good relationship at any age is one that opens up as many options as it closes. I know Brynne and Scott well, and I can see that as much in love as they are, they are still connected to the outside world. Each has introduced the other to a new set of passions (in this case, horses and theater.) Though by being committed, Brynne and Scott are foregoing the option to swap spit with new skin, they are gaining a whole other set of options and experiences through the process of learning from and challenging each other.
We’ve all seen kids go off to college, promising to stay committed to their high school sweethearts, only to break up by Thanksgiving (the infamous “turkey drop”.) But most of us also know couples who do make it. Two young people I mentored years ago went off to different schools (UCSB and NYU) and stayed together through four years of college. They’re now engaged and living in San Francisco. They had their ups and downs and a brief infidelity or two, but they made it work. And they both tell me now that they didn’t miss out on a damned thing of value in college. I told Brynne that whether or not a long-distance relationship with Scott worked out or not, it was worth trying. Rather than assuming that singleness and sexual availability are prerequisites for a full and rich college experience, I suggested that she dare to imagine that with effort and sacrifice, both she and her boy could grow by leaps and bounds as a result of a long-distance relationship.
When we said goodbye, I gave Brynne my standard spiel: “I love you and will support you whatever happens and whatever you choose. But know that I think you both are capable of making something like this work, despite the distance. And I think you’re both worth making it work.” She promised to keep me posted.
This post made my day. I started “dating” my boyfriend toward the end of my senior year of high school, even though he lived on the other side of California. My family strongly disapproved of the long distance relationship, even forbade it for a while, and most of our friends were waiting for the “inevitable” break-up so they could issue the I-Told-You-So. We stuck with it for five and a half years, talking daily on the phone, arranging visits every few months, and finding other creative ways to stay connected. I really believe that, even though it sucked in a lot of ways, we were building a uniquely strong foundation for our relationship based on communication above all else. We were finally able to move in together in September, and it’s been pretty damn blissful. We’re going to get officially engaged after we both graduate next year (from Cal– go bears!). Conventional wisdom scorns long distance love, especially for the young, but I wouldn’t change anything about ours, and I know it must work out for others, too. It’s so nice to hear someone defend it!
Thanks for this. My something-or-other (not a boyfriend, so maybe “deeply-committed best friend” would be best) and I both hope to go to grad school, in very different fields, so we’ve been thinking about how we would maintain our relationship if we had to live away from one another. We’ll have a trial run when I study abroad this year, I suppose.
Two thoughts, mostly unconnected:
I’m not sure “hook-up culture” is anywhere near as pervasive among college students as it’s made out to be. I hear stories about goings-on at fraternity parties or whatever occasionally at my school, but everyone I know is either in a monogamous relationship that they hope will be long-term or looking for one. Two of my friends have had relationships which were very short and very sexual but in both cases they saw or at least discussed those relationships as attempts at long-term monogamy that just didn’t work out -even in the case of a relationship that started in a game of beer pong and ended less than two weeks later. It seems to me that there’s still a lot of shame attached to sexual experimentation and unconventional relationships, even for college students. I don’t think that’s a good thing, but I also think there are a lot of problems with the narrative of the promiscuous college student as it’s currently set up.
Which brings me to the other question this post raised for me: did this young woman also consider sexual experiences with multiple partners an essential part of the college experience for herself (if she was planning to go to college)? Her worry about becoming a “ball-and-chain preventing him from having fun” seems very gendered, and very sad.
Of course there is another option. The committed but non-monogamous relationship. This could be particularly challenging, but it does offer growth opportunities as well: learning to deal with jealousy/entitlement; building trust based on mutual respect and honesty; knowing that the relationship is deeper than sex; learning that sex without commitment is a bit, meh; not to mention adding a few moves to your repetoire.
This is not for everyone and pragmatic issues (e.g., STI prevention and testing) and some might find that this just does not fit in their schema for relationships. I, for one, would struggle with it. But, insofar as you can continuously build your relationship, it has advantages over the option of letting the person go hoping that they come back or “taking a break” like some people do.
Aishlinn, I completely agree that the pervasiveness of “hook-up” culture is oversold by a prurient media. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, or that it hasn’t always existed. We were certainly hooking up (we called it “groveling”, interestingly) 25 years ago.
But I think it’s possible to say on the one hand that sexual experimentation with more than one person can be fun and healthy, and on the other that monogamous commitment to one person can (assuming the overall health of the relationship) be even more fulfilling and even more of what I repeatedly refer to as a “catalyst for growth.” We can look at a series of options, and say that at least for some, if not all, one in particular seems both challenging and filled with possibility.
I was a person who was in a long-distance relationship through the whole of my university career. Sure, we made it work. And I’m not really worse off for it — but mostly because I very very belatedly (after getting married) realized that we weren’t that compatible.
But in my case I think it was more because it had always been a long-distance relationship and otherwise it would have petered out more naturally (and much sooner). Sometimes it’s a lot easier to be with someone when you don’t have to see them all the time.
Also probably I would have realized sooner if I’d understood my own sexuality better. That I think often comes with trial and error, no matter how enlightened you are. Emphasis on “often”, I would never claim everyone has to do X to be happy.
My son had a relationship with his end of senior year in high school girlfriend during much of his college on the East Coast, while she was on the West Coast. For him, though it was a “committed relationship” it was easier for him to have a “part-time girlfriend” where he didn’t have to deal with both of their issues together most of the school year. He also was clear that he had no intention of marrying her or settling down with her after college. While this may have seemed safer, given that his mother and I had split up early while he was in high school, I can’t see how it helped either of the two of them.
I don’t think though of the primary issue being how much sex my son might have had with how many young women. It seems more important to me how young people can move through relationship development and usually multiple relationships until they find someone they wish to be partnered with in the long-term.
Learning how to deal and struggle and work through things with individuals where one has to learn More of Who they really are seems most important to me. Where one does not see a partner frequently, the time together can easily be “sugar coated” or otherwise not realistic as to how life may be long-term.
While I wouldn’t want to say: “All long-term relationships are a bad idea” for young people, I think that I’d suggest seriously considering the issues which go well beyond sex related ones.
Thanks!
I read this with a smile. I was forced to wonder if you meant you were for the woman’s side here?