During a Skype conversation with my best friend at the start of my Erasmus semester in Vienna, she asked me the one question that I hate even more than the obligatory “So?” Then what are you going to do with this study? Marry rich?” at the family reunion: “Well, what’s new when it comes to love?”
So I did what I always did: make excuses and talk nonsense.
Generation Internship/Erasmus/Masters Abroad: Temporary Love Affairs?
“Since my physical presence in Vienna, which is necessary for establishing an amorous relationship, is of limited duration, this is a suboptimal starting point. In addition, my bachelor's degree in Konstanz is about to be completed, which is why an interpersonal connection based on love is not desirable there either. And I will most likely get my master’s degree in...”
My best friend interrupted me, annoyed: “So you’re saying that you can’t have a relationship for about the next three or four years? That is nonsense. Nowadays our lives are not so linear and fixed.”
She was right. After all, I think anything is possible, especially when you love someone. So why should distance and love not be compatible? After all, I also had a long-distance relationship once, which is now a wonderful memory. And a study by Cornell University also shows that a quarter to half of all students love from a distance.
During your studies there are so many short-term phases, changes of location, stays abroad. We are the Uncertain, Short-term, Flexible generation. But also the social media generation. The 21st century makes it so easy for us to love from a distance - so why shy away from it?
For all the hearts beating miles apart, here is my self-tested long-distance relationship survival list:
1. Don't be afraid of carbohydrates!
Coincidentally, I ate an awful lot of bananas during my long-distance relationship. Slow. Very slowly. During Skype conversations. You Got Me? Good.
2. The “Draw me like one of your French girls” pose
Coincidentally, during my long-distance relationship, I often lay on my side, leaning on my arm, which coincidentally made my breasts wonderfully camera-ready and my ego webcam-lovingly pushed. Where real touch is missing, small details have to work that say “Here, right here I would have you and your hands right now.” When one sense disappears, you sharpen the others.
3. Build your own shared world
But what was most important to me during the years we spent together and yet apart was the little world we built together over the distance. This world emerged from every moment in which I tried to bring my life, my everyday life, as close to him as if he were there. From every photo on WhatsApp, every good morning message as a substitute for a morning kiss, from every flower that I put in his envelope so that he could smell what summer smelled like with me. And when it was a weekend and I visited him in his city, he would show it to me as if, despite my absence, it was always soaked in the color of my name.
The moment I trusted so much and realized that I was at home in his life, even across hundreds of miles, was the moment I realized that sometimes hundreds of miles are zero. So why not love?
We are young, flexible, study anywhere and collect internships like other people do, we are the future. Just so that this future doesn't necessarily happen solo, the long-distance relationship should be redefined - young and flexible like us.
