Honey, This FaceTime Is Torment
If you've ever suffered through a long-distance relationship, you're familiar with the painful mix of love, longing, and resentment. But technology was supposed to make it so much lighter. So why am iLonely?
Let me just say this: I didn't see the iceberg coming. Last fall, when my beau accepted a job on the West Coast, I thought managing a freshly long-distance relationship would be just that— manageable. There's literally an app for that. Inbetween FaceTime and Kayak.com, you can practically be in two places at once. Besides, I thought, absence doesn't just make the heart grow fonder. It would also provide some awesome white calendar space to get my own shit done.
But then reality set in. We were abruptly thousands of frequent-flier miles apart, shuttling back and forward for birthdays and conjugal visits but mostly just communicating digitally. I attempted to have a good attitude about the entire thing—at very first. Calling is now cheaper than it's ever been. It helps that texting is free, too, thanks to WhatsApp, which works anywhere you have a Wi-Fi connection, even internationally. And then there's that old-fangled standby, Skype.
By the way, everything you think long-distance couples do with Skype, they do. When it's working, that is. Nothing makes you feel further apart than attempting to have an intimate practice over a feeble Internet signal. Sometimes my dude and I would get so frustrated with buffering movie that we'd talk on our more reliable cell phones instead while staring at pilated photos of each other on our laptops. (Can you see me now?) It's like an gig of The Jetsons animated by Chuck Close.
Maybe the Internet gods were attempting to warn us. Because what this technology indeed offers is faux closeness: It's the perception of proximity with the added hangover that comes with waking up in a queen-size bed next to nothing but your laptop. Observing each other every night— but not being able to touch each other—is its own form of penalty. Therein lies the touch—or in this case, not.
Some good advice came my way from, of all people, Adam Levine of Maroon five and The Voice. I interviewed him for a lady magazine, and we talked about how he treats life on the road while he's got his Victoria's Secret model gf, Anne V, waiting at home. The two of them Skype, he told me, but not obsessively: "Your gf can't be a cell phone or a computer." And there was a bright spot I was missing. "You get to see each other a duo of weeks later," he said, "and it's like you're observing each other for the very first time." Maybe so. But that fellow's got moves like Jagger. I have moves like Zuckerberg.
Still, I think Rabbi Levine had a point. All of this immediacy comes with a price: Just because you can know where your fucking partner is at all times doesn't mean you should know. The key is to lasso the tech and rein it in. So I fashioned a plan that kept my bf and me connected but wasn't so all-consuming that it killed our respective lives. Because skipping nights out with friends to make room for regular two-hour downloads (How was your day? No, how was your day?) is an unrealistic time-suck that can only lead to that romance killer, resentment.
In this fresh reality, we'd reserve text messaging for flirtatious asides that never required a response. Previously harried morning phone calls were substituted with quick movie texts that I shot on my iPhone. These one-way communications—sort of like messages in a $300 bottle—are less interactive but more satisfying. So instead of scheduling a phone call, I'd shoot a movie (yeah, love makes us do adorkable things) and leave it as a hello in his in-box. I'm also digging HeyTell, an app that turns your iPhone into a walkie-talkie—like sending a text with your voice. No emoticons needed. As for the extended high-school-style phone calls, we limited those to a few times a week—you know, so we actually had something fresh to say—and saved Skype for the indeed lonely nights.
But most importantly, we threw money at airline tickets. I realized I'd rather bear a serious wallet hit for that last-minute nonrefundable seat than feel alone and bummed out. Five years from now, I doubt I'll miss a thousand bucks. But I'd damn sure reminisce losing someone I loved so heartily because we couldn't figure out a way to hear each other.