Living Long Distance: The Phone

When Erik and I started dating, we faced the scary prospect of being away from each other for, wait for it, EIGHTEEN WHOLE DAYS OH-MY-GOD-HOW-CAN-WE-SURVIVE?!!?

Erik even wrote me a song about those 18 Days as my Christmas present.  It's still in my iTunes rotation.  We both racked up $$$ in phone bills.  His mom is STILL giving him a hard time about it.  I think we talked the equivalent of an entire day during that winter break.  Ah, to be 18 again. (Side note: Despite my best efforts I cannot seem to locate an electronic photo of us from that time - probably for the best).

Now, however, we are not on the phone anywhere close to that much time.  It's hard to be on the phone at the end of a long day at work.  There's also little to say.  Yeah, I worked on confidential client stuff all day.  Yeah, I did some experiments that I could explain but it would take like 20 minutes and you wouldn't understand half of it.

Sometimes, we have a phone date that goes completely awry.  And by completely awry, I mean, that we want to talk but one thing goes wrong and we end up arguing.  And since we are not in the same place, it's hard to resolve that argument.  If we were in the same place, the argument would dissolve into laughter (about the sheer ridiculousness of the subject matter) or we would hug it out and then it would all be better.  What do we currently do in that situation?  Just end the call and try it again the next day.

When it happened last week, this is the text I got from Erik:

Sorry we had a bad convo tonight.  Still love you

Me: I still love you too.  Connection via telephone fail. :-/

E: Yeah, we can try again tomorrow :)

Me: Haha. Yeah.

That's just what it takes.  A sense of humor about the thing.  Not every visit will be magical and not every phone call will be successful and make you feel better.  Key take away?  Just be flexible about it and don't force the situation.  Oh, and thank goodness for gchat!