The long distance paradox

., in the heart of Antwerp’s student quarter. This girl must have liked me enough to take me back to her room. Of course we didn’t want a long distance relationship. The cards were against us from the start, and we knew it. It’s August and her year of voluntary work is almost over; she’s going back to Germany in a week. The situation screams ’this is only a one night stand’, but we were proven wrong soon enough. Still, we decide to make the best out of the remaining days, although it’s a lose-lose situation: the fonder we grow of each other, the harder it is to say goodbye. We knew as much. A wild week later, we say goodbye at the train station in tears, but promise ourselves that we’ll give this thing a try. Passionate e-mails reply to even more passionate e-mails and you wake up one day to find yourself in a long distance relationship you swore you’d never have.

I can’t feign as much surprise as I’d like to. My geographical background is the kind of mess that announced the event a long time ago. Born out of Tunisian and Moroccan parents, inheriting both French and Israeli nationality, and living most of my life in Belgium, what else could an international TU Delft student expect?

My taste for exoticism had naturally eliminated the Dutch-girlfriend-option. At best, I’d have found myself a loving Erasmus student from Spain called Penelope. But even those only last six month; or a year, if they love you so much to change their plans. In short, it was inevitable. Oh don’t get me wrong, it all started in bright shades of pink. Daily e-mails with enough passion to make Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet look like the eight o’clock news. I’d tell everyone how great it was to see each other once a month and “never have time to fight”. It felt like we always met on holidays.

Fast-forward to April and we’re past our 8th month anniversary. I managed to coax my techno-phobic girlfriend into setting up Skype on her pc. And when that wasn’t enough for me anymore, I bought her the best webcam I could afford. The irony of webcams is that people usually buy one for themselves. But it’s only logical that we should buy a webcam for the people we like, investing as much money as pixels we’d like to see them in. And no pixel was too much for my girlfriend and me. Imagine my surprise when, at the peek of what technology could offer us, she tells me: “Tal, I miss your e-mails.”

I’m sure some female readers out there would have immediately understood, but I had no clue how to react to that. My e-mails? I gather as much subtlety as I can mask my utter shock and I ask: “I’m curious, what’s it about emails that is missing in our daily conversations?” And she answers in a casual tone that sends the gentlest chills down my spine: “Well, with e-mails I can read them when I have time, and even read them twice when I feel like it.”

It’s a known fact that long-distance relationships aren’t easy. It’s even a commonly agreed fact that they never work out in the long term. Because, while Time and Space are already fundamentally violated by the essence of long-distance relationships, there’s an additional factor which I call the Long Distance Paradox.

Don’t be fooled by the name, it’s as simple as it’s elegantly fucked up: the paradox lies in the fact that for these kinds of relationships to work, two people must truly love each other. Except, the more they love each other, the harder it is to live apart. Really, what is it with Love and Lose-Lose situations? Some kind of fetish? That first week in August, I made another mental promise to myself. I swore that no matter what, I wouldn’t let this thing turn bad. It might not work out, it might fade out slowly and painfully, but we’d end our adventure on good terms. No hard feelings, no silent treatments, nothing but a ’thank you for the time of my life’ and a well-meaning ‘give me a call sometime.’

Next semester I’m going for a year exchange to Valencia, Spain. My first choice was Colombia’s design capital Medellin, home of the world’s most beautiful women (as I’ve immediately been told by every one of my Latin friends). And they all added ‘Break up with your girlfriend, because things are bound to go bad.’ Luckily, my plans were changed by Fate again (it has become Fate’s favorite pastime, it seems) and my ticket to Valencia is proudly hanging on my wall. I’m still together with my girlfriend, but for how long? I like to believe that this year is not any different than our first week together. We knew our days were numbered, but we lived them fully nonetheless. Valencia here I come. I’ve learned my lessons and licked my scars. ‘I don’t want a long distance relationship,’ is what I’ll tell any girl at the local salsa bar. And we’ll both believe it.

Tal Benisty is an MSc student in Industrial Design Engineering.

“I don’t want a long distance relationship,” she whispers to me in the dark. “Me neither”, I reply, but did I really mean it? It must have been sometime past 3 a.m., in the heart of Antwerp’s student quarter. This girl must have liked me enough to take me back to her room. Of course we didn’t want a long distance relationship. The cards were against us from the start, and we knew it. It’s August and her year of voluntary work is almost over; she’s going back to Germany in a week. The situation screams ’this is only a one night stand’, but we were proven wrong soon enough. Still, we decide to make the best out of the remaining days, although it’s a lose-lose situation: the fonder we grow of each other, the harder it is to say goodbye. We knew as much. A wild week later, we say goodbye at the train station in tears, but promise ourselves that we’ll give this thing a try. Passionate e-mails reply to even more passionate e-mails and you wake up one day to find yourself in a long distance relationship you swore you’d never have.

I can’t feign as much surprise as I’d like to. My geographical background is the kind of mess that announced the event a long time ago. Born out of Tunisian and Moroccan parents, inheriting both French and Israeli nationality, and living most of my life in Belgium, what else could an international TU Delft student expect?

My taste for exoticism had naturally eliminated the Dutch-girlfriend-option. At best, I’d have found myself a loving Erasmus student from Spain called Penelope. But even those only last six month; or a year, if they love you so much to change their plans. In short, it was inevitable. Oh don’t get me wrong, it all started in bright shades of pink. Daily e-mails with enough passion to make Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet look like the eight o’clock news. I’d tell everyone how great it was to see each other once a month and “never have time to fight”. It felt like we always met on holidays.

Fast-forward to April and we’re past our 8th month anniversary. I managed to coax my techno-phobic girlfriend into setting up Skype on her pc. And when that wasn’t enough for me anymore, I bought her the best webcam I could afford. The irony of webcams is that people usually buy one for themselves. But it’s only logical that we should buy a webcam for the people we like, investing as much money as pixels we’d like to see them in. And no pixel was too much for my girlfriend and me. Imagine my surprise when, at the peek of what technology could offer us, she tells me: “Tal, I miss your e-mails.”

I’m sure some female readers out there would have immediately understood, but I had no clue how to react to that. My e-mails? I gather as much subtlety as I can mask my utter shock and I ask: “I’m curious, what’s it about emails that is missing in our daily conversations?” And she answers in a casual tone that sends the gentlest chills down my spine: “Well, with e-mails I can read them when I have time, and even read them twice when I feel like it.”

It’s a known fact that long-distance relationships aren’t easy. It’s even a commonly agreed fact that they never work out in the long term. Because, while Time and Space are already fundamentally violated by the essence of long-distance relationships, there’s an additional factor which I call the Long Distance Paradox.

Don’t be fooled by the name, it’s as simple as it’s elegantly fucked up: the paradox lies in the fact that for these kinds of relationships to work, two people must truly love each other. Except, the more they love each other, the harder it is to live apart. Really, what is it with Love and Lose-Lose situations? Some kind of fetish? That first week in August, I made another mental promise to myself. I swore that no matter what, I wouldn’t let this thing turn bad. It might not work out, it might fade out slowly and painfully, but we’d end our adventure on good terms. No hard feelings, no silent treatments, nothing but a ’thank you for the time of my life’ and a well-meaning ‘give me a call sometime.’

Next semester I’m going for a year exchange to Valencia, Spain. My first choice was Colombia’s design capital Medellin, home of the world’s most beautiful women (as I’ve immediately been told by every one of my Latin friends). And they all added ‘Break up with your girlfriend, because things are bound to go bad.’ Luckily, my plans were changed by Fate again (it has become Fate’s favorite pastime, it seems) and my ticket to Valencia is proudly hanging on my wall. I’m still together with my girlfriend, but for how long? I like to believe that this year is not any different than our first week together. We knew our days were numbered, but we lived them fully nonetheless. Valencia here I come. I’ve learned my lessons and licked my scars. ‘I don’t want a long distance relationship,’ is what I’ll tell any girl at the local salsa bar. And we’ll both believe it.

Tal Benisty is an MSc student in Industrial Design Engineering.