dear june, should distance and timing matter if you really care about each other?

"long story short, we finally both like each other"

Dear June,

“I just read your latest article, and you mentioned having had a long distance boyfriend in college. I’m at the precipice of figuring out if that’s something I should do. He’s been one of my best friends basically my entire life. Long story short, we finally both like each other, but we’re also about to graduate high school. On top of that, I’m headed to the east coast and he’s staying in the west. We are not in a relationship, but we’re going to figure it out very very soon (because at this point, we are very clearly more than friends). Part of me thinks - he treats me so nice, I feel safe, and this could be something real. Should distance and timing matter if you really care about each other? The other half of me is being less idealistic, mostly because I know myself. I get really (anxiously) attached, and I know I’d prioritize calls, communication and seeing him over all else. I don’t know if I want my college experience-especially because this is something I’ve been dreaming of and working towards-to be defined by a remote, brand new relationship. The worst part is I know he would literally do anything for me and to make me feel okay. Is it insane to not know if that’s enough? yikes okay sorry for the essay. Hopefully you have some pearls of wisdom: should I ruin the friendship? lots of love 💕💕”

This writer gave consent for their message to be shared and responded to publicly.

Dear friend,

This one has me smiling wryly at my screen because I am quite soundly of two very different minds about this particular topic, having gone through it, and truly through it, myself.

That being said, this is not an advice column or an instructive/predictive space. I don’t know you or the boy in question here, so I won’t pretend that there is any overlap for us other than the quiet longing to have it all and to have it all be okay.

I am so happy for you that your life features a person with whom you feel sound and safe. That is a gift and a joy, and you deserve every bit of what this relationship — romantic or otherwise — offers you.

I am also proud of you for embarking on a new and unique college experience, and I take it that you're doing it in a place you didn't grow up in. This takes immense courage. You’re very cool for this, and for even asking yourself the hard questions to honor that commitment.

At this point, and I hope you don’t take this as an ignorant statement, but you have very little perspective. It’s a right of passage! Part of the wonder of the college experience is not what you learn in class or whatever you decide to major in, that you may very likely forego the minute you graduate — it’s the trials of independence. Managing your own schedule, feeding yourself, dealing with roommates, trying on new friends, maybe getting a little too drunk sometimes, or failing a final. It’s the feeling halfway through that you know yourself better now than you did at 18 and want to completely change your path, change your name, etc. The beauty of this time is that you get to try it all. You will quickly find a lot of what isn’t for you, and along the way, you will pick up pieces and people who are for you. It’s weird. It’s hard. But even I, as someone also with no perspective (who thought I had quite a bit more than my peers), can look back appreciatively on everything that it both was and wasn’t.

There is no right way or wrong way to go about this period of your life.

I dive bombed through it, tumultuous long-distance relationship in tow, and graduated the day I was eligible to.

My freshman roommate, 10 years later, is still in school. She changed her major maybe 16 times, did a few years of law school, and is now about to graduate from PA school.

My sister? Dropped out after freshman year and three years later decided this was her time to try again one class at a time.

My best friend from college? Pre-med & dedicated to the library? Now she wants to quit her job and buy a farm.

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What is this all to say? That it will be okay. There are no bad choices when you’re trying on life. (Except for maybe doing hard drugs or being unkind.)

For most of college. I did not believe it would be okay, which is to say that it’s natural to wonder and worry in the face of the unknown. I didn’t enter my college years with a stellar teenage experience, but I did enter them with my first boyfriend. 3 months in.

Two years older than me, though he was, he had less perspective than I did, and he did not handle the transition from summer love to a long-distance commitment well. We broke up probably 1 month into my freshman year, and I was devastated. As you read in that piece, I handled it how I handled it. No need for judgment, though I felt a lot of it back then as I was living through it.

My world crumbled around me. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Eventually, I set myself a New Year’s resolution to delete him on Find My Friends and move the fuck on, but I dreaded the days leading to the new year like I was headed off the edge of a cliff. Then, on holiday break back home, I saw him. We came face to face in his kitchen (and that’s on dating your best friend’s older brother), having not seen or spoken to each other since early October.

We got back together 2 days later.

Come the next fall, his senior year and my sophomore year, he went to study abroad in London. I hung photos of us in my dorm room, but I brought backup photos with no trace of him… just in case. He became deeply depressed abroad, and I started to literally go to class with one airpod in just to be with him and make sure he wasn’t spiraling alone.

Do I remember classes? No.

Do I remember what my friends were doing during this time? No.

Was I immersed in the college experience? Definitely not.

My friends would call me out for it, too. Hours spent alone in my room facetimeing R. Not doing my homework, not socializing, not moving, just living in that liminal space that only we could understand.

Most of my college experience amounts to a narrative along these lines. But to say I regret it would be a complicated question. Why? Because I literally didn’t know any better. I had no perspective; I was creating it for myself.

You have to go through things, whatever they are, to learn who you are and how you feel about living.

And hey, I married R. Undoubtably a niche outcome, and it was hard fought, but I wouldn’t trade the sacrifices I made along the way for anything now that I have seen where they took me.

That might be your answer: to live and to learn. To embrace that every choice and every action has a consequence, you can’t always see what that is at the moment of deciding.

Life is one leap of faith after another, but if you honor yourself, your feelings, and your boundaries, it will work out.

Don’t be afraid to act on the knowledge you have now, just know in your heart that whatever happens, it will all be okay — if not in the way you imagined.

anyway, here it is…

-June

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