| LONG-DISTANCE LOVERS
She sits just outside her dorm room door, dressed in pajamas. Huddled, with a strained expression, chin resting on her knees. Whispering muted "I love you"s into a cordless phone. For hours.
A bit drunk, he just left the caps game to take a phone call. He left the room, too. The score was 9-8, a league game, and he didn't seem to care. Someone just heard him the hall, talking to that girl, from Penn State or something. Better find a sub.
Privacy, to these folks, is only a hallway away. Love, on the other hand, requires a drive or a flight, to State College, Penn., or Madison, Wis., or Tuscon, Ariz.
It doesn't seem like an enviable situation, but it happens. A high-school relationship is too strong to break off, a whirlwind road-trip romance turns into a lasting partnership … and presto, a Long Distance Lover is born – an NU student who actively, faithfully maintains a relationship in which the other half attends a different school.
Granted, these people come from all walks of life, all kinds of NU communities – but their social habits are deserving enough of classification.
This is the roommate who answers all your calls via call waiting. Whose Instant Messenger keystrokes continue late into the night. Who's going to definitely have to pay more than just her third of the phone bill. Who only operates in three modes: Waiting For The Next Visit, On Yet Another Visit or So Sad Because I Just Got Back From a Visit.
But for all the effort put in to relationship maintenance, there's often a lack of effort to stay involved at NU or to expand social horizons. Groups of friends are kept small and tight, enough to fill an off-campus apartment, but little more. The allure of the cordless receiver frequently outweighs the draw of an outing to a downtown bar.
The upside to this separatist lifestyle? For Long-Distance Lovers, there's less day-to-day bickering, and usually something to look forward to: The next trip. And without fail, a trip to a school that's "so much more exciting than NU." Hard to believe, hard to believe.
- Luke Winn | At 2/8/03 7:41 AM, | | wrote: | |
| At 1/11/03 1:48 PM, | | wrote: | |
| At 8/7/02 1:35 AM, | | wrote: | |
| At 7/30/02 11:02 PM, | | wrote: | |
| At 7/2/02 8:45 PM, | | wrote: | |
| At 6/11/02 10:11 AM, | | wrote: | |
| At 5/14/02 5:59 AM, | | wrote: | |
| At 3/13/02 11:16 AM, | | wrote: | | Funny stuff. Keep in mind that the slow wave of fat nasty girls that drifts from off campus party to off campus party makes it very easy to look elsewhere. |
| At 3/12/02 9:15 PM, | | sniga (e-shiga@northwestern.edu) wrote: | in everything you said about long-distance lovers, you pretty much nailed it... especially on the whole "operating on three modes." it's true that it doesn't really matter what you're doing, you're always gonna take the call. but after a while, even if the relationship is the best you have ever had and you're thinking about marriage or something, you start to realize that you are losing out on your own college life. the saddest part is when you notice that the phone is your best friend. sure most ppl in a long distance relationship would say that NU's lack of campus life really doesn't give us any incentive to go out and explore, but deep inside, we all wish that we could quench the anguish growing up inside. we all know that the current relationship is 90% missing the person. ppl know that, they're not oblivious to it. so, sure we're always gonna take the call without hesitation, but there is always the wonder of what would life be like without a long distance relationship everytime we pick up that phone; it's not a happy situation to be in, but we deal with it b/c we care about the person on the receiving end of the phone. you also say that there is less day-to-day bickering... i think there is a lot more. first of all, a little distance for a little while makes the heart fonder, but after a while, it's just a pain in the ass and you start to fight about it, just about little petty things... and then you also haveta deal with the shit your friends tell you, how you're whipped b/c you're always by the phone and how they feel jipped cuz you never hang out with them anymore or ever for that matter. so i think there is a lot more baggage. i got out of a long-distance relationship... sure life at NU could be more lively, but at least i tried to have a life here after the break up and i'm pretty satisfied, as opposed to being miserable before.
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