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I've wondered this too. If they haven't met in person before starting their relationship, then presumably they met online. My only guess is that they weren't having too much luck in their local dating market and kept broadening their search? Once they've broadened their search parameters I could see how a relationship could bloom. But as for what prompts them to do this in the first place? Beats me.
I too have always wondered why someone would engage in an LDR which in themselves present so many relationship difficulties.
I realize people may have had many failed attempts at relationships with people in their geographical area. I understand you can meet a person and "hit it off" so to speak even if the other person lives on the other side of the country (or even in another country). I also realize that some make an LDR work.
In general though, I feel the chance for disappointment is much greater. For one, if an LDR is to work, in order to see each other enough there is travel involved, That can be costly as well as a burden on time. I feel trust issues can evolve just by separation and time between seeing each other. You are committing to give up a large % of days not being in a physical relationship just to have a few precious days together. Also, if the LDR is to turn into something more permanent, someone has to uproot their lives, if not both, to get together.
I suppose I should say kudos to those who take this path. But I also feel that many in an LDR may be missing something as good if not better right under their noses or next door because they are too busy concentrating on someone a long ways away.
Consider that not all people in a LDR were seeking each other or even seeking dating when they became fond of one another. With the popularity of online forums and games where many people who share interests come together, people are engaging in discussions and online friendships that are based on depth of the person beyond an impression that can be made by only appearance.
There has been at least one study on long distance relationships which concluded that they have more meaningful interaction, which makes sense if you're only seeing each other maybe a few days at a time. And therefore the LDRs that are successful are couples who are more emotionally and mentally, intellectually compatible, so theyre more satisfying and happier.
It's no wonder couples who met online generally have happier and longer marriages so far as studies can tell since they began ten years ago. Those couples are still together. Maybe they all weren't intently looking for someone far away who they fit with but maybe it just happened and evolved from a penpal-like interaction to something much more, especially if theyre both very attractive.
I know one guy who deliberately went online seeking a woman who's Filipino who lives in the Philippines when he lived in Rhode Island. They met and married quickly, but were miserable together since they had nothing in common and the relationship was only based on his childish fetish for "hot" Asian women he would go around the world to have.
Then I know three couples who met in online forums and became attracted to each other intellectually and through common values and interests, and then became romantic, met, and are married and happy together to this day.
So the intent makes a difference, too. There are other significant factors involved than just lack of ability to touch, and the LDR couples who are serious eventually move to be together so that problem takes care of itself.
Instead of touching every day, these couples are building a strong non-physical foundation that makes these relationships, when they are successful, just as if not more meaningful as others where a physical presence is immediate.
"There's that horrible-beautiful moment, that bitter-sweet impasse
where you know that somebody is bull****ting you but they're doing it with such panache and conviction...
no, it's because they say exactly what you want to hear, at that point in time.”
- Irvine Welsh, Porno
"The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others."
"There's that horrible-beautiful moment, that bitter-sweet impasse
where you know that somebody is bull****ting you but they're doing it with such panache and conviction...
no, it's because they say exactly what you want to hear, at that point in time.”
- Irvine Welsh, Porno
"The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others."
-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Does that not equally apply to and happen in day-to-day non-LD relationships?
Part of me wonders the same thing - but then I think about one of my friends and one of my cousins. They both met their husbands through work - on the telephone. They talked to their husbands on the phone concerning work things even though they lived on opposite coasts - they somehow hit it off. Then they met up in person. Then they started a relationship and they both ended in marriage. One couple now lives in Los Angeles and one couple lives in New Jersey. So, sometimes you aren't looking for someone that lives far away, you just happen to hit it off with someone. And sometimes it works out. I will add that these were not cases in which someone was simply looking for a ticket to a different country or a meal ticket. These were simply cases in which people hit it off with each other.
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