Long-Distance

[eiblyn]

Long distance relationships have always seemed completely insane to me. But that was until I began to question what it is about relationships that I define their success or failure by. I realized that a majority of my decisions on the quality of a relationship were tied to sex. I would like to think that sex is not as important as I judged it to be. Sex is important, of course, but shouldn't emotional attachment and support be so much more so? Isn't sex supposed to function, in some sense, as a reiteration of other things as opposed to a motivation all on its own? And if I view sex as a reiteration am I negating its power to simply be and exist on its own? Sex, to me, cannot be one or the other. I have had sex that was both a reinforcement of a deep emotional attachment and I have had the fast quick sex, or even not so quick sex, that was between two consenting adults who had no more attachment to each other than a mutual desire not to be alone for the night. I do not see anything wrong with having sex within either of these realms of definition. I believe that a lot of my issues existed when I thought that if I loved someone I had to have sex with them. That my love somehow could not be valid if I was not willing or able to share my body with them. Luckily I have begun to disillusion myself and this is largely due to my first serious long-distance relationship. I have never been so in love with someone and been willing to simply accept that I can love someone even though I can't touch them whenever I want and I can't sleep next to them simply because I choose to. It makes it that much more special when I can, but I realized that I can have more emotional support from someone who lives miles away than I could hope to have from those who live here and have slept with me. And that is all the difference in the world. Sex changes in my world a lot faster than emotion could ever dream of. I'm happy that I didn't have to wait most of my life to realize that.