Sex Edition: Distance can strain relationships

Not seeing your significant other for months at a time can build up a lot of… Not seeing your significant other for months at a time can build up a lot of expectation.

“The week before you see each other you’re the horniest,” sophomore Gina Clapp said. “You’re counting the days — you know it’s coming, and you just get excited.”

High expectations don’t always translate into long-term stability though. This past year, Clapp’s one-and-a-half-year relationship with her high school boyfriend ended. She said their relationship crumbled because he joined a frat and was contributing less time to communication, the cornerstone of long-distance relationships. Her ex declined to comment.

Long-distance relationships, in which both partners live far enough away that they can’t see each other regularly, have become a different beast altogether in the digital age, with tools like instant messaging and Skype video chatting. Experts say that long-distance relationships can be made easier with new technology, but ultimately still depend on communication, time and effort.

Many students at Pitt reported having experience with this type of relationship.

Joel Chan, a graduate student in the cognitive psychology department at Pitt, evaluated his own relationship from the angle of a professional academic. He and his fiancé often use Skype and instant messaging to keep in touch. She is finishing her senior year as an undergraduate in Arkansas.

“I think technological advancements like Skype and IM make LDRs easier in that they allow for faster communication between the two partners. Particularly, Skype also enables facial vision and thus makes it easier for long-distance partners to express themselves,” Chan said.

Chan also pointed out certain disadvantages of his long-distance relationship: “Our emotional affection for each other did diminish somehow,” he said.

“After we got back together, it took us time to adjust and synchronize our schedules again,” Chan said. From a researcher’s perspective, Chan believes that LDRs depend on a number of factors, including commitment, trust, the amount of time apart and the amount of time expected to be apart.

New technology like Skype and instant messaging can also complicate long-distance relationships by providing partners with too many options to keep in touch with each other, thus creating unrealistic expectations for constant communication between partners.

A study published in the journal “Communication Research” last year by Laura Stafford, a professor at the University of Kentucky, suggested that people in long-distance relationships tend to avoid difficult subjects that might cause friction in the relationship.

Chan said that even with Skype, partners can’t really experience what their significant others are going through unless they are physically there with them.

“In general, LDRs are not meant for long term but can be short term. Ideally, face-to-face contact needs to be there — like being part of a team — to make it work,” Chan said.

Greg Siegle, an associate professor in the psychiatry department at Pitt, spends considerable time on Skype. He said that because of the way people’s emotions interact with their vision, it can be difficult for couples to achieve the same level of communication online that they might when physically together.

He said that since relationships need positive communication to work, they might require long-distance partners to consciously introduce positive ideas into the relationship, rather than let them come naturally.

Looking back at his one year apart from his then-girlfriend whom he has since married, Siegle said, “We would communicate through IM, without which I don’t think we would be married now. After we reunited, we felt like we knew more about each other than we’d have if we hadn’t been apart.”

At the same time, Clapp said that the lack of face-to-face interaction almost always causes some rocky moments in a relationship.

“The slightest thing can cause a fight when you text, and it escalates quickly,” Clapp said. “You must work through the problems or the relationship won’t survive because you can’t just have make-up sex.”

There are advantages to having a long-distance relationship, though.

When she was still in her long-distance relationship, Clapp said that she had more time to just veg out when she needed to.

There is no balancing act between boyfriends and friends on a daily basis. Clapp said it’s a juggling act when you get home because the boyfriend and family will compete for attention. Because it’s rare to see both during college, the pressure is on when it’s time to go home.

Patience, trust and faithfulness increase dramatically because there isn’t always an instantaneous response from the partner and there is little physical time together.

A short school break is a tease, Clapp said. “When visits happen, you only leave the room for the necessities because you want your partner all to yourself.”

Clapp said that sexting is appropriate, though she recommended no to picture-message, skype or phone sex.

“If you want the person and you want the relationship, then you make it work. But a lot of the time you live in the future, not the present because you are always thinking about the next time you will see each other,” she said.