Why buy the cow…?

Relationships. Everybody wants one, but not everybody gets the kind they want. Many of us have no real idea what it takes to establish and keep a long lasting relationship that is healthy and fulfilling because we often choose quantity over quality. I don’t know what it is about hitting that one year mark, but if things start disintegrating we often find ourselves thinking, “I’ve given him/her over a year of my life. I don’t want to just throw all of that away!” I remember being in an extremely unhealthy relationship with someone for several months and thinking, “I don’t want to waste a solid year of my life with or on this person. Lord, PLEASE remove him from my life!” But…that’s just me. I get daily emails from an author by the name of Mimi Tanner who’s famous for a book she wrote on the rules of calling men. I, for one, don’t believe there are written rules to dating. Diff’rent strokes for diff’rent folks, right? What works for one person may lead to disaster for another. However, I read her emails daily and find her topics of discussion very interesting, and every now and then I get indirect advice on a situation I may find myself trying to fix or figure out. One in particular came about 2 weeks after I initially “needed” it, but nonetheless it answered questions that may very well be useful in the future.

Someone had written Mimi an email on the subject of LDR. For those of you unfamiliar with what exactly an LDR is, it stands for Long Distance Relationship. Before I get into the contents of the email I’d like to say that I’ve been involved in an LDR and it did not work. Not because of the distance, but because of the person with whom I was involved with. I’m a firm believer that if you can’t make it work from a distance (temporarily), you can’t make it work within reach. Anywho. The sender spoke on her personal thoughts regarding sleeping with someone you’re in an LDR with on the first date. She stated that she felt that if you had been talking for several months, and possibly have already been “intimate” via cyber sex, phone sex or skype sex, then there was nothing wrong with being intimate on the first date once you two are together in person. She also felt that after spending money for a trip to see each other in real time, you’re going to sleep together, matter of fact, you’re actually looking forward to it! Hmm…okay there are SEVERAL things wrong with this before we even continue.

First off, there is a difference between LDRs and, as Mimi put it, NMIP (Never Met In Person). LDRs are often established after or initially upon meeting someone new. NMIP typically stem from online dating services which means that you don‘t know if there is even any real chemistry between the two of you. Second, since when does spending money on a trip to see someone mean that you have to sleep with them? I don’t know about you all, but if I want sex that bad I’m pretty sure there are local individuals who are ready and willing to fulfill my needs without me having to fork out cash to fly, drive or take a train to get laid. I’m just saying… Third, sex via internet or phone does not constitute intimacy. According to the dictionary, intimacy is a close personal relationship; a detailed knowledge resulting from a close or long association or study; a private and personal utterance or action. All of which, in my opinion, require one on one person to person interaction. You simply cannot build a foundation that is strong enough to sustain the endeavors a sexual relationships brings BEFORE you give yourself a chance to figure out whether or not someone’s personal habits are even tolerable! And lastly, let’s go back to the quantity over quality issue I brought up earlier. I admit I have sat back and thought about the fact that I invested “X” amount of months in an LDR with someone who utterly disappointed me in the end, so I would be lying if I said quantity has never been a factor in one or more of my relationships. When I took a trip to visit this person my biggest fear was sleeping with him! I knew that the temptation would be there, and most likely unbearable; however I did not feel that he and I knew each other enough to go that far. Luckily nothing happened, but I’m pretty sure that most people would feel that 6 months or so of talking is more than enough time to establish intimacy therefore justifying having sex before or after a first date. All I can say in regards to this subject is that sex opens a lot of doors that many of us are afraid to go through, and unless you are a fearless individual, you might want to consider not even going near those doors.

I’m not discrediting LDRs or even sex before relationships. We all have different needs and desires, and some of us have different priorities when it comes to establishing relationships. What I can’t whole-heartedly agree with is believing that intimacy can be created via a webcam, phone sex or (worst of all) text messages. We’ve all had our moments where we’ve believed that something was a bit more than it actually was with another person. But once reality sets in, and we’ve had time to reflect on the contents of our “relationship(s)” we begin to wonder just what exactly led us to believe that there was ever a connection strong enough to work sex into the equation. Well…at least I have!

So how about from now on we do the opposite: think about whether or not there is a real connection strong enough to work sex into the equation. You never know, it might actually help in choosing quality over quantity.