Long distance relationships (LDR) has always been controversial and raised mixed feelings among those that are involved in them and third-party observers alike. As both partners involved in a LDR are physically miles apart, often located in different states/countries or even on different continents, and see each other face-to-face rarely, many ask how these kind of arrangements work, do they in fact work, and what is the sense of engaging in and then maitaining such a relationship (?). These questions are even more timely now, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic that does not seem to go away anytime soon. 

While living under the lockdown rules, it is extremely difficult or virtually impossible to meet new romantic partners in person, let alone date them in the traditional way. While many men and women have put their romantic life on hold with the onset of the pandemic and decided to wait with dating until the lockdown is over, others has moved their romantic life online. With the lockdown being recently extended and the pandemic taking a wrong turn, even those who did not want to engage themselves in online dating and prefered to wait, started considering this as a valid option. In the end of the day, we cannot put our (romantic) life on hold for who knows for how long, especially if we are in our 30s or older. As the result, many people that have met the right person online after the outbreak of COVID-19, found themselves in a LDR, even if they had not ever considered a LDR as an option for themselves.

In this episode of the Love Talks, Ahish Parekh and I taled about LDR with our guest, Pawel Komarnicki, a software engineer and IT entrepreneur, whose relationship was at some point in the past long distance. As Pawel and his partner lived for quite a while in different countries and rarely had the time to visit each other, he shared with us his experience on how to manage your LDR and make it thrive into a serious and commited relationship over time. We discussed the common and most daunting challanges of LDRs such as:

🎯 communication between the partners, including the technicalities like the secureness of different communication apps ;  

🎯 nourishing closeness and intimacy when being miles apart; 

🎯 managing each other's expectations about the relationship and its future; and 

🎯 dealing with temptations.