Tied to the phone cord

By Brittany Benjamin

You know it is the beginning of the year when countless freshmen cart picture frames filled with photos of their sweethearts up to their empty dorm rooms. Many of these sweethearts live hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away. This begs the question: will the blazing romance that flamed in high school last against the daunting enemy known as long distance relationships?

With an estimated 4.4 million college students involved in long distance relationships, the tales of heart-breaking brutal breakups far outnumber the few stories of long distance success. Yet, a dim light still shines at the end of the tunnel for those brave enough to attempt the impossible.

Junior Julie Angelo and her boyfriend, a recent Santa Clara graduate, decided to go the route of many other college students in pursuing a long distance relationship. Angelo is currently studying in Washington, D.C. for a semester while her boyfriend remains at home in Santa Clara. Having dated several months before Angelo left for D.C., the couple agreed to maintain their relationship while she was gone.

Thanks to text messaging and instant messaging, Angelo and her boyfriend still talk throughout the day, finding time at night to have long conversations through the phone or AIM. They find the hardest issue they face as a couple is trust.

"We can't always know what the other person is doing," Angelo said.

She admits to trusting her boyfriend probably more than he trusts her. "For me, I know he's with his family. It would be different if he were still in college and partying. But he doesn't know the party scene here. He doesn't know the people I'm meeting here in D.C. It's probably harder for him to trust me," she said.

Laura Ellingson, professor of communication, notes that trust is always important in any relationship, but becomes more of an issue in long distance relationships.

"You get fewer physical aspects of that trust. You miss the cues and the non-verbal signs. Trust becomes a lot harder to detect," Ellingson said.

Sophomore Cheryl Taguma knows that maintaining a long distance relationship can be an issue. Taguma's ex-boyfriend, initially from Hawaii, has been studying abroad in Japan since April. They recently ended their relationship due to communication problems.

"Communication is the key to any relationship, and we just lost it," she said.

Initially, Taguma used her cell phone and Skype to stay in contact with her boyfriend, talking for at least an hour per day. Skype is a computer program that allows users all the same capabilities as instant messenger. Additionally, microphone and camera hookups allows users to have phone or video conversations through their computers. Taguma found that computer access was limited in Japan and that her boyfriend, who only make an allowance of $50 per month, couldn't find the money to afford a calling card.

"He bought a 45 minute calling card for $40," she said. "It became very one-sided. He never wrote or e-mailed at all. I sent him packages and pictures. I tried calling him."

Freshman Carolyn Sage has noticed an increase in her phone bill as well. Sage, whose boyfriend attends Arizona State University, says she uses the phone and Facebook to stay in touch with her boyfriend. Sage foresees time becoming the biggest issue.

"It's hard to know how much time to put in. You have to do your own thing and meet new people without spending all your time on the phone," Sage said. Sage says she talks to her boyfriend at least once a day on average.

Confronted with the same issue in her freshman year, sophomore Aly Erickson-Wayman broke up with her boyfriend from Seattle when she found that calling became an obligation.

"I talked to him on a daily basis. I would be doing things all the time and I wouldn't want to call him. It felt like I was obligated to call, whereas it should have been something I wanted to do," Erickson-Wayman said.

Ellingson said an important step in maintaining a long distance relationship is establishing which means of communication are desirable for each party. This could include anything from phone calls to talking through e-mail.

"Be open with your needs for communication. Don't expect them to read your mind. We often want people to have the same needs as us. That's unreasonable," she said.

Communication is the largest problem in freshman Trevor Brown's relationship with his girlfriend, a senior in high school in Aspen, Colorado. Brown says he used to talk to his girlfriend two to three times a day, but the phone calls have slowly dwindled to the point that he's questioning their relationship.

"I knew this was going to be hard. But I'm having second, third, and fourth doubts," he said. "Our communication isn't going well. She hangs up on me a lot. She gets mad at me all the time and I feel like I've done nothing wrong."

Ellingson notes that it's hard for some couples to remain close through phone and e-mail because they revolve around talk only. There isn't the closeness through activity or physical geography. This infers that face-to-face visits are important to any long distance relationship.

Both Angelo and Sage have made plans for their boyfriends to visit within the next few weeks. However, Erickson-Wayman admits that the one time her boyfriend came to visit didn't remedy her relationship.

"I wouldn't even call it a trip. I had a headache the entire time. It wasn't a magical reunion. It wasn't like two souls coming together," Erickson-Wayman said.

Ranging anywhere from a starting price of $200 for a round-trip plane ticket, the issue of rising airfares is always an expense that sits tauntingly in the back of every college students mind. Is the cost worth it?

"You have to have something that brings you together," said Ellingson. "Usually that's face-to-face contact."

In reality, while every relationship is unique to the parties that participate in it, the secret to making any long distance relationship successful seems to be a commonly simple idea: effort and communication. However, while this idea may seem easy in theory, it proves to be far harder to put into action.

"It takes a lot of commitment," Erickson-Wayman said. "I learned that if you want to really be with that person, it can work. It just takes each person wanting it 100 percent. You have to be completely into it. If it feels like a burden, you shouldn't do it."

While the majority of long distance relationships seem to slowly smolder out during the course of the year, there are the rare exceptions that continue to burn. The kindling that keeps these fires aflame is a duel effort and communication put forth by both participants in the relationship.

"If you really love someone, you should at least make an effort at it," Sage said.

Sometimes distance and the college experience causes young lovers to forget that.

Contact Brittany Benjamin at (408) 551-1918 or brbenjamin@scu.edu.