Love in the Time of Skype

Perhaps it has something to do with the frequently near freezing temperatures outside, or more likely the newfound flexibility in both of our schedules, but in recent months Cris and I have been spending an almost unjustifiable amount of time chatting via Skype. With the exception of the four months I spent in Cuba and completely unable to connect to Skype, it’s played a fairly central role in our relationship throughout. When we first met, my camera died in an accidental drowning, so the first pic I took of him was a Skype screen shot.

While the long distance relationships of yesteryear, or maybe a little bit longer ago than that, relied primarily upon long letters with even longer arrival times or low quality phone calls; LDRs now seem like the hottest new trend, at least if my immediate social circle is to be taken as somewhat representative. From unlimited sexting plans to Skype dates on free wifi connections, not only has communication gotten faster, it’s also a lot cheaper to keep in touch long distance these days. That’s not to say that there aren’t still some major hurdles for international romances- the higher cost of international calls and texting, quality and price of internet access outside of the first world, and then there are all of those international travel problems, but that’s another story for another day.

In spite of the difficulties we’ve faced, the long distance nature of our relationship has also been beneficial in a number of ways. I think that it has taught us both to listen better and be more patient with one another. Generally, in relationships, I feel that I take my partner’s presence for granted as time goes on, and that the same physical presence of them fills far more space of the relationship than meaningful conversation. With Cris, because we’ve spent so much time apart, we’ve had to invent ways of being present in one another’s lives. Rather than just doing the things that occupy our day to day lives, and doing them together as many couples would, each mundane task becomes an opportunity to communicate and share our lives. Tonight, for example, Cris called me up on his way to the store to ask me what I thought he should make for dinner. Somehow, I felt closer to him then than all the times we’ve made dinner together.