Written By: Dara King Long distance relationships never work. At least they never work for me. The saying “absence makes the heart grow fonder” Never really worked for me. It was in the same unrealistic vain as a “penny saved, a dollar earned”. I embraced the mantra ‘a dollar spent is a shoe in the closet’ just as I embraced the philosophy “out of sight, out of mind”. So as soon as a boyfriend moved away, no matter how in love we once were, our ships soon sailed on to other destinies.
I once dated a man that lived in Brooklyn. Even though I was hesitant to travel to any borough outside of Manhattan, I dutifully trekked to see him a couple times a week. I was impressed with myself. I embraced this new bi-coastal lifestyle like I was a jet-setting A-lister. With me being on the East River and he on the Atlantic Ocean, we were seas apart.
Our distance became more apparent when I finally asked him to meet me in Manhattan instead me coming to Brooklyn. Even through the phone line, I heard the panic in his voice. He repeated the word Manhattan like I asked him to visit me in the jungles of the Amazon. Eventually he agreed.
We were supposed to meet at Columbus Circle. I took a rickshaw there (yes, a rickshaw… I believe in experiencing life) and patiently waited. An hour later and 23 phone calls to his cell phone (each phone call going straight to voice mail) I gave up and went home. It was too much for him to handle, my long distance lover was not coming to see me.
An hour later I received a frantic phone call. He had been on the subway for the past hour (yes, it literally takes that long to get to Manhattan from Brooklyn) and now he was lost on the mean streets of the Upper West Side. Hearing the panic in his voice I asked him “Haven’t you ever been to Manhattan?” He informed me that he hadn’t been to Manhattan in over a year and even then he never went past 14th St.
I was shocked. We were more than an island apart, we were worlds apart. People come from Tokyo to visit Manhattan and they fare better than he was. With that realization and despite his panic, I left him there. We never spoke again. While I am all for traveling to foreign lands, I decided it is probably best to keep my relationships local.
