LDR

When I googled this abbreviation for my Project Report a few months ago, I meant Light Dependent Resistors. But I was surprised to find it also means Long Distance Relationships. And it brought  a lot of things flooding to my head. “So this is such an important subject for so many people??” “Haha!

Well here is my “experienced” take on it….

First things first.. 95% of my friends have a boyfriend/girlfriend…. Fact. Some chose to disclose it some don’t. Some don’t like the term “boyfriend” because it somehow brings “physical intimacy” into the picture (which should not be the case). Special friend, “him”, the one, close friend, whatever you call him, this is one guy in whom you invest a lot of your emotions, time and love. And this is not the “pyaar me socha nahi jaata, pyaar bas ho jaata hai” scenario. Yes, in most cases is just “happens” mostly with the guy “pataoing” the girl, but it is still a well-thought-out decision. Some prefer to stay out of the whole mess, some dive headlong, some try to put it off till they build some faith in the system….yada yada yada….long story short everyone has their reasons, but yes, there is that someone for everyone.

Now a problem arises……. if u disclose it, everyone knows, if you don’t, everyone STILL knows. If you disclose, at the appropriate age ( and sometimes at an inappropriate one) questions start cropping up… “how long have u been together?”,”Any plans of engagement?”,”When do you want to get married?”,”Do your families see eye to eye?”. On the other hand, if you don’t disclose and claim to be just friends (maybe you are not even sure yourself yet), then people will formulate their own theories about why you are together, what is keeping you apart and it becomes a topic open to discussion. Personally I prefer telling the world about something that makes me happy instead of letting them cook up their own version of the truth. Also a word of caution for those “we are just friends” people… he/she can dump you any time they want and then, anyone you go crying to, will say “But I thought the two of you were just friends..” Then you are only left with the choice of admitting that you are a liar, or having the guts to deal with it on your own. It’s even more messy when the other person still sticks to the “we were just friends” version, making them immune to any questions anyone might ask, and making you look like a sympathy-seeker if you tell anyone about it . On the other hand, once you disclose something, be sure to live up to it, or face embarrassment and disgrace if it doesn’t work out.

I’d like to point out here, that I belong to that section of people, where we actually intend things to work out. Any relationship is never intended to be temporary. Everyone is looking at the future with optimism and sometimes naivety. The youth is still stumbling on un-trodden paths and the families are willing to let them learn from their own mistakes.

Now that we’ve spoken about everyone else, lets talk about the individuals in the relationship. One of my friends had a very cynical approach “when you enter a relationship, be prepared to either screw the other person or be screwed by them”. Very crude, but sometimes very true. If you don’t find that balance, if you are not prepared to make adjustments, be compromising and work on it; things can get so very cloudy. So here is the situation. We are 21 or 22. And we have already chosen the person we hope to spend our life with. If this was two decades ago, we would have probably married right here, right now. But today, we want to do something with our lives, we want to grow on our own, satisfy our need for achievement on our own, see the world. The girls don’t want to jump from one state of dependency to another. The guys want to make sure they are well on their way in life before getting caught in raising a family. And we will probably be apart, working in different spheres of life, in different countries even. That’s when LDR comes into the picture.

So many questions have to be answered… Will we want the same things 5 years in the future? Will we stay in touch? Will we cope with who makes what sacrifices? How will we grow separately and still like each other? When we meet more and more people, will we repent our decisions,will we stick to our decisions, will we have faith in the other person sticking to their decision? the list goes on…

Well.. Firstly this this the age of communication. Staying in touch is not the problem, still being able to communicate on the same level is. That’s how we will have to grow… separately yet together. We will have to get used to change. We will have to get used to making sacrifices. We will have to work on issues and resolve them……but wait…are these things not applicable to  non-LDRs too? Is this not just life? Its like searching for the perfect grain of rice in a vast field. Either you can keep on searching all your life, believing that you’ve not found the best yet, or you can look a while, in a limited section, for a limited while and say this is mine and will make the best of it. We will grow, we will change, and we will deal with the changes. We hope to have that maturity. And yes, we will be prepared for the worst too.

50 years ago, people didnt know the person they were marrying till their wedding day. They still made some wonderful success storeis. 5 years ago, people saw each other for 8 years before deciding to marry. And they too made some wonderful success stories.  Each generation has had their own stuff to deal with.. arranged marriages,  love marriages, inter-racial marriages, inter-religion marriages, live-in-relationships, you name it… And now there is LDR. Its not the situation you are in, it is how you deal with it. Thats what makes things work. ANd everything else is irrelevant. You will stick with someone as long as you are happy. You will be happy only if you work on it. You will work on it only if you want to stick with it.