It's been so long that this post will seem to be wholly out of place. When we, ehrm, I, last spoke, I was considering breaking up with the boyfriend. Very long story short, we broke up, realized we really didn't want to be without each other, and got back together. What did we decide about the future? Not really so much. We will cross that bridge when we get there, and I'm sure you all will hear all about it.
The current issue. We make up for the fact that we can't be physically together by skyping. All the time. I get home from school, tired and hungry, and the first thing I do is skype call him. We talk for a bit, then we proceed to make dinner "together". It's cute. We talk while we make dinner, we talk while we eat dinner, we talk while we clean up from dinner. Then, if we have school work to do, we'll do it while keeping skype on in the background. After schoolwork, if it's not too late, we'll usually play some sort of online interactive game like Scrabble or Settlers of Catan. Then it's off to bed, often times with Skype still running. If we're lucky and the connection wasn't lost during the night, we'll wake up with each other in plain virtual view and start the day all over again.
I think you can easily see the problem with this. I love him, but I have absolutely no me-time. I can't veg out on the couch and watch T.V. because I feel guilty for not being with him. I wanted to write in my journal the other day, so I told him I was going to take a shower. When I told him that I wanted to call an old friend to catch up, he asked if I could keep skype on when I called her. He just couldn't understand that even though I wasn't going to be saying anything about him, I didn't want him listening to everything I was saying to her. Her business is private, if she chooses to discuss something with me, that doesn't automatically mean she wants to disclose it to him as well.
Let me be clear, he is in no way controlling about this. In all of these situations I would have been able to do what I wanted without him, he just requests that I don't. If I say no, he's completely fine with it, it's just not his first choice.
I feel like I'm living together with him, 300 miles away. In many ways, it's worse than living together, because I wouldn't feel so bad about watching a T.V. show while he surfs the internet looking up sports stats, I could go in another room to make private phone calls, and I could journal write in bed, before I go to sleep, with him laying right next to me.
I realize that many couples who live together face similar issues. However, they're often able to justify the problems they encounter by saying that getting to be with the person 24/7 is worth it. I don't get to be with him 24/7. I get to be with a computer screen that looks and sounds like him, but can't provide me with any of the physical comforts that he can.
Thinking about all this makes me wonder how I will be with living with a significant other, in marriage or otherwise. Will I be able to give up my me-time? Will I be able to tolerate him croaching in on my zone. Will I get sick of him? I love my current roommates, but I often feel like I need to take a break from them. Will I feel the same way with him? Is this normal and healthy? Will he understand this need? And furthermore, why doesn't HE feel the same way? Why doesn't constantly being with me bother him? Is that a good thing?
Sometimes I think I'm ready for marriage. Then I think about this post.
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