LDR = FML

 "Sex makes everything more complicated. Even not having it, because the not having it... makes it complicated. 

That's why it's better to have it... some say"

While i'm not psychic, nor a perfect example of what someone in a relationship should be like (and i'm certainly not some sort of fucking relationship guru either), I can safely say that if you find yourself in a relationship before a long period of living abroad, you should get out of that shit as soon as possible....

Not only will you end up wracking your brains to find a perfect arrangement for you both to no avail, you'll probably also argue and cry and writhe in the fear of losing each other, or trust in each other and you may even lose yourself in trying to make the other happy without fully thinking about how happy you yourself are.

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I know this certainly isn't a good advertisement for the Erasmus project, but i'm a realist and I don't have my head in the clouds most of the time and I wouldn't want anyone else to be like that.

I'm now a single man, after being in a long-term relationship, who is embarking on an Erasmus exchange for 1 academic year in France and Germany. I can honestly say I can't wait.

I've heard it many a time, that relationships that for one reason or another become long distance can't and never do work, and that going into a LDR [long distance relationship] especially across borders is never as easy as it sounds, However, I've been in one LDR in the past so I can empathise totally:

 I used to be going out with a guy from Germany in my first year of university. I'd fly over and stay very regularly (so regularly that I ended up living there for a few months), and he would fly over to England only very sporadically and that really took it's toll financially, emotionally and of course sexually.

Arnaud Clément is a retired French tennis player
born in Aix-en-Provence. He reached the finals of the
2001 Australian Open.

I still wonder how me and my now ex-boyfriend would have fared with such an LDR.
Not only would he be in a full-time job, with extra after-school work to do, I'd be travelling as much as possible and probably not be able to afford to fly back as regularly as I did with my previous ex in Germany. I would be at university for a massive chunk of the week and trying to socialise with as many people as possible to really make my Erasmus exchange worthwhile.

How possible is it for a relationship to survive that constant barrage of problems?

Consider also the language barrier issue if/when your partner visits you in your host country, it must be stressful being the only person in a group who doesn't speak a language, so no doubt it would be awkward having to interpret everything to your significant other, or end up just falling back into the use of your L1 even when abroad.
Not to be so cynical to suggest it would be a ball-and-chain scenario, but it would definitely makes things a little bit strange.

I don't want to be on Facebook or Skype with my partner all evening, when I could be socialising with others in person, nor do I want to be flying back at every given moment.


However, i'm not going to dwell on the past too much. I wish him good luck, in life, love and work etc but I am going to go nab some hot, single Euroboys now thank you very much....