Why Long-Distance Made Us Feel Closer

Why Long-Distance Made Us Feel Closer

Blog Article

It sounds like a paradox, doesn't it? How can having thousands of miles between you possibly make you feel closer to someone? If you had asked me before I met Natalia, I would have said it's impossible. Closeness, to me, was about shared physical space, about proximity.

Our relationship, which began on sofia date, was long-distance from the very first "hello." I was in the US, she was in Ukraine. We couldn’t go for coffee, see a movie, or hold hands. We had only one tool at our disposal: communication. And because we had nothing else, we had to become experts at it. We couldn't rely on a kiss to resolve a minor argument. We had to use our words. We had to learn to explain our feelings, to listen intently, and to ask for clarification instead of making assumptions. We couldn't fill comfortable silences by just watching TV together; we had to learn to share our inner worlds, our thoughts, our daily triumphs and frustrations.

The distance stripped our relationship down to its essential foundation. There were no distractions. There was no "maybe it's just physical chemistry." All we had was the emotional and intellectual connection we were building. Every scheduled video call was intentional. Every "good morning" text was a conscious act of reaching out across time zones. We were building a profound intimacy of the mind and heart long before we ever had the chance to meet in person. When we finally did meet, the physical closeness wasn't the start of something new. It was the beautiful, final piece of a puzzle we had already built. The distance hadn’t kept us apart; it had forced us to build a bond so strong that no distance could ever break it.