I remember one day searching 'long distance relationship' on Odyssey's homepage to find articles about long-distance relationships. It's intriguing to me to see other perspectives of long-distance relationships because it's fascinating to me that other people are in the same (but also different at the same time) situation as me.

So, as I'm trying to find interesting articles to read, I stumble upon one and began reading it. Do you want to know when I stopped reading? When the author started complaining about being 1-2 hours away from their boyfriend. Believe it or not, that's a luxury couples in long-distance relationships would do anything for (including me).

Sure, going from seeing your boyfriend every day during the summer to you two going to different colleges and seeing each other maybe once a month is hard... but it isn't a long distance relationship.

Imagine you and your significant other being in two different countries. Imagine having to save up a ton of money just to be able to afford to see each other for two weeks. Imagine going slightly in debt because you had to pay over $700 for a plane ticket.

That is my current situation.

Everyone will always have a different opinion on how much distance is actually considered long distance and if you think about it, there really isn't an answer — just opinions. For me, I will never say that 1 hour away is long distance.

One hour is nothing compared to the almost 16 hours away that I'm dealing with now.

Everyone's situation when it comes to a long distance relationship is different. Some may be 10 hours away or some might be in a whole different continent or even a whole different country, but being only a few hours away is simply a difficult dating situation because your schedules don't seem to match up. (Some) People who are only a few hours away from their significant other can easily plan a weekend together and don't have to worry about spending hundreds of dollars for a plane ticket and can just easily take a small road trip to be with their partner. Of course, sometimes it doesn't always work that way, but it does occur in a lot of cases.

Seeing couples who are separated by an hour or two of distance and think the world is coming to an end because they haven't seen their significant other in a week is a punch in the face to me and I'm sure to others who are in a long distance relationship as well.

Some people go years without being with their significant other while others go months as they save up for a plane ticket or a way to get there.

Being in a long distance relationship is more than just seeing each other every other weekend and saving a portion of your paycheck so you can pay for gas to drive for a few hours. Trust me, I know first hand that not seeing your significant other for what feels like a decade is hard and it's even harder when you see couples around you ALL the time, but if I can wait a matter of months, you can wait a week, maybe two.