This summer, I began seeing a boy who does not go to Cornell. Obviously, it was easy to keep in contact and see one another while we were at home, but problems arose when he left for military camp for five weeks in July and when we both left for school in mid-August. Although we are not currently together, we still try to work at a very close friendship over long-distance.
Every few days, we talk on the phone and have conversations about how school is going for each of us, how football is going for him, and other such events. We also talk over AIM and randomly through text messaging. Keeping a long-distance relationship going is extremely difficult, especially if there are feelings beyond friendship still involved.
McKenna's relationship facilitation factors include identifiability, removal of gating features, interactional control, connecting with similar others and getting the goods. Talking with him is simple and familiar because of the "connecting with similar others" factor. Since I attended all of high school with this boy, I already knew him pretty well before this summer. We can connect through both space and time and through social networks (we share the same circle of friends at home). He knows my interests, and I know his, so therefore we have common ground to cover. I suppose that ''getting the goods'' can also be applied to my situation, since his Facebook account is constantly available for me to see what he's up to. Now, I'm not saying I sit all day and check his updates, but it's nice to see some of his pictures from school and football and what not.
A lot of the time, it's difficult to keep such a relationship healthy because a particular person may be the one always initiating contact. However, if the partners share common ground and identify themselves with one another, a relationship such as mine is quite possible to keep alive. Long-distance is hard work, but since we were connected before through interactions in person, it's much easier.
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Brittanie,
You did a great job explaining how you keep in contact with your friend, and also how the long-distance is nevertheless difficult because you still have feelings for this person. Your analysis of your situation with McKenna's relationship facilitation factors is pretty good... the only criticism I have is that you could have gone into a little more depth. Though, you hit all the major points- again, nice job.
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