Domi Janot and Kenzie Rawles
Nightly facetime calls, texts during the day, missing your other half, and finally reuniting after long stretches of time. Long distance relationships might not be common in highschool, but love has proven it can be flexible.
Senior Ben Langford is dating alumna Maeve O’Brien, who graduated last year. O’Brien is currently attending the University of California Davis as a freshman. The couple has been dating for nine months, three of those being long distance.
“High points are when you go up there or they come back… the distance makes seeing them better,” Langford said. “You get tired of the distance, it’s really annoying, that’s probably the lowest point. Getting used to not going over to her house or coming over after school definitely took awhile to get used to.”
In addition to changes in schedule, there are other aspects to being long distance.
“Being in college is more fun than high school, so that’s also kinda hard, getting used to them doing stuff all the time and you’re not doing much,” Langford said.
O’Brien describes the benefits of being long distance.
“I think sometimes people take their time together for granted but the distance has allowed us to take advantage of the smaller moments,” O’Brien said.
Senior Maddie Mangino is dating Andy Garcia, who graduated last year. He is currently attending Cuesta as a freshman. Mangino describes how being in a long distance relationship has the good kind of differences.
“Since we both get along really well and we have a healthy relationship I think that everything goes really smoothly,” Mangino said. “It’s only four hours so we get to see each other a pretty decent amount… we have it easier compared to a lot of others.”
While some people might see distance as a deal breaker, Mangino sees it as a good thing.
“Being with each other is better than it would be if he were to live at home, when we see each other it’s more meaningful and it doesn’t get boring,” Mangino said. “I think that even if he was home, we would both keep our lives pretty separate. We have a lot of the same friends but we are both pretty good at doing our own thing and having some level of independence but still being in a relationship.”
Love from a distance can be hard, but couples make it work, and cherish the moments they spend together, in close and far proximity.
“I never expected to be in a long distance relationship, it was never my intention,” Mangino said. “It kinda just happened. If you asked me last year, I would have said that I wouldn’t even be in a relationship, especially long distance.”
