Behind the Seams: Laughs, Leather, & Layers

February 15th, 2018. I wore this to go see PotterProv, the monthly Harry Potter-themed improv show at Comedy Bar, with my friend Zoë. It wasn’t really a thematically appropriate outfit – I mean, unless you think Remus Lupin is a daddy dom – but I had just gotten this shirt in the mail and wanted to wear it out.

I often like to get a li’l dressed up when I go see comedy, because comedians and improvisors are so frequently total babes. Plus I’ve dated enough of them that at comedy venues, there is always a real risk of running into exes or people with whom I went on one or two ill-fated Tinder dates… yikes.

What I’m wearing:
• Hair in little pigtail-knots (I started doing these after seeing Caitlin Roberts wear her hair like this; it’s so cute and easy, especially on days when my hair isn’t cooperating)
• Pink lipstick and pink blush
• Pink pavé Tarina Tarantino heart necklace – eBay, after searchin’ and sleuthin’ and biddin’ for a looong time to find this exact one
“Daddy” tank top – Redbubble
• Pink bralette – Gap
• Black and white polka-dotted skater skirt – ASOS years ago
• Black leggings – H&M
• Pastel rainbow glitter Doc Martens (!!) – ordered from Urban Outfitters back when these were seemingly unavailable anywhere else in Canada and I NEEDED THEM


February 28th, 2018. Leather jackets always give me so many Gender Feelings! I’ve had this one for years and years and I love its blazer-esque simplicity: it looks equally good over dresses or more boyish outfits like this one. I can’t wait for the weather to get a little warmer here so I can start rocking this jacket every day instead of my winter coat that looks like a literal sleeping bag.

I wore this out to a café to work, and then I dropped by my parents’ place to pick up some sex toys that had been delivered there for me (including the Liberator Axis, oooh!).

My boyfriend told me to put my collar on just before I left my apartment because I had a bunch of writing to do and he wanted me to stay focused. What a sweetheart.

What I’m wearing:
• Danier leather jacket – hand-me-down from an older cousin many years ago
• “Pun Slut” pin from L’Amour-Propre and impact play pin from Kinktionary
Royal blue suede collar from L’Amour-Propre
• Bright yellow Goodbye Honolulu T-shirt – a gift from Max
• Black jeans (a rarity – I loathe wearing pants)! – Gap
• Black leather Frye harness boots
• Ye olde giant black nerd glasses – Hakim Optical
Heart-eyes emoji phone case – Redbubble


March 16th, 2018. The first time my love came to visit me in Toronto, he gave me specific clothing instructions: I was supposed to wear an outfit that would be fun for him to take off me, like unwrapping a present. Now that’s a femme challenge that I’m absolutely up to!

I chose this ensemble lovingly in the days leading up to his arrival, and laid it out on a chair in my bedroom the night before. When I woke up that day, I finished up my morning dayjob work and then slipped into this outfit slowly, methodically, very aware as I slid into each layer that my beautiful boyfriend would be removing it from me in reverse order in just a couple hours. And he did, and it was lovely.

What I’m wearing:
• Blue and black heart-print cardigan – H&M many years ago (I’ve had this since at least 2007!)
Pink lace slip – vintage via Coldfish on Etsy
• Navy high-waisted A-line skirt – Old Navy years ago (I used to wear this a lot when I wanted to look businessy in journalism school)
• Pink and navy kneesocks – no idea, but they’re cute, eh?
• (Unseen) Pink and purple polka-dotted panties which I later gave to my boyfriend as a gift because he did such a good job getting them wet while I wore them – La Senza, I believe

What’s your favorite outfit you’ve worn recently?

The 5 Essential Elements of a Good DM Slide

Ah, the delicate and controversial DM-slide! I remember nodding vigorously when I read Priscilla Pine’s essay “What Comes After Tinder?” and got to the part about Twitter. “Most of the friends I polled who were active Twitter users mentioned it as the app where they had had the most success meeting potential partners, and I know at least one person who eschews dating apps entirely because her DMs have been so fruitful,” Pine wrote (emphasis mine). “In a way, that makes sense: Twitter mimics traditional social interaction in that you can find new people via friends and observe their personalities and senses of humor over time before feeling compelled to proposition them for a date.”

It was a succinct statement of something I already knew to be true: that Twitter was the social platform likeliest to introduce me to new crushes and fan the flames of those feelings, and that Twitter was probably the platform on which I’d be most open to a stranger asking me on a date. Not proportionally, you understand – of 100 people who express interest in me on OkCupid or Tinder, I probably go out with 5 of them, whereas the same calculation on Twitter would be more like 1 out of 300 – but if I develop a Twitter crush, I’m way more motivated to turn our flirtations into an IRL date, if possible, than I am with online-dating randos. I’m already more-or-less sold on them, from consuming their brain in 280-character chunks.

Having met three romantic partners (this guy, this guy, and this guy) and three casual sexual partners (this guy, this guy, and this guy) via Twitter, I’m pretty clear on what I like and what I don’t like, vis-à-vis people sliding into my DMs. Here are 5 elements your next DM convo with a stranger should definitely possess

Previous rapport. Like Bex says in our Dildorks episode about social media flirting, DMing someone you’ve never actually interacted with before (aside from, maybe, faving their tweets) is like going up to a stranger at a party, tugging them into a closet, and declaring, “I have to talk to you.” They’re probably gonna be freaked out and wonder what the fuck you’re up to.

Establish rapport by adding value to your Twitter crush’s life. Most of my successful DM suitors replied to my tweets with funny jokes, helpful suggestions (when requested), and supportive cheerleading – as relevant – before they dared take things to the next level by DMing me. This is important. When your name and face show up in my inbox, I should recognize them and ideally have a positive association with them from our previous interactions. Hint: if your crush has never faved, replied to, or otherwise acknowledged your public communiqué, they’re probably not interested – or you just need to build rapport for longer before you ramp things up.

A specific reason to message them. Bex recommends following up on a previous conversation the two of you had publicly – e.g. if you and your crush recently commiserated about something sad that happened on your mutual favorite TV show, you could DM them a link to a great article about the show a few days later and say, “Thought you’d like this!” Or you could DM them a link to a local event you think they’d enjoy attending, a thought you had about their latest blog post/podcast/tweet that seems too specific to say in a public tweet, or a thank-you for something they helped you with or introduced you to.

The first time my Sir DMed me, he was following up on a compliment I’d tweeted at him earlier in the day. “Hey Kate! Thanks for that compliment earlier, it made me blush,” he said. “You’re very cute yourself!” This is simple but it worked well because it gave me the opportunity to talk to him more if I wanted to (which I did) or to just say “Thanks!” and move on if I wasn’t interested. Similarly, my first DM from an erstwhile FWB was a response to me tweeting about being sad about the sexual dry spell I was going through at that time: “Sounds like we have similarly sparse dance cards lately,” he said. “Toronto’s been great for work, but surprisingly boring socially.” You’ll notice that this wasn’t a direct date-ask – he left me space to suggest we get together, if I wanted to, which I did – but was nonetheless relevant to our earlier public conversation.

Sometimes your specific reason for messaging them might just be wanting to ask them out. That’s okay, if done well. See “a statement of intent,” below.

An introduction. You might not need to front-load this into your first message if you think your crush is already aware of you and what you do, but it’s nice. Even something as simple as “Hi, I’m [name]! Long-time follower, first-time DMer” could be enough. Introducing yourself is respectful and polite. You probably wouldn’t go up to a stranger at a party and launch into a monologue without at least saying hello and telling them your name, so try the same thing in your Twitter approach.

My Sir did this in his second message to me. “I’m [name], a New York-based [job title]/sex nerd,” he wrote. “Recently found your work and your tweets and it’s all great stuff.” It was a concise statement of who he is, what he does, and why he followed me. Along with his respectful approach, it told me everything I needed to know in order to decide whether I wanted to get to know him better (I did).

A statement of intent. You probably don’t wanna put this in your very first message, because asking someone on a date (or whatever) before establishing rapport is risky, scary, and less likely to work. But if you do decide to ask your Twitter crush to meet up with you, you should give them some sense of what you’re actually asking. Don’t couch your romantic or sexual intentions in a vague request to “pick their brain over coffee” or “talk about [their work].” (And hey, if your intentions are strictly professional, or even casual or platonic, you should find a way to mention that, too. Less confusion = better results for everyone.)

You can straight-up tell them you’d like to take them on a date. You can tell them you’d love to get to know them better over coffee/drinks. You can suggest a specific activity you know the both of you enjoy (e.g. going to a comedy show), ideally one that’s culturally coded as date-y. You can disclose the nature of your feelings about them so they can infer you’re asking them on a date (e.g. “I think you’re really cute and cool and I’d love to take you out sometime” or “I’ve been crushing on you from afar for a while and would love to hang out in person if you’re into that”). My Sir said, “If you’re ever in New York and want to meet a Twitter admirer in person over coffee or something, I’d love that,” which is perfect because it expresses enthusiasm, indicates a specific activity, and gives me an easy out. So many good ways to ask cuties on dates!

Some fucking respect. Twitter isn’t a magical universe where you get to treat people like garbage. Those are real humans in there, so be good to them! Be polite, take “no” for an answer, and be appropriately apologetic if you fuck up.

Make sure you keep in mind, too, that someone ignoring your DM or declining your advances might not have much to do with you. They might be busy, or stressed, or going through a complicated situation of some kind. Don’t take this shit personally, if you can help it. You’re great, and there are always more Twitter crushes in the sea!

Have you ever asked someone out – or been asked out – via Twitter DM? How did it go?

Do You Have a “Type”?

“You should date this guy,” my friend said, forwarding me a screenshot of someone they’d encountered on Tinder. “He’s totally your type.”

I stared at the picture, trying to see what my friend saw. The dude was scrawny, bespectacled, and looked like he’d probably make an obscure Sondheim reference in the same breath as telling you why your favorite Pokémon’s stats sucked. Yep. Definitely my type.

Curious, I took to the internet. “What kind of person do you think I’ll end up with?” I queried my Facebook friends. The answers were very interesting indeed.

“Good sense of humor? Which I guess is subjective, but someone who is good with joking around and not making asshole jokes and stuff. Someone who’s passionate about some hobby/job/pastime. Not necessarily something nerdy, but maybe.” -my friend Dan, who’s known me for a few years

My first girlfriend was an improvisor, and I’ve been drawn to improv weirdos ever since. There is just something about a person who can not only make you laugh, but can do so with a quick wit and a theatrical committedness that dials their jokes up to eleven. Being on a competitive improv team for a few years saddled me with some of the most intense crushes of my life, simply because seeing people be that funny, that fast and that often, is bound to give you Feelingz about at least some of them.

That first girlfriend also cursed me with a permanent attraction to purple fauxhawks, squeaky laughs, and – most crucially and most enduringly – puns. I practiced my punniness to impress her, and now, all these years later, wordplay still makes my ears perk up. If you can outpun me with aplomb, I probably want to kiss you.

“Somebody intelligent, who has a working knowledge of something you’ll develop a passion for after you meet them (you’ll teach them about something you know lots about, like theatre or something, and they’ll teach you about the new interest). Somebody calm/level-headed who isn’t drawn into an argument easily.” -Max, my brother

My first serious boyfriend was a game developer, and ever since that years-long romance, I’ve been hopelessly attracted to other developers of games and apps. If you can ramble my ear off about code, interactive narrative, and the evolution of iOS, I’ll have very little idea what you’re talking about, but I’ll probably wanna listen anyway. Especially if I already think you’re cute.

This proclivity got so bad at one point that I would start flirting with someone and only find out after the fact that they were a game dev. “Of course you are,” I’d say, smacking myself in the forehead. I could not escape the devs!

I was mystified by this for a long time, until a game-dev friend of mine offered a potential explanation. He said I’m attracted to nerds, but especially creative nerds – and software development is where hard-nosed geekiness crosses paths with starry-eyed dreaminess. To make a good game or app, you gotta have both imaginative vision and nerdy know-how. It makes a lot of sense to me now why I’m attracted to people in this career so frequently.

“They will be laugh-out-loud funny, have empathy out the wazoo, be a good listener, and spontaneous. Funny is so important. I think a unique sense of humour is big too, and owning their own quirks.” -my friend Georgia, who’s known me for 10+ years

When pondering whether or not I have a “type,” the phase “charismatic nerd” kept floating through my consciousness. It’s really the most succinct and accurate description of the people I’ve dated. My physical preferences have shifted over time, and usually haven’t been all that important to me – but charisma and nerdiness have endured as crucial qualities in all my crushes.

See, I love the zany zeal that characterizes nerds – their no-chill enthusiasm for whatever captivates them, and the ways that passion can translate to sex and dating. But while I find some nerds’ shyness and awkwardness endearing, it feels too familiar to my dorky heart; I tend to enjoy dating people more outgoing and socially smooth than me, because they pull me out of my introverted shell and take me on adventures.

S. Bear Bergman says you should date “someone who is similar enough to you to make you feel comfortable, but different enough from you to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.” Nerdiness sets me at ease. Charisma sets my nerve endings on fire.

“I mean, they’d need to love BJs and you’d need to have good sex with them, but I feel like as long as they weren’t selfish dickwads in bed, you’d be able to have good sex with them. Like, obviously you have your preferences, but I feel like your sexual priorities are a little more mutable than the things you’d need from their personality. So if they were amazingly funny/supportive/creative and willing to learn (because they’re supportive of your pleasure) then you’d be happy to do the work to make sure y’all were having good sex.” -my best friend Bex

Last year, I was telling my then-boyfriend about a man I’d previously been in love with, and he said, “Why did you fall in love with him? Wasn’t he vanilla?”

It struck me as an odd question, because at the time that all that shit went down, someone’s kink orientation didn’t really enter into my vetting process vis-à-vis crushes. If they were smart, funny, feminist, enthusiastic, and kind, I figured great sex could come later. Or I could settle for pretty-good sex. Or we’d figure it out when we got there. I dunno, man.

These days, though, I lean toward viewing my submissive identity as integral to my attractions. Someone can capture my attention by being a little dominant when otherwise I might’ve skipped over them. Admissions of risk-aware sadism or daddy-esque predilections get my blood pumping. I consider kink compatibility alongside humor, temperament, and lifestyle when deciding how deep to wade into a new crush.

But I still get all swoony for mega-vanilla people sometimes. Hey, you can’t win ’em all.

“Smart. Open-minded. Probably a goof or you’ll get bored, let’s be real.” –Sofi, who is a literal matchmaker for a living

Ultimately, the qualities that draw you to someone, and keep you interested in them, are to some degree ineffable. You can write out what you think is the precise formula of your attractions, but you can always prove yourself wrong.

All my major crushes have shifted my own perceptions of my “type” in some way. I never knew I could love an extrovert until I did; I wasn’t sure I could fall for a bald guy or a short guy or a vegan guy until I did; I’ve dated people older than I thought I ever would, younger, louder, quieter, farther away. They’ve probably all had some kernel of something in common – some clever glimmer, some magnetic tenderness – but it’s hard to see their similarities at a glance. If you put ’em all in a lineup, they’d look like a pretty disparate crew.

I love that about attraction, though. I love never knowing who I’ll want next, and why. It reminds me that life is a wild ride and there’s no use in trying to predict anything. Just enjoy it while you’re on it.

Do you have a “type”? How do you feel about it?

Review: Doxy Number 3

You know how the details of your early courtship with a new beau feel huge and important? The album you bonded over, the shirt they were wearing when they first asked you out, the exact wording of the inscription they penciled into a book they bought you?

One such detail in my relationship with my boyfriend is the Doxy Number 3, a vibrator he bought me as a Christmas gift less than two weeks after we met. #Romance, am I right?!

Doxy #3 vs. Doxy Die Cast

I wanted this li’l wand vibe from the moment I heard that it existed. It’s basically a miniature version of the Doxy Die Cast; my sex blogger friends referred to it as the “Doxy Smol” before we knew what it was actually called. A common complaint with wand vibes is how big and bulky they are, especially the heavy aluminum Die Cast, so making a littler version makes a lot of sense.

The #3 serves my needs quite well, as a pervy jetsetter for whom hotel-sex dates in foreign countries are a common occurrence. I can throw it in my checked luggage, or even probably my carry-on, without the hassle I’d experience trying to travel with a larger, heavier wand. And being a plug-in toy, it won’t turn on in transit.

Like all Doxy products, this one is beautiful and sensual. It feels expensive and high-quality, which it’d better, considering its $150+ price tag. I adore how the wand’s aluminum/titanium body feels so cold at first and then warms up during use. The twist-off silicone head is a nice touch, making it easy to clean the toy after use without worrying about getting the mechanics wet.

All that said, this product still has some issues that I hope Doxy fixes. In fact, so many people have reported problems with this wand that Come As You Are decided to pause on stocking it because of its “high defective rate.” Mine has a couple of annoying problems. First off, it overheats after 15-20 minutes of use, seeming to taunt me for taking “that long” to come. Quit harshin’ my vibe, vibe!

Secondly, it has a mechanical problem my original Doxy and Die Cast both also suffer from: the vibrations seem to move around, and change dramatically in quality, at random. When I first turn it on, it’s buzzy as hell, but if I press the head into my body hard enough, it switches to a rumblier timbre. I can usually get it to stay rumbly for a while, but sudden pressure or movement can cause it to switch back into buzzy mode without warning – which, needless to say, is particularly annoying when you’re coming or just about to come. Yikes, Doxy. What is even happening inside your vibes?!

My other big complaint about Doxy toys, including this one, is that they all start way too powerful and don’t have lower speed options for the hypersensitive among us. But that’s not too much of an inconvenience; I can always just hold the toy adjacent to my clit until I’m sufficiently warmed up and craving stronger sensations. And ultimately, Doxy products aren’t for people who want their vibes weaker; these are next-level toys for those with next-level vibration needs. So if you like your vibrators very fucking strong and you haven’t invested in a Doxy yet, you should consider it!

I think the Number 3 is, overall, my favorite Doxy, simply because my clit prefers more pinpointed sensations than a standard-size wand can offer. I use mine a lot, especially during phone sex with the absolute darling who bought it for me. But Doxy needs to do a better job at quality control before I’ll be able to wholeheartedly recommend their products. When you buy a wand this fancy and pricey, you should be confident it’s not going to overheat or ruin your orgasm!

The Doxy Number Three is available at SheVibe and Peepshow Toys!

5 Ways to Make Long-Distance Relationships Suck Less

I always vowed, as a young naïve little thing, never to get into a long-distance relationship. Touch is one of my major love languages, and I’m not the type to need a lot of “space” in my relationships: if I love someone enough to want to be their girlfriend, usually I want them as close as possible, in every way possible.

So it was a surprise when I met a boy who lived in New York and wanted him to be my boyfriend. I knew more-or-less what that would entail, and I still wanted it. I knew how hard it would be, and I still wanted it. I had often wondered, unempathetically, of friends in LDRs, “Why can’t you just find someone closer to date?” and I see now that that’s a question akin to when folks used to ask me, “You’re attracted to butch women? Why not just date men?” The answer is, you can’t control who you fall for. When you want that specific person, it’s neither appealing nor always possible to find a passable stand-in. You want who you want, and you love who you love.

Like the relationship nerds we are, my partner and I have experimented with lots of strategies for feeling closer when we’re far apart. Here are five things I’ve found helpful…

He told me to order a Manhattan because that’s where he lives. What a dork.

Phone dates. My partner and I talk on the phone almost every day for at least an hour or two, which – oddly – means I’m in touch with him more consistently and intensely than I have been with anyone else I’ve dated, despite him living 500 miles away from me. It’s so nice!

Like in-person dates with a nearby beau, these can be either pre-planned or impromptu, and they’re delicious either way. Sometimes we talk aimlessly for hours while we’re both lying in bed; sometimes I get dressed up for a jaunt to my favorite restaurant and he chats with me throughout my meal; sometimes we have raucous phone sex (see below). In the early days of our relationship, we frequently stayed up all night talking for six or seven or eight hours, and it felt akin to those love-drunk dates where you watch the sunrise together on a rooftop or some romantic shit like that. Aww!

We also do weird-cute things like hanging out on the phone while we’re each separately working on our own stuff. Or like… I’m screensharing with him right now as I type this. (We’re nerds, okay?) Jasdev Singh uses the term “ambient intimacy” which reminds me of this kind of low-pressure, casual “date.”

Whether you go with Skype, FaceTime, or the actual goddamn phone, I think the real-time aspect is important here. Texting is fun, but it can feel like your partner lives in your phone – and you want them to feel real to you. So make the time for actual, meaningful chats.

Wearing his shirt. Aww

Physical mementos. I have a T-shirt of my partner’s that I keep in a Ziploc bag so it’ll continue to smell like him, and when I take it out and press it to my face, I almost always burst into tears. #OverEmotionalSlutLyfe, amirite?

I collect other little tokens, too: love notes he’s written me, tickets from shows we’ve gone to together, room keys from hotels we’ve stayed in, li’l gifts he’s given me, and so on. The ones that are flat enough get carried around with me in the back pocket of my Moleskine journal, so I can take ’em out whenever I need a reminder that I am loved. (Not sure what the people on the subway think I’m doing when I giggle awkwardly at a postcard I produce from the back of my notebook, but whatevs.)

Sending each other gifts in the mail is also adorable when feasible. I will never forget the time my partner sent me an enormous flower arrangement on Valentine’s Day, for example, and it still makes me smile to flip through the book he bought me just a few days after our first date. These keepsakes make our mostly-digital relationship feel more rooted in the material world. Like hickeys, bite marks, and bruises, they remind me that someone cares about me, even when he isn’t physically there to tell me so.

Digital intimacy. I used to staunchly believe you shouldn’t follow your beaux on Twitter, but, uh, I met this one on Twitter, sooo… maybe I should reconsider that policy. I get a li’l rush of adrenaline every time my love faves or replies to one of my tweets. Likewise when he texts me, emails me, Snapchats me, makes me Spotify playlists of songs that remind him of us… um, you get the picture.

We do nerdier shit, too, like using iOS’s “share location” feature so we can keep an eye on each other throughout our days, and adding continuously to a shared photostream that chronicles our relationship in snapshots and screenshots. (And, uh, cumshots.)

Lots of my LDR-experienced friends enjoy watching shows and movies online with their partner, by screensharing or using a service like Rabb.it. Could be a cute date night!

A lot of archaic h8erz will tell you that connecting via the internet is less legitimate than connecting physically, but a) I’ll take what I can get and b) they’re wrong. It all strengthens our relationship and makes us feel closer to each other so it’s all valid and important.

Phone sex. I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT PHONE SEX. Eventually I will write some kind of how-to, although I don’t think I’m very good at it. (Suz is, though, and she wrote a good piece about it.)

Like in-person sex, phone sex can be whatever you want it to be. It can be as standardly vanilla or as deviantly kinky as you please. It can be hypothetical and distanced (“If I was there, I would…”) or immersively in-the-moment (“Get on your knees and suck my cock, little girl”). You can use toys (including app-compatible, LDR-friendly toys like the We-Vibe Sync!) or just get off the old-fashioned way. You can be yourselves, or play roles. You can craft detailed storylines, or just touch yourself and lapse into breathy moans.

Even though what we do during phone sex is essentially masturbation, it feels entirely different to me. The psychological and emotional aspects are much closer to my experience of partnered sex, and the orgasms are extra satisfying and exhausting the way that orgasms with partners usually are for me. Post-orgasm, when all that oxytocin is flooding my body, it’s so lovely to feel like I’m auditorily curling up with my partner for sweet cuddly aftercare. The whole process makes me feel so much closer to him and is often so good that I only miss fucking him IRL a little. (…Okay, more than a little. But less than I would if we weren’t having so damn much phone sex, that’s for sure.)

Doing our goodbye debrief at Reynard.

Proper goodbyes. The goodbyes my partner and I exchanged at the end of our second date were so disastrously bad that we vowed to never let that happen again. That farewell was rushed, took place in a crowded New York subway station, and ended on the sad note of us commiserating about how much we would miss each other and how hard it was to say goodbye. Then I got on the subway and he got into a cab and we both cried while texting each other about how hard we were crying. Not good!

In relationship-nerding about how to fix this issue for next time, we decided we needed to look at our in-person dates as if they were kink scenes – since they were just as emotionally and sexually intense as most kink scenes – and do proper aftercare. We needed a structured process to help us work through what we’d just experienced and float back into our regular lives without the harsh emotional drop we’d experienced that previous time.

Here’s what this looks like for us. We leave ourselves lots of time at the end of a date so we don’t have to rush our goodbye. We go for a leisurely meal or coffee. We talk about our favorite parts of the time we just spent together, both sexual and nonsexual. If possible, we try to nail down when our next date will be, even if it’s a month or more away, so we’ll have that to look forward to. We don’t say goodbye on the subway or in a cab, if possible, because that abruptness is the worst. Our goodbye on our third date took place outside his office building, where we could hug and kiss and stare moonily into each other’s eyes, etc., and we both left it feeling happy, hopeful, and only a little bit sad. Developing a farewell ritual that works for you is crucial, and worth taking the time to do!

What do you like to do to make long-distance relationships easier and more fun?