long-distance relationships

34 Nice Things to Do For Your Long-Distance Partner

Kate Sloan

Long-distance relationships are more prevalent than ever, so there are more people than ever who live every day in a perpetual state of missing someone. That sucks – but on the plus side, because of technology, it’s also easier than ever for long-distance couples to stay integrated into each other’s lives.

Cobbled together from my experiences and imaginings, here are 34 things you could do for your long-distance partner that will brighten their day and make them feel closer to you. A note: lots of these require money, but lots do not. Financial privilege (or lack thereof) is definitely a factor in how easy or hard it is to connect with your long-distance sweetheart, unfortunately. My hope is that you’ll find at least some new things to try on this list that are accessible to you. 💜

Establish a routine. The unpredictability and instability of LDRs – particularly if you’re never sure when you’ll be able to get together next – can be really draining. It’s nice to know you can still count on your partner’s presence in some form, even when they’re not physically present. So set some regularly-scheduled date nights and stick to them as well as possible. Show each other that you can count on one another, and on your relationship.

Send them food. If you lived in the same city, you’d be able to make them meals or take them to restaurants – but sending food from afar is the next-best thing if you can’t do those. Make use of services like Seamless and Uber Eats to keep your partner well-fed, if they want that. (This is particularly nice when they’re too sick or busy to figure out their own meal plan.)

Send them stuff they need. If you can make your partner’s life a little bit easier, don’t you want to? If they’re running out of toilet paper, low on cooking oil, or all out of laundry detergent, you can use the magic of the internet to get those things to them and save them a trip to the store. (Again: particularly great for a sick or busy partner.)

Send them stuff they want. You know, like presents? There doesn’t necessarily have to be a reason. Sometimes you just see something in a store and think, “Wow, my partner would love this.”

Share your calendar with them. This is a small-and-yet-big way to demonstrate your trust for your partner and your desire for continued intimacy with them. It’ll make them feel more involved in your life, because they can always see at a glance what you’re up to.

Send “good morning” and “good night” texts. Simple. Easy. Cute. Nice.

Read to them. Listening to your voice, over the phone or on Skype, might be the closest your partner can feel to you when you’re far apart. One lovely way to use your voice – especially at the end of a long day when they might be too emotionally drained to converse much – is to read to them. Books, articles, posts from your 2007 LiveJournal… Whatever appeals!

Send them flowers. My partner has done this for birthdays, anniversaries, and sadder occasions like a death in my family. It always, without fail, makes me feel special and loved. Plus it brightens up my room in a very physical, visible way, which my partner would also do if they were here!

Send them something to cuddle. A stuffed animal, or perhaps a body pillow. (My partner and I have long wanted to go to Build-a-Bear together to make a mb-lookin’ bear I can snuggle when I miss them.)

Count down the days to your next visit. You can do this in some kind of app, in your shared calendar, or just daily via text. It shows your partner that you miss them and are excited to see them again – and it can make you both feel more in control of a situation that often feels very disempowering.

Wear a reminder of them. A piece of jewelry they gave you, a shirt you borrowed from them, their collar, whatever. You’ll feel closer to them when you wear it, and they’ll feel closer to you too when they see it in pictures (see below).

Send them selfies. One a day, or more, I say! Going without your partner’s physical presence for long periods of time is slightly easier when you can at least look at them.

Send them (consensual) nudes. I mean, of course. If they find your body sexy in person (which they likely do), they’ll find it sexy in pictures too. They can also use those pictures as “reference images” the next time they want to fantasize about you in a private moment, naw’m sayin’?

Send them snail mail. Love letters are underrated in this day and age! Their rarity also makes them likely to be a pleasant surprise for their recipient. Get out some nice stationery and hop to it!

Introduce them to your friends and family. They probably feel somewhat disconnected from your “real life” because of the distance. Keeping them acquainted with the important people in your life can help them feel more incorporated into your life.

Remember and acknowledge important days. Are they nearing the anniversary of starting at their current job? What about the anniversary of their grandmother’s death? Is their favorite TV show returning for another season? Does your bisexual sweetheart need some extra love and praise on Bi Visibility Day? Remembering this type of thing might seem small, but it shows your partner that you pay attention to them and are there for them.

Give them keys to your place. They may never even use or need them, depending on your situation(s), but it’s a nice gesture to give them a set anyway. It’s a romantic expression of “mi casa es su casa.”

Post pictures of the two of you on social media. One of the hard things about being in an LDR is that you can’t “be seen together” in the usual ways – at parties, family functions, shows, and so on. Social media can achieve a similar effect, however. Your love will feel special knowing you love them enough to show them off on Instagram.

“Sleep with” them. Just leave your phones/webcams on all night (if data plans and other technology constraints allow for this). It’ll comfort them to hear you softly breathing nearby, the way they would if you were right beside them in bed.

Reminisce on memories with them. Yes, they’ve already heard these stories – they, in fact, lived them – but verbally reviewing your special memories together can help you feel closer. “Remember that time we…”

Take time off to see them. This isn’t always possible, due to Capitalism™ – but if you’re at all able to completely step away from your work and other responsibilities for the duration of your visit, it’ll make it that much better. It sucks to be distracted by work when you want to focus on your partner. Maybe you could even reshuffle some vacation days so you get more time with your beloved instead of, say, taking off as much time for the holidays as you usually do.

Send them pictures of what you’re doing. The lunch you just made, the club you’re at, a weird billboard you saw on your walk to the subway. These little glimpses of your life help your partner feel closer to you.

Create a shared photo album online. If you both have iPhones, this is a built-in functionality via the cloud, though other systems probably have something similar. If you keep all the pictures of your adventures together in one place, you can scroll through them for comfort whenever things are hard.

Cheer them on. If they have a big presentation, performance, or project on their docket for the day, make sure they know you’re in their corner. You can be just as effective a cheerleader from afar as you could from nearby.

Leave them a piece of your clothing. To you, it may just be a sweaty old T-shirt; to them, it could feel like a security blanket.

Make them a playlist. A millennial love ritual if there ever was one. Bonus points if it’s tailored for a specific purpose – like a mix of jams for a party they’re throwing, or an assortment of your favorite showtunes because they mentioned wanting to get more into musical theatre.

Help them take care of themselves. As their partner, you may be able to see patterns they can’t – like that they put off grocery shopping too long when they’re stressed at work, or they socially isolate themselves when they’re depressed. Gentle reminders can be enough to keep them on the right track, self-care-wise.

Skype them into events. The people you’re partying with can say hi to your partner, and they can see what you’re up to and feel like they’re there too.

Consume media together. Sync up a Netflix movie while you’re talking on the phone, read the same book and discuss it, listen to their favorite band’s new album from start to finish together… Local couples have lots of opportunities to hit the cinema or check out concerts together, but long-distance couples have to get a bit more creative to share similar experiences.

Take them on “phone dates.” The two of you can each get dolled up and go out to a place in your respective cities – a bar or restaurant, say – and then talk on the phone while you’re there, as if they’re with you. The establishment’s staff might think you’re a little weird, but it won’t matter to you, because you’ll be on a date with your sweetheart!

Get good at phone sex, Skype sex, and/or sexting. If sex is important to both of you, you probably miss it a lot when you’re apart… so figure out ways to be sexual together when you can’t actually touch. Tina Horn’s book Sexting is a great place to start if you want to brush up your skills.

Give them a sexual stand-in for yourself. A Clone-a-Willy of your dick, perhaps, or a Fleshlight meant to represent your vag. A nice thing about sex toys is that you can use them whether you’re apart or together.

Surprise them with a visit. This is an advanced-level move, because it requires intimate knowledge of a) your partner’s schedule and b) how they react to surprises (some people hate them). But if you think they’d be open to it, and that they have time to spend with you, it’d probably make them really happy.

Talk about the future. So much of #LongDistanceLyfe is spent waiting for the next visit, and the next, and the next; it can make you feel like you’re on a sad hamster wheel of heartbreak, a Skype-era Sisyphus (try saying that five times fast). If you have plans to eventually move to the same place, live together, get married, or anything else, it can be soothing to talk about those plans from time to time. It’ll keep you both focused on your goal, and less bogged down by the daily difficulties of your situation.

 

What nice things do you like to do for long-distance partners?

Protocol Diaries: The Airport Pickup

Kate Sloan

Protocol – that is to say, agreed-upon routines and traditions – has been important to me in several of my kink-tinged relationships, but has become especially so in my current long-distance relationship. It often feels like the glue that holds us together when we’re apart, the fuel that helps us power through our long absences from each other’s physical lives.

I am a person who enjoys routines and traditions more generally, as well. I love that my mom makes the same nostalgic dishes on Christmas every year; I love watching fireworks in the park on annual holidays; I love kicking my writer-brain into gear with the same familiar coffee and muffin at the start of every deadline day. These repeated actions lend some structure and purpose to my life, giving me something exciting to look forward to and something comforting to reflect on. So of course I feel that way in my relationships too.

When mb first started coming to Toronto to visit me, I would always wait dutifully for them at my apartment until they arrived in an Uber. As they neared my building, I would come downstairs and stand outside, glancing nervously at their location on the live map on my phone every few seconds, until they rolled up, got out, and kissed me, suitcase in tow.

But at a certain point, I just couldn’t wait around anymore. Finishing my work early and pacing around my apartment in anticipation often left me feeling agitated and powerless. When you miss someone as much as I always miss mb, you want to see them as soon as you possibly can. And the soonest I can conceivably see mb, when they come to visit, is in the arrivals area of the airport.

It gives us the chance to be almost cinematically romantic. The dramatic full-hearted kiss at the airport is such an iconic scene; I can’t help but smile when I see couples reuniting in this way. I notice people smiling at us when we do it, too, as if we’ve reminded them that wholesome true love still exists (though, in private, we’re not exactly wholesome).

At this point you might be wondering, “Kate, why are you calling this a ‘protocol’ like it’s a kink thing, when it’s actually just a romantic tradition?” Fair point, my astute friend. There are three elements that make this activity kinky. First of all, mb always specifies in advance a particular item I should have ready for them when they arrive, like coffee, candy, or gum. Secondly, sometimes there is some secret sexiness going on under my clothes, in the form of lingerie, a butt plug, or an insertable vibrator I’ve been ordered to wear. And thirdly, anything can be kinky when viewed through a kinky lens. Every time I show up to greet my beloved at the airport, I think of it as not only a romantic gesture but an act of service I am doing for them as their submissive.

I’ve repeated this tradition so many times that my body has started to recognize it at almost a cellular level. When I walk to the subway station, get on the train, and then get onto the airport-bound bus at Kipling station, my brain and guts both know exactly what’s about to happen, and the excitement builds in my belly like the good kind of pre-show jitters. Even though mb and I have been dating for nearly two years, I still get just as excited to see them in person as I did for our first few dates, and I think this ritual is part of the reason why; it creates a Pavlovian response that puts me into an eager, enthusiastic brainspace, receptive to love and affection.

By the time we get into an Uber that’ll take us back to my apartment, and I lean my head on mb’s shoulder, I’ve been through an entire emotional journey. This process elevates the mundane aggravation of a long-distance relationship into something almost ceremonial. Love is worth celebrating and getting excited about, and this is one small way I’ve found to do that.

How to Make a Long-Distance Goodbye Easier

Kate Sloan

You know how they say “sadness is the price we pay for love”? I’ve never felt that more strongly than in a long-distance relationship.

Saying goodbye to a local partner is NBD; you know you’ll be seeing them next Tuesday anyway, and that if an emotional emergency before then necessitated their presence, you could just swing by their place. But goodbyes with long-distance partners can be heavy: you’ll soon be once again unable to touch and kiss this person you love to touch and kiss, and you may not even know when that gap will be closed again. There’s no way around it: it sucks.

This melancholy interaction may be inevitable, but there are things you can do to avoid falling into a pit of despair every time. I say this as a woman who, nine months ago, broke down in tears on the floor while clutching my partner’s leg because I so desperately didn’t want them to leave: things need not always be this dramatic! Here are some habits I’ve picked up that have made these long-distance farewells easier to handle…

Stay in the moment. It’s very easy, the day that one of you’ll be headed back home, to spend all day long fretting and crying about how sad it is that you have to part ways. But that’s a trap, and it robs you of the thing you’ll miss most once they go: quality time with your beloved. Try to stay focused on your partner right up until you have to start dealing with travel logistics – it’ll be easier to let them go if you know you made every moment count.

Sort out your travel well in advance. Nothing kills the good vibes at the end of a long-distance date faster than freaking out about last-minute travel mishaps. Plan your route to the airport, bus station, etc. during a calm moment so you won’t have to do it during a sad, scary one. Check in for your flight on your phone so you don’t have to rush. Make sure you know where your passport is. The more of this stuff you get out of the way earlier, the longer you can enjoy your sweetheart’s company for.

Reminisce on the highlights of your date. My partner and I do this as part of a ritualized “debrief” at the end of each of our dates. We go back and forth listing our favorite things we did together on that visit, both sexual and non-sexual. It lets us process those experiences together while lifting our moods and getting us excited about things we want to do again sometime. This is one way we try to leave our dates on a happy note.

Plan your next date. This isn’t always possible, because travel is a fickle mistress (not to mention expensive), but if you can figure out when you might next see each other, it helps. Life might well throw a wrench into your plans, but at least it’ll give you something to look forward to in the meantime.

Exchange tokens of affection. Temporarily losing your physical connection with your partner is really hard; exchanging physical gifts of some kind can help mitigate that feeling of lack and loss. You could lend them a T-shirt that smells like you, or leave them a bruise on their ass as a badge of honor; they could give you a stuffed animal to cuddle, or write “Remember I love you” on your arm. There are a lot of ways to leave a little piece of yourself with someone so they feel like you’re still there even when you go.

Say goodbye alone and in a quiet place, if possible. I learned, after one particularly painful goodbye in a New York City subway station, that farewells in loud, public areas make me feel disconnected and unresolved. I need concentrated time with my partner right before our paths diverge. This could be as elaborate as an intimate last-hurrah date in the corner booth of a fancy restaurant, or as simple as sleuthing out a quiet alcove in the train station for one last heart-to-heart before “all aboard.” You’ll feel better if your last few minutes together feel just as connective and intimate as the high points of your date.

Reflect and process. You’ve already discussed your date with your beau; now it’s time to sit with all those feelings on your own. Journaling on my homebound plane ride is always my favorite way to do this – I’ll write about the best parts of the date, any questions or worries it left me with, and how it all felt. This process helps me transition back into my “real life.”

Be gentle with yourself. It is totally okay – normal, even – if you feel sad for a few hours or days after bidding your love adieu. Try not to beat yourself up if it takes you some time to “get back to normal” emotionally. I often find that this type of sadness comes with a bodily sluggishness that makes it harder for me to accomplish anything once it sinks in that we’re apart again, so I try not to schedule anything rigorous or anxiety-provoking within the first 12 hours of my arrival home, if not more. It’s an act of self-love to observe your own patterns in this way and set boundaries or make adjustments accordingly.

Stay in touch. Like a kink scene, a long-distance date shouldn’t end with you just disappearing – there’s gotta be aftercare! Try to be available to your partner for texting, emails, phone calls, or your other conversational medium(s) of choice – maybe even more available than usual. Both of you might still be feeling pretty mushy-hearted, and there might be more to talk about and process. Plus, of course, knowing you can still talk to someone easily can make it a lot easier to stomach their physical absence.

Notice what works and doesn’t work for you, and adjust. If you have some goodbyes that particularly suck, or some that are unusually easy, it’s worth discussing together: what factors contributed to this outcome, and how can we adapt our future approach with this new knowledge in mind? All the above tips are practices my partner and I have come to after many, many months of trying different strategies and talking about our feelings. It’s half-trial and error, half-scientific method. It can’t erase our pain entirely, but it offers us a toolbox for managing that pain.

How have you handled goodbyes in long-distance relationships? Got any tips (or warnings)?

12 Days of Girly Juice 2018: 2 Fears Defeated

Kate Sloan

I’ve conquered a lot of fears in the past few years, or at least attempted to. Hell, life with an anxiety disorder is basically just a long process of battling fears, like walking through a brambly underbrush with a machete in each hand. In 2015 I upped my blowjob game and delved into threesomes; in 2016 I fucked on camera and navigated casual sex; and last year I explored polyamory more deeply and got better at tactful rejection. That’s a whole lotta scary things, and I’m proud of myself!

Here are two things I’d previously feared, that I managed to face head-on in 2018…

Long-distance relationships

I swore, when I was younger, that I would never fuck with an LDR. “I need a lot of attention and physical affection,” I reasoned, “and that just isn’t practical if the person lives far away.” What I had neglected to plan for, however, is that sometimes you fall in love with a geographically distant person even if you had planned not to – and that distance does not have to preclude the exchange of attention and affection.

Knowing full well about the hurdles long-distance couples face, my partner and I approached our relationship with thoughtfulness and intentionality. We built systems and routines that helped bolster our burgeoning intimacy: good-morning texts, near-nightly phone conversations, FaceTime calls whenever convenient, selfies and tweets and emails. We crafted a sex life from sexting and phone sex (more on that in a sec) that feels as real, enjoyable, and important to me as any in-person sexual connection I’ve ever had. We made it clear to each other, day by day by day, that we are committed to making this relationship work and making it last. We look for new ways to do that all the time.

We’re also deeply privileged to live not terribly far from each other – a 90-minute flight or an ~11-hour bus ride – and to be able to afford to see each other about once a month. It’s funny: when we first started dating, we agreed that 2 months was about the maximum amount of time we’d ever want to go without seeing each other, but we’ve never actually waited that long. The longest we’ve spent apart at a time is about 5 weeks, but we average around 3 weeks between each visit. Sometimes it’s hard, but it’s always doable.

Ultimately I’ve come to realize that long-distance relationships – if they’re as conscientiously intimate as this one – may actually be better suited to how my brain works than local ones, in some ways. I’m an easily-overwhelmed introvert, so being able to talk to my partner while pajama-clad in my bed at the end of the day is often preferable to, say, going out for drinks or schlepping my stuff to someone’s house in the cold. When a local partner is too busy to see me for a while, my anxious brain takes it as a personal affront – but somehow it still feels like a treat every time my long-distance partner spends time with me over the phone. Our in-person visits give me something to look forward to, like a life preserver to cling onto when I feel depressed, and also give me motivation to deep-clean my room at least once a month. It’s pretty ideal, actually.

I’m not saying long-distance relationships are something I’ll continue to look for in the future – it’s my hope that they’ll be a rare exception in my life, rather than a commonplace thing – but I’m not nearly as put off by the prospect of them as I used to be. And that’s nice, because it means more opportunities for love, sex, kink, and joy are open to me now, all around the world.

Phone sex

Another thing I thought I’d never like! Weird.

When I was a teen, my beloved friend-with-benefits would sometimes call me up and read erotic Harry Potter fanfiction to me over the phone. If I got turned on enough, occasionally I would touch myself while she breathed these fanciful words into my ear. I liked listening to her struggle to get through each sentence while straining to hear the changes in my breathing, the slide of skin against wet skin.

That was my only experience resembling phone sex, until about 9 years later, when a prospective sugar daddy emailed me asking if he could pay me for the pleasure of my company over the phone. The price was right and he was charming as hell, so we fell into a pay-to-play arrangement that culminated in a couple nights of him whispering filthy things to me while I moaned and purred and held a vibe on my clit.

I had always imagined that phone sex would require an equal give-and-take, a 50:50 exchange of dirty words and ideas back and forth, and indeed, I’m sure that this is how it works for many people. But I am a bottom, and a sub, and I go pretty nonverbal when subspace kicks in, so I knew I wouldn’t be well-suited to talk someone to orgasm. What I had overlooked, though, is that lots of tops and doms prefer to be the person driving the action, not only in person but over the phone too. That’s what my sugar daddy was into, and when I started dating my current boyfriend, I discovered that he was into it, too. He calls himself a “phone-sex top”: someone who says most of the shit and is more than happy to do so. It’s my reactions he gets off on: my moans, my squeals, my subspacily slurred responses to his questions. In this regard (and several others), we are perfectly well-matched.

It’s funny how I went from abhorring the idea of phone sex to it being easily 80% (or more) of my sex life this year. It’s a near-daily routine for us now, and as such, we’ve developed our own patterns, techniques, tropes and styles within our phone play, which you can read about in the interview series we did about it. Just like in-person sex with a consistent partner, our phone sex gets better and better the more that we learn about each other, and strives for a balance between reliable old favorites and exciting new explorations. It makes me so happy and doesn’t feel, at all, like a consolation prize for the “real thing.” Phone sex with my partner is real, deep, romantic, exciting, and a wonderful comfort.

What fears did you overcome this year?

Behind the Seams: Babes & Dates

Kate Sloan

May 11th, 2018. The “little boy at summer camp” vibez are so real. I wore this out to my fave local diner (which has since CLOSED, boooo) to finish up some dayjob work over bacon and eggs, and then hopped on the subway and went to the mall. Ended up buying a bunch of dresses and other assorted cuteness at H&M (including some items you’ll see elsewhere in this post!). It was a good day.

This shirt says “Babes Do It Better” and I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, but I like it anyway. Do you ever acquire a new piece of clothing that you think you’ll only wear occasionally but then you start wearing it all the time? This shirt achieved that status for me last summer… Sometimes a garment just feels right, for whatever reason.

What I’m wearing:
• “Babes Do It Better” T-shirt – Forever 21
• Danier leather jacket – hand-me-down from a cousin, adorned with pins from Kinktionary, L’Amour-Propre, and Hippo Campus
• Black rhinestoned shorts – H&M many years ago
• Giant Red Robot kneesocks – bought from R. Stevens at the Toronto Arts & Comics Festival in 2011 (I had been reading his webcomic for many years at that point and fangirled pretty hard about meeting him)
• Black leather Frye harness boots
• Coach turquoise leather turnlock tote – bought on sale for half-price last year and carried damn near everywhere since

May 12th, 2018. This was a weird/cute day in my long-distance relationship. In the morning I went to a local café to work on some articles for a copywriting client, and then I went to 7 West for lunch because I was craving their pesto pollo pasta. My boyfriend chatted with me over the phone throughout my meal – a frequent and favorite type of phone date we do – and then we just kept talking for my entire walk back to my apartment. Once I got home, we talked for several more hours, including some excellent phone sex and lots of giggles. All told, our phone date that day lasted 9 hours, because we’re weirdos in love. I adore finding ways to prioritize intimacy even when we’re so far apart.

I felt really cute in this outfit. It’s a bit “schoolgirl meets mime,” n’est-ce pas?

What I’m wearing:
• Revlon Ultra HD matte lip color in “Obsession” (definitely a current fave)
• Black and white striped tank top (new) – H&M
• Blue suede collar – L’Amour-Propre
• Black and white polka-dotted skirt – ASOS
• Black and white striped thigh-high socks (originally bought to be part of a schoolgirl costume for Halloween) – Amazon, I think?
• Black leather Frye harness boots

May 13th, 2018. I had a hard time getting out of bed on this day, so my Sir gave me some specific instructions and time constraints re: getting showered and dressed, and that helped motivate me a lot. It was Mother’s Day and I was headed to see my mom and give her a gift, so I opted to dress in a feminine, springy way I thought she would appreciate (and she did!).

This outfit also felt very DD/lg to me – pigtails, pink lipstick, sparkly jewelry, and short A-line dresses will do that – so I reflected a fair bit on what it means for me to “feel little” and how that manifests in my body and brain. (I want to write about this eventually!) I noticed myself feeling much cuter and more embodied than usual, and I think it was because my exterior matched how I usually feel – or want to feel – on the inside: feminine, optimistic, youthful, spunky, cute. Clothes are about so much more than just the visual!

What I’m wearing:
• Hair in high pigtails (I hope I never feel “too old” to wear pigtails; they’re cute at any age, as far as I’m concerned)
• Big blue and black sunglasses – bought on a whim at the hotel gift shop at last year’s Woodhull
• Revlon Ultra HD matte lip color in “Obsession” again
• Floral dress (new) – H&M (I have this exact dress in 12+ different colorways and will keep buying them as long as H&M keeps making new ones, because they’re super flattering and comfortable and FIFTEEN DOLLARS EACH)
• Pink sparkly Tarina Tarantino heart necklace – vintage on eBay
• Black leather Frye harness boots

While we’re talkin’ fashion… What’s your favorite piece of clothing right now? Also: got any great spring lipsticks to recommend?