Any freshmen arriving at Duke are determined to hold onto their high school sweethearts. Most find, however, that absence makes the heart wander more often than it makes it grow fonder. Among those who made their relationship last to fall break, the first happy reunion may have refueled the hearts' flame or confirmed their reasons for separation. For many older students, fall break was another brief refuge from the phone calls and e-mails that typically sustain time apart from their loved ones at different schools.
Trinity senior Christy Billington, for example, is engaged to her boyfriend who lives in Texas. Billington and her fiancee decided to re-start a high school relationship just before her freshman year at Duke and have been dating ever since.
"I think a long distance relationship is a good way to tell if what you have will last," Billington said. "I think when you're with somebody all the time it can become a thing of convenience and you don't stop to think if that's really who you want to be with. When you're apart you have to make the effort."
For Billington, this has been a positive experience and strengthened the relationship.
"It has greatly increased our communication," she said. "When you're that far away from someone you learn to communicate in different and I would say better ways because you can't just hang out."
E-mail and phone conversations are a tough substitute for face to face communication, added Trinity senior Amy Clower, whose fiancee lives in Kentucky.
"It's really easy to take something the wrong way [over e-mail]," she said. "We don't try to resolve things over e-mail, but I don't feel like things are really resolved until we can see each other and work things out."
Clower and her fiancee visit each other fairly frequently. She said that she has missed classes in the past, but is always excited to see him.
Indeed, beyond the financial burden of phone bills and plane tickets, missed classes can cut into academic performance and hours spent on e-mail or instant messenger can drain a student's already depleted time resources.
But sometimes even phone calls, e-mails and weekend visits don't bring contentment. Such was the case with Stephen Barnes, who attended Duke as a freshman last year but transferred to Louisiana State University to be with his girlfriend. Barnes said that with the amount of money he spent on the phone bill last year he could have purchased a plane ticket to visit his girlfriend every other weekend. He also saved all 900 e-mails his girlfriend sent him.
"It's just so hard to have someone on your mind so much and to never see them and never get to do the simple things like hugging or even holding hands," Barnes said.
"I do miss the friends I made last year... but that doesn't compare to the extreme joy I get from meeting [my girlfriend] every day for lunch and finally being rid of that awful empty missing feeling."
Clower agrees that long distance relationships are difficult, but said that for those who can not transfer, it is workable.
"If it's right, the distance isn't going to tear you apart," she said, "but it puts a bunch of annoying stupid little barriers in the relationship."
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