In today's day and age, long distance relationships are becoming more and more common. With technology advancing to the point of near-instant communication, it's becoming easier to have a long distance relationship.

Long gone are the days where you have to wait days on end for a letter. Although my partner and I also use letters to communicate, because I adore handwritten anything. However, if I wanted to, I could have an instant conversation with him about my opinion on Tomato soup-its delicious; which we do way too often probably.

Me and my partner, Mickey, have been dating for a year as of April 20th, and any joke you think of has probably already been laughed at. A majority of our relationship has been long distance, shortly after we met and started dating I moved to Orlando for UCF. In a way, we have been apart physically more than we have actually been together. Coming on the eve of our one year I've been thinking about that a lot, about our relationship, about everything I learned with having a long distance relationship.

Because I am so sweet, I will be sharing three life lessons I have learned thanks to this beautiful relationship!

1. Communication.

All relationships require communication. However, when you are living in two different cities, your communication skills need to be on point! You have to be able to stay in contact. If you are in any way terrible at texting- which I use to be- you need to get better at texting. If Mickey and I aren't texting, we're not talking. We have a multitude of apps that we use to keep updated with everyone. Snapchat lets us see each other's faces, with many many cute filters. Whatsapp allows us FaceTime even though I have an Android.

The other thing is that any of our 'important' conversations (they are all important) have to be done over text or facetime. If there is something that we need to discuss as a couple, we can't just wait until we can see each other to talk. Usually, we only have a weekend or a couple of days, also just as a general rule you shouldn't wait for weeks on end to have a serious conversation about something in a relationship, where we see each other waiting for that weekend isn't a great plan.

2. Trust.

Yes just like communication trust is needed for any relationship, but if you are at all an easily jealous person, then a long distance relationship isn't for you. If you are going to look at any new friend your partner has and immediately wonder if their cheating then my friend, don't date long distance.

I trust Mickey. Mickey trusts me.

That's why this relationship works. I don't get upset when he makes new friends who happen to be female. He doesn't get upset when I make new friends who happen to be male.

Trust.

3. Romance.

It's kinda hard to be romantic through a screen. Very, very hard. For one it's hard to find a cute angle, for another sometimes the sound goes out, or the video is slow, or a thousand other things.

However, you have got to make it work. You have to make cute dates. Dress up. Order the same food. Do something ridiculously cute.

Send letters to one another. Send gifts. Make cute things and send them to your partner.

I think that as long distance relationships grow in popularity we need to remember that just like all relationships you have to work for it. This isn't something that you can sit down and not work for. Relationships are an effort, anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.