Everybody tells you that you're going to end up meeting the love of your life in high school or college. What they never told you was that you might not actually meet them until after you're dating.

Well, at least that's what nobody told me.

I started talking to this guy through a mutual friend of mine back in 2015 - we kind of had a fling of sorts, which was mainly just flirting back and forth before we lost contact for a while. In July of 2018, we started talking again as friends - which then escalated to flirting and then to dating in August.

But why exactly is this an important detail?

I live in Indiana, and I'm studying at Ball State University with an Earth/Space Science Education major. My boyfriend, however, has lived in New York his entire life. He's going to a community college up there while I'm still here in Indiana. We've never been in the same state at the same time, and we've never met in person due to that.

Long distance relationships themselves are tough, but they can be even tougher when you're in college. Our schedules allow for a couple of hours to talk before we have to get back to classes, homework, clubs, and other extracurricular activities. I currently have classes taking up 17 of my 18 allotted hours for my semester, and he's taking nearly the same. Communication is one of the most important things to keep stable when you're in a relationship, but you have to try even harder to maintain that stability if you're in a long distance relationship.

We've talked about meeting in person before the end of this year, but neither of us is really sure if it will actually happen. We're both hoping that it will, but neither of us has a drivers license as of right now... Let alone a car. None of our breaks for college line up as well as we had originally hoped - aside from Thanksgiving and Christmas, but those aren't really the kind of breaks that you want to spend away from your families for extended periods of time.

518 miles, an 8 hour and 22-minute drive, and yet we still have a connection stronger than we've felt before. Distance doesn't define love, it doesn't weaken it. Rather, the distance will strengthen the connections you have with somebody.

I've come to realize that the phrase, "Distance makes the heart grow fonder," is accurate when you're talking about the love you feel for others. Divides don't make you lose the love that you hold in your heart, whether those divides are physical or political. Love is a word that changes and molds to fit your own definition, and nobody else can truly define love in the same way that you can. Distance, one of the things that people always tell you to avoid, can make you realize how much somebody really means to you.

It isn't until somebody isn't within arms reach that you begin to realize your true feelings.