Long before I had met my boyfriend, I made the decision to study abroad. The original plan was to go to Ireland for a semester during my junior year, but through a series of wacky events and friendships far too long to summarize in this piece, I decided I was better off attending school in Dublin for the full academic year. Simply put, I needed a change of scenery and I needed it desperately.
Still, my choice to leave for so long was a tough call to make. My on-and-off again boyfriend of one year had become my best friend, and despite numerous attempts to see other people, we just kept drifting back together. He had plans to study abroad too, but closer to home in Canada. We were acutely aware of the fact that my being gone for months at a time with an ocean in between may draw us apart again. Yet neither of us was willing to give up on our plans or on each other. So we decided we would stick it out.
We went long-distance at the end of August, 4,757 km to be exact. We were stretched thin across the Atlantic, Dublin to Montreal. With a 5-hour time difference, classes and internships, our schedules hardly ever seemed to line up. We had to forgo planning Skype dates and, in a lot of circumstances, Facebook messages took hours to be seen. Still, we weren’t giving up on each other.
Things felt different between us, and I mean that in good way. We seemed more committed than before, despite all of our past separations. We were patient and we learned to time the ebb and flow of our days. I started to memorize when he'd wake up, and in turn, he started learning when I would fall asleep. Each morning I was there to greet him and each night he would see me off, even if we couldn’t make time to talk outside of that.
When we did have time to talk, there was so much to go over. We wanted to know everything about each other’s experiences. We were trying new things and seeing new places and meeting new people. The new people part was scary at times, admittedly, especially when you’re afraid of being replaced; yet neither one of us really seemed to feel truly threatened by who our significant other was hanging around with. We were doing our best to be trusting, even when it was hard.
There would be bouts of anxiety and confusion for both of us. We’d worry if we made the right choices or if we were leading each other on. We’d have to catch ourselves, talk it out and find a way to move forward. This was the principle of 60/40, and we were practicing it long before I even knew what it was.
The term was introduced to me over poetry, ironically enough, one night on the north side of Dublin. I heard it from a man not much older than myself, fumbling at an open mic night. He was nervous, but he wasn’t stupid. And for him, this was the principle of 60/40:
In any relationship, romantic or not, you’ll never have a 50/50 split. Instead, you’ll have 60/40. What each person is able to give will always be changing. You have to patient and you have to learn when to carry one another. Some days, you’ll both be at 60, and it’ll be great. Other days, you could both be at 40, and rest assured those days will suck.
But when you really love someone, you find a way to pick them up. Any relationship is a game of give and take, especially when it comes to long distance. 60/40 is arguably more important here than it is anywhere else. I realize that this principle is how my boyfriend and I have stayed afloat across the Atlantic. It’s the reason we’ll see each other again in three weeks’ time.
I know we aren’t the only couple like this, and I know we’ve had our fair share of struggles along the way. Nothing worth having is easy to get, and I wouldn’t trade these last four months for the world. So if we can do it, you can do. Because at the end of the day, it’s just a matter of going 60/40.
