How to Survive a Long Distance Relationship

In today's internationally accessible society, a long-distance relationship is no longer impossible. Relationship thrives wherever it must be planted, and the ones genuinely built on love and understanding are always worth preserving regardless of the miles. Yes, love letters can get through different area codes, and sweet nothings are much too vital to be barred by mountains and oceans. Thank God the virtual superhighway that we call Internet is wide enough to accommodate the needs and whims of the heart and mind. Now, roaming the world can be a little less heartbreaking.

ELECTRONIC MESSAGING

Face-to-face encounters is no longer a non-negotiable for affection to flourish, as proven by the quintessential cyber romance of Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) a.k.a. NY152 and Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan) a.k.a. Shopgirl in You've Got Mail. Electronic mail or e-mail, is still the most wonderful invention for separated loved ones. It is almost instant in delivery, reducing the queer sensation of waiting from two weeks via snail mail to two minutes.

Love letters need not contain just ordinary texts. The beauty of email is that you can also put in sounds, images, and videos. Here are some of the ways to fully maximize electronic messaging.

1. Send him/her an mp3 of your theme song, or just a cute new song that you just heard from the radio.
2. Create and send a slideshow of photos taken from an activity. Did you just come from the park with your little brother? Did you just get home from a party? Give him/her a snapshot of your everyday life.
3. Take slideshow to a higher level. Do a simple documentary of how your day went using your handheld phone's video application.

INTERNET TELEPHONY

Alexander Graham Bell's pioneering venture in the field of telecommunication has almost smudged the ink-and-paper system, in which written words are in black and white, and tones, intentions, and content are easily misconstrued. What love letters can't afford you, the "electronic speech machine" can. The only problem is that long distance phone calls are expensive. Most long-distance phone calls end up costing you a great deal of money, which may reduce the number of phone calls you can make. And so P2P or Peer-To-Peer technology was invented. Popularized by file-sharing applications such as Napster and Kazaa, P2P technology allows users to share, search for, and download files from other users. From this, P2P Telephony became a natural next step. Also called VoIP or Voice-over-Internet, Internet Telephony is the transport of telephone calls over the Internet. All you need is a computer (with high-quality speakers and microphone), an Internet connection, and software that offer this kind of technology, which you can find in abundance in the World Wide Web. Among the popular ones are Skype, Broadvoice, Magic Jack, and Vonage. Some of them offer free services, and if you are keen enough, you may find one that has high call completion rate, superior sound quality, and is easy to configure.

WEBCAM

Actions speak louder than words. And if there are actions that you would like to monitor remotely, or to keep a stern eye on (women do this all the time), a webcam makes it easy. A webcam is a camera that is connected to the World Wide Web. One of the most common types is a personal camera that is connected to a personal computer through USB port. With the help of certain software, webcam allows the user to share a moving image of him with others. Depending on the user, and the software, this image may be publicly available to the Internet at large or only to the user's friends who know the address to connect to. If you have a high-resolution webcam and a speedy Internet connection, the quality of the image will not be a problem. Some webcams are portable. The camera connects with a USB cable, but can be detached from its cord and used separately to take pictures and video clips. To upload them, all you need is to plug it back to its cable and send it through e-mail or through file transfer programs available on the web.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Multiply-these are just some of the media outlets that, if maximized properly, can bring two worlds a whole lot closer. Here, you can easily see and get involved into each other's social network-from circle of friends, to workmates, to drinking buddies, to book club co-members. You can even acquire valuable information (such as pictures, favorites, daily activities, etc.), as well as frequent status updates posted by not only your loved one but by the people he's always with as well. If you're smelling something fishy and planning to do a little investigating, social media is the best first stop. But beware, I know a lot of people who broke up because of this very same medium. In times like this, make sure you get to the bottom of things before you jump into conclusion.

To some extent, these tools can get you somewhere, though maybe not far enough to bridge a heartrending gap. As they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder, but absence can't stimulate what is not there. Surviving long-distance relationship is no easy feat. And for those chivalrous enough to brave the challenges and the likelihoods of where it may lead to, a good sense of commitment can make all the difference when spanning great lengths.