I’m a freshman, and I’ve been dating a girl from high school since our sophomore year. She decided to go to a big state school in our home state, and I haven’t seen her since arriving at Grove City. It’s been harder than I thought to maintain long-distance, and I constantly feel like she is putting me on the back burner. Our calls are short, and it’s awkward to try to connect with her about college things because our experiences are so different. Meanwhile, I’ve gotten to know a girl in one of my classes who is really great. I know very little about her, which is scary since my only other girlfriend is someone from my hometown that I have known for years. But should I take the leap, break up with my current girlfriend and ask this new girl out?
Dating a non-Grover!? Yuck!
(Just kidding … I knew that would ruffle a few feathers …)
Part of my answer is conditional on the “home state.” Is this home state outside of Pennsylvania? If so, how far? There’s a big difference between being from Ohio or Maryland, where the campus is a day’s drive away, versus California or Florida.
If you are within a six-hour drive of your girlfriend, call her and tell her you’d love to visit for a weekend. Make the drive and tour the campus. See all her favorite sights. Meet her friends. Get a sense of her academic and community obligations. Go to her church. Then, go home, reflect and debrief with your roommate.
If you are not within a six-hour drive, reach out and ask her to block out an hour every week to call – say, Monday at 9 p.m. Also, make a plan to text a check-in sometime during the week.
Resisting these recommendations? Think they are too much? It may be because you’re not as committed to this relationship as you think. If she resists these recommendations, or if she thinks they are too much, she may not be as committed either.
Long-distance relationships require, above all, commitment. Lacking that commitment is not necessarily wrong, but delaying the inevitable breakup by denying your lack of commitment is.
To be clear, your girlfriend deserves some grace. She’s off meeting new people and absorbing a new culture. She is changing, but maybe the growing differences you sense are reconcilable. However, if being her boyfriend feels like a chore and you are getting the cold shoulder, it might be time to start chatting with the girl in class.
Auspiciously,
Dr. Love, MD
