Can a long distance relationship work?

First there's unbridled lust. Then comes romance, the intimacy and perhaps even love. But what if one part of the couple moves away? Enter the world of yearning, phone-sex, a steady stream of text messages and constant trips to and from cities, states or continents. Yes, it's the tricky phenomenon of long-distance love - but can it ever really work?

My good friend K was dating a bloke who lived interstate. Every night they'd speak for hours on the phone, send flirty text messages to each other and visit every other weekend. Then one day he didn't arrive at the airport as scheduled. He wouldn't return her calls or answer her emails. Finally she went over there, knocked on his door and called it quits. Turns out he had found someone else, who was indeed - surprise - closer to home.

It seems that with increased technology, the boost in cheap airfares and the unquenched desire for intimacy (more so in the flesh than over the internet, but hey, many of us are willing to compromise), more and more of us are accepting the "long-distance thing".

"These days it's really difficult to meet a guy who you (a) share a connection with and who (b) are actually interested in getting to know who you really are and what you're all about. What I've got with B is a million and one times better than any other relationship I've had. The last thing I'd ever want to do is risk losing it because I hooked up with some guy who was only interested in one thing... taking me home!"

But the phenomenon certainly isn't anything new. After all, before Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone (how could we have existed without it?) couples who were apart often waited months (even years) for some form of correspondence. And pick up any Jane Austen novel and the notion of being apart from a loved one runs rampant. Take wartime, hardships and long working hours (with loads of travel) and a long-distance relationship is more common than we think.

"A long-distance love affair is the equivalent of signing up for a year's worth of dirty weekends. A lot of effort, some passionate interludes and not much to show for it apart from a healthy balance of air miles."

So how to make it work? "Get used to sounding like you're the understudy for a 70s porn flick, find a phone contact that offers cheap international calls after midnight and start saving air miles," she says. "Meanwhile, keep your eyes peeled for someone a little closer to home, even if it's the stewardess."

* Not their real names. Their blokes are avid readers of this blog and might stray in their absence.
Can long distance relationships really work?