Twenty-Something and Single: The End

By K. C. Morgan

I thought it would be a good idea, for my last column, to write about the worst dating experience I’ve ever had. So, I got to thinking about all those bad dates in my past. Each memory was more horrifying than the next – a virtual visual nightmare of what happens when romance goes bad.
It left me with a conundrum. Should I write about that horrible date with the techno weirdo, the one who took me to a crazy dance club and then proceeded to have an 80s-movie-style dance-off with a gentleman wearing multicolored lights? Should I describe the horror I felt as I watched, helpless, as beat-heavy music without lyrics thrummed around my head?
Or would I write instead about my traumatic experience at the lake? Stranded with a drunk companion and the child-ridden family of a man I barely knew, only to discover after the incredibly long evening was over that I’d actually had money taken right out of my purse?
Perhaps I ought to talk about the night I went to request a song at the bar, only to stumble on my platform shoes as I dismounted? I ended up at the emergency room that night, drunken and in a wheelchair, and at work two days later on crutches – just another dating catastrophe.
This kaleidoscope of bad dates left me with a sour feeling, and I came to long for the end of this experience being single. It’s rough out there, and seemingly normal men can create horrific dating experiences that linger with us long after the few unbearable dating hours are over.
But, does anything really end? Relationships past always come back to haunt us, old lovers appear when we wish they wouldn’t, names get mentioned in casual conversation that make us silently cringe. Some romantic relationships fail, only to evolve into friendships that create new relationships and experiences. Dates end and begin again, and eventually you feel like you’re repeating certain parts of your life endlessly.
Even when you aren’t single anymore, some inner part of you clings to that former independence. Some part of you remembers days when you had to go it alone, when you breathed a sigh of relief just to be back in your own apartment all by yourself. So, in its way, being single is something that sticks.
No matter what else may happen, afterward.
And so I say good-bye – not to dating, not to being single, and not just yet good-bye to my twenties, but at least for now to this column. But perhaps saying good-bye to this column is really saying hello to something new…something unexpected.
In closing, I’d like to quote a line from the movie This is Spinal Tap, not because it’s a fabulous testament to being single, but because it’s a movie that’ll always make you laugh – no matter how bad the date or the relationship. David St. Hubbins: “How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what's stopping it, and what's behind what's stopping it? So, what's the end, you know, is my question to you.”
Indeed.

Can Long-Distance Dating Work?

By K.C. Morgan

When you meet someone that you have a real connection and real chemistry with, it seems almost like a miracle. When you find out that same someone has to live far away from you, it seems doomed. But, is it? The truth about long distance dating is this: it can work, but only in the short term.

The Internet has opened up a whole new realm of long distance dating, making separated relationships a mainstream diversion for the lovelorn. With any relationship, there are dating hurdles to overcome. With long distance dating, there are a few more. Problems you’ll probably encounter with a long distance relationship include:

Jealousy. Usually a factor in all relationships, jealousy often becomes more acute when there’s a real distance between the two of you. The only way to cope with jealousy is through trust – the cornerstone of any healthy relationship.

Loneliness. When your sweetie is far away, you’re going to suffer all kinds of lonely pains. Holidays are especially tough, and being around other couples will make the wound seem to hurt a little more. Combat this by maintaining an active social life with your friends, spending time with single people, and spending plenty of time communicating with your partner via phone, letters, and e-mail.

Expenses. If you expect to see each other in the flesh at all (and you should, as often as possible, just to keep the chemistry alive), you’re going to rack up a lot of travel expenses. The burden of travel is something that should be shared by both parties, to make it a little more doable. Creative budgeting and saving (and making travel arrangements several weeks in advance) can help cut down on these expenses, and make it easier for you two to spend real time together.


No matter how well you two make the long distance thing work, it’s a situation that can’t go on for ever. If you want to enjoy a true, committed relationship, the two of you have to at least live in the same city eventually. Long distance dating only works in the short term, because at some point you’re both going to want more. Before it all falls apart, you’re going to have to consider a more permanent solution to the distance between the two of you. Otherwise, you’re really just wasting your time on something that can’t possibly last. After all…you don’t want to get married by proxy, do you?