Long Distance Relationships

In the last eight years or so I've become quite accustomed to long distance relationships (LDRs). Thank you internet! It's impressive that I ever managed successful relationships that started on opposite coasts especially when the fundamentals are strongly based on trust and patience. Two things that I lack. However, I had a pretty good grip on communication, quality time and creativity. Granted these things are essential to any relationship, but LDRs use them differently and in different proportions. I've also learned the hard way that LDRs are not a sustainable dynamic. My longest ones were just a year. I can't imagine how anyone can keep a relationship going any longer than that without a miracle. Oh, I know there's people out there that have done it and still managed to be in love and I give those remarkable couples a round of applause and a standing ovation. Myself personally, there's an expiration date on my LDRs and it's one year. Not 13 months. Not even 12 months and 2 weeks. It's one year. If someone keeps me waiting longer than that it's probably because they never intended on taking the relationship further, or they fucked up and went to jail for longer than anticipated. *cough* Many people who've never been in an LDR wouldn't see any benefit in it and bail on an otherwise fulfilling relationship. Sucks for you guys! I'd have to say that my LDRs were probably my favorite.  The following is a list of the pros and cons. Because, yea, you guessed it. I fucking love lists. We'll get the cons out of the way first, because I like ending on a good note. :) 

CONS:

• No Physical Contact - Nothing is more frustrating as not getting laid as often as you'd like. Especially when you're both whining about it. Or kissing, cuddling, and a hug when you've had a rough day.
• Crushing Loneliness - Sure, you're in love but there isn't someone to be there and sit on the couch with you to laugh at stupid shows. Or give you the heimlich when you choke on a pretzel.
• Miscommunication - It's ridiculously easy to misinterpret a text message and LDR fights blow up about seemingly nothing because you can't hear intent or inflection. And the crappy thing about LDR fights is how long they last, especially when someone turns their phone off or ignores your texts for days. I can't count the number of times I heard, "If only you were here, and a kiss would have shut you up hours ago." Time differences suck, too.
• Expensive - Plane tickets, postage, elaborate dates when you do get to see each other, and a higher cell phone rate plan. Overages suck! The first month of my first LDR cost me a $300 phone bill. 
• Tragedies - Unexpected deaths, illnesses, or events and you can do absolutely nothing to comfort your loved one. Hearing him cry over his dog he just had to put down alone and you can't be a shoulder to cry on, or the paralyzing "I just totaled my car" text, followed by the HOURS of unanswered phone calls is the worst.
• Cheating - You just never know. It sucks finding out you were just his fluffer. While you were sending him sexy pics and dirty texts all day, he's banging his ugly coworker on the side. But it doesn't mean anything! He doesn't love her like he loves you! Get the fuck outta here.

PROS:

• Communication - It's all you'll really have to keep the relationship alive. Constant texts, daily phone calls and skype sessions, long love letters, emails, etc. My suggestion is to change your ringtone for just him/her because it will make you smile every time you hear it (and make you turn the station ASAP in frantic desperation so you aren't the weird girl crying in your car in traffic after you guys break up). It's the best way to wake up when you hear their ringtone first thing in the morning. The conversations are deeper and you'll know each other better than anyone else because when you run out of things to talk about, you start asking the harder questions and end up learning a lot about yourself. Very fulfilling. 
• Better Dates - When you finally get to see each other, you're so excited and have been waiting so long that every visit is cause for celebration. You go to all the best restaurants (with reservations made WEEKS in advance, so you get killer tables, too), have time to think up and plan the most romantic nights in minute detail, concerts, shopping, sight-seeing, all the stuff you wish you were doing in your "regular" relationships but never get around to. I had a guy take me horseback riding in the Hollywood Hills, we tied up our horses at a restaurant, ate dinner, and then rode back under the stars. Best date EVER. 
• Better Sex - When the anticipation has been unbearable for months, all you have to do is be in the same room and you're breaking a sweat. And there's foreplay! Yay! Foreplay in the car, in the elevator, under tables, all the way down the hall in that weird kissing and walking backward fumbling for your keys and forgetting where you live kind of way. Then there's those days where you planned on meeting up with friends and seeing the city but you turned off your phones and stayed in bed all day to have sex. Seven times.
• Creativity - You're forced to think a little outside the box when there's distance between you. How are you going to do nice things for them, surprise them or "be there" for them without really being there? Sure, you'll probably get flowers delivered to work on your birthday or Valentine's day in a run-of-the-mill relationship, but have you ever had dinner paid for and delivered to your house when you got home from work because your lover felt bad that they couldn't make it for you themselves? Or started your Hulu at the exact moment over the phone in an attempt to watch your favorite shows together? (It doesn't work because the commercials are different lengths for each person. But it's fun trying.) Or overnighted a badass new headset when your girlfriend stepped on hers and couldn't talk in Ventrilo anymore? Haha. 
• Quality Time - This one gets tricky. I mentioned the Hulu thing. There's also the 8 hour long phone calls that end in both of you falling asleep on the phone. Online gaming was always a go-to. Time spent together in person is more enriching because you're on the clock and it doesn't get bogged down with the mundane tasks of daily life. 
• Independence - You don't have to shop for someone else at the grocery store and run the risk of buying the wrong ice cream. Or ask permission to go out with the girls. Or negotiate your guy into going with you to brunch with your family. And you can take a shit uninterrupted. You get to make your own decisions like you're single, but get all the warm fuzzies of being in love. 
• Big Dreams - I'm a big dreamer, so one of my favorite parts was all the fantasizing about what our life will be like in the future. Even better is making those dreams come true!

Long distance relationships are definitely worth the time, investment, and heartache in the long run. Not going to lie though, they're hard work. The best things are worth waiting for, and if they were easy, they wouldn't be worth it. 

"Because love don't know what distance is."

<3

There's No Such Thing As Gurls On The Interweb!

One of my worst kept secrets is that I was a gamer. I say 'was' because I haven't played in 18 months. In the virtual world, that is the equivalent of being dead for 18 years. Like many others, I found online gaming to be incredibly addictive and it was a struggle to quit. Even now, I can still feel the pull to reactivate my accounts just as strong as when I first canceled them. It's made worse by all the friends, family and clients I have that play and want to talk about it. I have many fond memories in-game and I wouldn't be the person I am or have the life that I do if it weren't for online gaming. 

Nine years ago my brother got me into this little game called World of Warcraft. And I didn't stop for another seven and a half years. I would play for an average of 8 hours a day. No, seriously. On average. And if I missed even so much as a day, my virtual friends would call me and worry that something happened to me. I also had a lot of friends. Flocks of them. I had to delete people off of my friends list because I'd hit the max. Not many people that play WoW even know there's a cap on the friends list, but I found out about it in the first 3 months of playing. It wasn't because I was a natural with mad skillz, or a strong leader, or a great PvPer. It's because I was a "real life gurl" in a sea of nerdy virgins. Nine years ago, a girl playing an MMORPG was nearly unheard of. I quickly found out that being a woman in a nerd world came with great power...and great hazard. For every guy that wanted to be in my good graces, there was another that wanted to take me down. 

I started out playing a character named Kikiyochan. Derived from a character from the anime Inuyasha, then I threw on the 'chan' to indicate that I was female. It didn't take long before I was nicknamed Kiki (gamers abbreviate everything). I couldn't join a group without someone eventually asking if I'm a girl and then voila! I had 4 new best friends willing to give me items, upgrades, services, and in-game currency. Then I was asked to join Ventrilo (voice chat) servers . I was apprehensive at first, with good reason. I would stay quiet listening to the boys' banter and as soon as I would comment the channel would go dead silent until the first brave soul to say, "Was that a 12 year old boy? Or is there a GIRL in here?!?" and then they would all freak out and no one acted the same. This was the norm until I started getting better at playing, which didn't take long with so many willing mentors. 

Then I discovered the forums. With quick wit and a propensity for correcting grammar, my notoriety took off by leaps and bounds. That's also when I gained a group of haters. These insecure little chauvinists were nothing short of vicious with the anonymity of the internet on their side, let me tell ya! It was then that I decided on the One Rule to survive online gaming as a female:

NEVER GIVE OUT NUDE PICS.

There was only a handful of females with me on the forums and we either banded together or were sworn enemies. Typical girls. But it never failed, as soon as one of those girls broke the cardinal rule, someone would blast pictures of their tits all over the forums and those girls weren't seen from again. It is a career ender for female gamers. It's hard enough to earn respect from the guys, but there's no getting it back once you're deemed a slut. There's some that will call a girl a whore just because she had the misfortune of wandering into their little corner of the internet, but pictures were PROOF of that and there is no recovery.

I loved meeting in-game friends in person. After spending countless hours with a friend of mine (grinding rep, for 36 hours straight I believe was the count, Samishie? Haha) I got invited to join him at Blizzcon. HUGE DEAL, people. You have no idea. It was the place to be if you're a Blizzard fan (the company that created Strarcraft, Diablo, World of Warcraft, etc.) and the tickets were nearly impossible to get. I didn't have a car, so he drove up from southern California to pick me up and then drove us back down to southern California for the weekend. Up until this point, I had kept any pictures of myself closely guarded so I was really nervous about meeting him. When I answered the door he looked at me, sort of shocked. "Wow. You don't look like what I thought you'd look like at all." Uhhh....good thing? He was quite the gentleman in person! Nothing at all like the asshole badass he portrayed in-game. ;) At Blizzcon we met up with a large group of people from our server, many names that I recognized from the forums. I got the same reaction from everyone I met. "You're Kiki??" Then pictures of the group meeting hit the forums and there it was again. "That's Kiki?? Dude...you're white?" Hahahaha. Apparently everyone I met in game pictured me as a nerdy asian girl and I am quite the opposite in real life. 

Once my "real life" picture was out (thanks Dragonmaw Real Life Picture Thread!) the requests for nude pics increased exponentially. But I remained steadfast. No nude pix.

I did not have any specific rules about dating, however. I was never short a boyfriend thanks to WoW. People would track my relationship status like paparazzi following celebrity couples. The forums read like tabloids. I long-distance dated the reigning King of the Forums, the top PvPer, officers of popular guilds, and eventually a guild leader. (Long-distance dating is a blog post unto itself.) I was refused acceptance to guilds based on my forum activity and invited to others because of it. I built up guilds myself, and tore some down (not intentionally). Females are more territorial than men might think and often there's only room enough for one Alpha Bitch. If there was already a female officer, she didn't look too kindly on the idea of the pretty forum troll rising through the ranks, especially after I'd already broke the heart of one of her friends and was now dating the guild leader (future Baby Daddy). Everything worked out for the best and we ended up doing really well. Having a nemesis and a rival guild ultimately made the game more interesting. 

Being a female gamer definitely came with its drawbacks, but the perks far outweighed the challenges. I walked away with some amazing friends that I wouldn't have met otherwise, relationships that will always hold a special place in my heart, and I got to travel all over the country (often for free!). And if it weren't for World of Warcraft I wouldn't have my beautiful daughter, nor would I be moving to Georgia! I wouldn't change a minute of it. Oh, and nearly a decade after my online alter-ego was born the internet still doesn't possess a picture of my "bewbs". Gotta keep it classy, even in pixel form, ladies!

<3

It's Called Co-Parenting, Not a "Broken Home"

I recently announced that I am moving back to Georgia to be closer to my kid's dad. She's starting school this year and I didn't want her going all year hardly seeing her dad. He can't afford to live in California solo, so the only other option was for us to move to him. I've been getting a lot of astonished looks and comments. People automatically assume it's because we're getting back together. No, my boyfriend is coming with me! Then I explain the dynamics between myself, baby daddy and my boyfriend. "I don't know how you could do that! I can't even be in the same room as my child's father," or "Wow, you're so lucky that you guys all get along." Not really. It wasn't something that just happened. We didn't just break up from a two and a half year long relationship with an infant, an engagement, a dog, and lives on opposite coasts and remain best friends. It took a lot of work. Even now it's a process and we're still figuring it all out. It's been trial and error to get the hang of custody, support, boundaries, relationships, and parenting.

Four years ago Baby Daddy and I split up. We had previously gone to couple's therapy for a year but it just wasn't working. I made the decision to get out of the relationship before I completely hated him and couldn't salvage a friendship. In hindsight, that was probably the wisest decision I made. Consequently, the way we co-parent now is nearly the exact opposite of what is considered (sadly) the "norm" amongst separated couples.

Custody

The first thing we did was figure out custody. I would be moving back to California, but that was no reason to delete him from our daughter's life permanently. Neither of us had amazing jobs so the airfare was going to be a huge investment. We decided that I would have Baby Girl for 2 months and then he would get her for a month because we wouldn't be able to afford every other month. He requested to always have her for the month of February (his birthday month) and I wanted her for Easter month. We would alternate her birthday and Christmas. We drew up a rough outline for custody so that he would never go more than 3 months without seeing her. He wanted to get it set in stone through the courts, but I was adamant about keeping the courts out of our agreements. This made him nervous because I could run off to California and he might never see his daughter again. It was a test of trust, for sure. But now we're both really happy with the flexibility of our custody agreement. There's been times when neither of us could afford to fly her out within the original parameters, he didn't have established babysitting for his proposed month with her, or something special came up that we really wanted her to attend. There's been times when he's had to go 4-6 months without having her in Georgia, but he's always come in for a visit for a few days to break it up. And when he finally did have the funds, babysitting, etc to have her out in Georgia, I let him have her for a couple months instead of the original "one month" agreement. I've always looked at it as how I would feel to have to go that long without her. And to his credit, he's never missed her birthday, which isn't an easy feat. Her birthday lands either on or very close to Thanksgiving and he works retail with black out dates.

Child Support

I also chose to forgo child support. *gasp!* Crazy baby mamas every where just can't wrap their heads around this one. Most people have no idea that you even have the option to decline support. Fathers get the shaft when it comes to child support and I just don't think it's fair. I wouldn't wish all the drama of child support payments, interest, garnishments, and possible jail time if he lost his job for a couple months or some other life crisis befell him. I told him as long as he was an active part in his daughter's life then I would never ask for child support. I asked that anything that would otherwise be contributed to child support be used to purchase plane tickets. He and I also split the airfare for her which usually runs us about $950-1200 per visit. (If there were a cheaper way to do this, we would have found it. Trust me.) There were a couple times when I was in between jobs and I couldn't afford diapers that he would send me $50-100 with no questions asked. However, asking him for money has always been a last resort for me. I know that he would go without eating for a week if it meant feeding Baby Girl and I'd rather he didn't. We also switch off who claims her on their tax return each year, or whoever would end up getting more money back. We know that whomever receives more money directly benefits Baby Girl. The goal is to be as fair as possible and treat the other like we would like to be treated.

Relationships & Boundaries

This is where things get a little tricky. Bringing a third or fourth person into the dynamic is not always a smooth process. Not everyone understands the relationship and can be easily threatened by exes remaining close after a breakup and even more so when there's children involved. I'm understanding, but I'm strict on boundaries. I'm upfront with any potential boyfriends about my relationship with Baby Daddy and explain that he's still very much a part of our lives. There isn't much wiggle room on the rules. They can either accept it and date me or move on. There's no third option. I've had to break up with a boyfriend because he got spontaneously jealous of Baby Daddy. It's just not worth it for Baby Girl to lose her dad over some dude that isn't secure enough in the relationship. Baby Daddy is going to be in my life forever whether some dumb boy likes it or not. Baby Daddy and I don't use her as a pawn in the Jealous Dating Game. He trusts that I won't put Baby Girl in any harm by dating a bad dude. I ask that we are honest with each other about who we're dating and what kind of person they are. There's been a few times that he's raised an eyebrow at my decisions, but he's never stepped in and made a fuss about it. I, on the other hand, have stepped in about a girl that was trying to date him but I'm glad I did. That girl was fucking batty. So far, Baby Daddy has gotten along with my boyfriends. He's really easy-going and witty so it's hard not to like him. With my boyfriend moving to Georgia with us, we're about to test all of these boundaries even further! I think the boys can be friends after the awkwardness factor has subsided. My boyfriend is still a little leery of how it's all going to work out with us being in the same area code, but that's because he's been victim to poor co-parenting. He admires our resolve to keep Dad in the picture, and he loves Baby Girl and I very much, so he is willing to be a part of our big, weird family.

Parenting

Probably the toughest part of our arrangement is maintaining a similar parenting model. We stay in regular contact via texts, phone calls, facebook and Skype. I do my best to make sure he doesn't miss a moment with her and he does the same when he has her. House rules, behavior, discipline, meals and bedtimes are discussed before she's sent off to the other. Surprisingly, Baby Daddy is the strictest with her. He's all about manners and good behavior. My boyfriend is most disciplined about her diet and hygiene. I'm the one that baby's the crap out of her even though I talk a big talk. That's why I'm glad she has many parents that stay in sync so she's more well-rounded. Baby Daddy and I come from divorced homes so in addition to three parents, she has 4 sets of grandparents to spoil and guide her. Our families are in contact with each other as well, cross-country, so we're all just a big blended family centered around love for one little girl.  It takes a village, people!

At the heart of every decision, we consider our daughter first. What will be in her best interest, and what will keep her happy and healthy. We also consider each other. If one parent is miserable, she's going to be affected by that so we do whatever we can for each other. A child needs her dad just as much as she needs her mom. What she doesn't need is parents at war with each other and using her as a chess piece. Our goal was to raise our daughter knowing only love, without animosity. Being children of divorced parents ourselves, we knew the damage that comes with it and pledged not to do it to our own. It hasn't been easy, we haven't been perfect at it, and we've still got a long way to go. But our daughter is amazing and she's worth every sacrifice.



<3