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If you're dating, do everything that you can in your power to date locally. But if you find yourself in a long-distance relationship, which can sometimes happen, even if you're being intentional with your love life, be very intentional about your communication and how it is that you go about it. Because if you aren't, uh, it's gonna fall apart real quick. Welcome to the Love Strategies Podcast, where we help successful women attract high-value men, date with a strategy, and improve their relationships. Now, whether you're single or in dating or in a new relationship, we're here to help you dive into the male mind and provide raw insights found nowhere else, backed by science, psychology, and our own personal experiences. Your hosts today are myself, Adam Ladolce, a professional dating coach and founder of Love Strategies, and Dr. Gary Lewandowski, a relationship scientist, professor, and our head relationship coach here at Love Strategies. Please share with a friend and enjoy. Alright, Gary, today we're gonna be talking about long distance relationships. And I'm pretty sure you were on one of the masterminds recently with our clients, and I'm gonna talk about a client, Open Lee. I'm certainly not gonna say him name, but she was on, she was relatively new, and her strategy was because she's a traveling nurse, she's like, What I'm gonna do is date guys in many different parts of the country and just kind of see which one sticks. And if it does stick, I'm willing to move, I'm willing to be with that guy. And it's essentially she was setting up her love life for long-distance relationships. Like there was she wasn't even thinking locally, and it brought me us to a topic, just talking about long-distance relationships. So we thought it was probably a good topic for today. Needless to say, long story short, I was not a fan of this strategy. I think we'll get into it today uh as to why I feel that way. But Gary, what do you think about long distance relationships? What's your thoughts prior to love' being a coach at Love Strategies? Like, what was your thoughts on love's on long distance? I mean, so most of the my context with long-distance relationships is just looking at the research on basically everyone wants to know like, is this a good thing or is it a bad thing for for long-term relationships? Um, and generally people make the assumption that it's gotta be worse because you're not physically together. Um, and it's one of those things where like once you start digging into the data on it, for long-term established relationships, long-distance relationships aren't that bad. And in many ways, they're even better than what the researchers would call proximal relationships, or basically just like the normal relationships where people kind of like live together, tactic. Uh so generally speaking, you know, for long-term relationships, long distance can work. Um, I you're right though. I was on I was on that mastermind call, and you know, in those coaching sessions, you know, we are coaching people about finding love and dating. Um, long distance means it's something very different, particularly in the world of online dating. And so I'm wondering if you can kind of shed a little light on kind of your perspective through from the dating side of Ben. Yeah. Well, zooming out on and dating, I mean, dating has changed a lot over the past many hundreds of years, and most importantly, over the last 30 years, ever since the internet has been formed. And since we've now been able to tap into this cool, this dating cool of people from anywhere around the country or even world, suddenly we're finding ourselves in so many long distance potential relationships because the internet connects us in that way. And it's causing a lot of challenges for people because what they're finding is that yeah, they're getting all these matches and they're talking to these guys, like, oh, I live in LA, you live in New York, you seem great. But what it does is it creates an unrealistic expectation of who that person really is. And it it what can happen pretty like what can happen what I've seen happen over and over and over again is people are developing relationships with people that they don't even really know, they haven't really met, or they've only met a couple times, and then once if it's a big if they find themselves actually in a relationship, in a proximal relationship, suddenly they're like, holy crap, who is this person? I didn't know anything about it. I don't actually know you because we had this kind of fantasy relationship. So when it comes to dating itself, I'm very adamant about keeping it local when possible, of course. Now there are obviously exceptions, right? If you live in we had a client who lived in Alaska, and she happened to be a flight attendant or maybe a pilot, I don't remember which. And so she was always traveling to San Francisco and a few other places, and she lived in a very remote place. I'm talking about 500 people. So in that case, that's an exception to the rule. Of course, I would obviously be exploring those areas. But in most cases, if you live in a city or an area that has a population of over 20,000 people, or you're within a 30-minute drive to a city with, of course, many more, I would highly recommend keeping your sites local because it's just gonna set you up for just much less pain and heartache to your love list. Yeah, and I think you know what you're describing as that you know they're living this fantasy relationship, and then they they don't have that IRL relationship like in real life experience of like actually like doing dishes with somebody and paying mortgage. It's just it you get to fill in the blanks in a long-distance relationship with a lot of best case scenarios. And that's just not how real life relationships are. Oddly enough, that what you're portraying, I I knew I I knew you were gonna kind of go that direction, but I actually I I think that, which isn't a great case, right? That's the best case scenario because the other thing that happens with these long-distance relationships, particularly in the world of online dating, is you get a lot you meet a lot of people, people who aren't real people at all. Like they're fake, they're scammers, right? And it's like they're they're from a whole other state, they're from a whole other country in some cases, they're sending you pictures that aren't them, they're sending you information that aren't them. And it's just like, you know, I I know that's you know, one of the pieces of advice in um Love Strategy's little love steps is to meet people in in real life as soon as possible because that way you get to make sure that it's actually like a real like it's a real person you can like touch and interact with. Yeah, yeah, it's it's amazing the scams that exist out there and how effective they are on very rational rational people. And it seems like as an outside person, it seems crazy to think that someone would like a woman would give some random person online a hundred thousand dollars. Okay, that's like it's not even comprehensible, but that story exists many, many times over again. I've heard it over and over again, and when you get into it, you actually hear how it started and how it continued from there, it it actually makes sense, um in some ways, you know. Obviously, yeah, it it still takes a certain type of person to to to fall for that. But um they're very, very sneaky, and these these people who are in different countries, they'll be usually traveling men who are just like they're away. A lot of times it's a military, is a big one. So if he say, Hey, I'm on military leave, I'll be back in six months, and then oh, he just found out that he's getting deployed, but he just uh just needs five hundred dollars to get his gear for his deployment. Now it's like and they get you a little yes, and then and maybe it's 25 bucks just to like send I'll send you $25, then you send me this, and before you know it, you get a little bit of compliance, and then that turns into big, big money. Um, so back to all of this with online dating, it is simply a tool to meeting people offline, and if we think of it as a tool and not a way to actually date, it's just a tool to guess to meet people, then why would we even be messing with someone who's not local? The proper the way that we highly recommend when using online dating, which is why I think our methods are so successful, is that we get offline as quickly as humanly possible so that we can actually bet this person and see what is the deal, right? Because you don't want to lose sight of the thing that you're really looking for, which is a real life relationship, right? And if you want to have a uh internet relationship, you can go to any chat room. I mean, there's a million other ways to do that, but that's not actually what people are looking for. And so, you know, it's it's so it's so simple, but it's such an important reminder, like keep in mind what you're actually looking for and make sure that you're optimizing your behaviors for exactly that thing, and like keeping these things online is not what you want. And so you'd have to wonder, like, why does this other person want to keep it online for so long for keep it this weird long distance? And so, you know, we talked about the scammers, you know, just the the the most classic scam of in history of relationships is just cheaters, you know, like you're meeting a guy, it's he's not trying to take your money or anything, but it's like he's he's away, he's at distance, and it's like, well, what's he doing? Like, I mean, for all you know, he's got a full other family or two or three at different parts of the country, and it's just like he he travels, and so again, is that the kind of relationship you want? I mean, does you know one of the things you talk about, the little love steps is you know, does the person you're interested in have the type of lifestyle that is conducive and fits the long-term relationship you're looking for? And so these people that are like all over the place that now I'm here and I'll here and I'll here, and I'm not gonna see you for three months because I'm doing God knows what. Is that is that your is that what you want? Is that your love vision? Is that is that how you see your relationship feature? And and the answer to that is probably none. Right. That was actually, I think, the most important point you made when we were speaking to the nurse on the uh coaching session. Sorry after watching this right now. We're not picking on you, but you know, we we have to talk about this because it's just so relevant to this. And you were you said I think something along the lines of what kind of guy would travel all the like she was like, oh, they're coming to me for the first date, and you're like, what kind of guy would travel all the way from LA to wherever she lives for a first date? It would likely be a man who's got something to hide. Like, that's not a normal thing for a guy to hop on a plane for basically a first date. Either he was looking for a weekend fling and a lot of fun, which you know, I would imagine a single guy, like if a woman in Texas is like super cute, is like, hey, you want to come here for a weekend for just like uh whatever thing? I was like, Ah, it sounds kind of fun, but that's not a serious I'm not actually looking for something real. Or there's that, or I'm married. I gotta wait to see the quality for my life as possible and go to the perfect thing. Is it not like real commitment? Nothing, it's not like high-value, commitment-focused men who have options are not just jumping on a flight to travel across the country to go on a first date. Right. And you know, the other piece of that, you know, she had I I think she lived in Austin, right? And it was like people were coming from LA, people were coming from Arizona, and then other somebody else was coming applying in from Florida. It was like it was a really it was a really complicated solution to a simple problem. And what she thought the problem was is that there were no available guys to date in Austin, which you know probably just isn't the case. It just, you know, a lot of times when things don't work out with one approach, people immediately start going to like these more complicated things, and it's like, no, you just instead of like changing entirely and doing like flying guys in for all over, it's like just gonna change like a little bit and just shift your strategies and and tactics just though just slightly, and you'll you'll start finding what you're looking for. Yeah. I mean, she and she was a brand new client, so we we were, I think, being kind. Um, oh, I don't know. That was on a tough love. I think we we have we have these evenings that we call them tough love Tuesdays, we have one tonight where I can get a little cranky because I'm a morning person. I've been up since four this morning, so uh they're at night, so I can get a little cranky with people. So if hey, when you say night, I mean be be clear. Be clear what night is. It is seven o'clock at night. Night. It's six o'clock. Come on, P Paul. Oh my god. Whatever. I'm not really not me. I don't think I'm not me. Uh but you're not a beast. I could be a little bit cranky, but it's all good. But the thing is, so you know, long distance relationships in terms of dating and starting your relationship that way, I I think we're kind of both on the same page, and it's just not the best way to do it, right? I mean, there's there's many better ways to do it. You're setting yourself up. We talk all the time about you know, you gotta set yourself up for success, right? And so starting off long distance isn't the best way to do it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Hey there, ladies. As you can see, we're just getting this podcast off the ground. And since we don't run any ads, I only have one quick favor to ask in return. Can you just take a quick second, right now, pause this episode and just leave us a review wherever it is that you're listening to the podcast? Really help us out a lot, and it really does spread the love. And uh, I think the world needs a little bit more of that. So I appreciate you. Now let's get back to the show. Now, um, like you said, there are some scenarios where long distance relationships can work. And so what what I always say, and I was actually just talking to Jessica before this, is if you do find yourself in a long-distance relationship, and they do sometimes happen, let's say, for example, you are traveling for work and you're at a conference and you and live in Boston, you're in LA, and you meet someone who's just absolutely incredible. Well, and you just really click and you spend the night getting to know each other, everything's great, and then you kind of develop from there. Well, that's that's a little bit different because it happened organically, it wasn't necessarily like an intention plan like all my day, you just met someone. And I've actually been in a situation similar to that as Boston to New York, and we tried to make it work and it and it really didn't work. So I think there's some situations where it makes sense to lean in if the risk is if the reward is worth the risk. And in my case, it it definitely was. Now, a few things to keep in mind if you do find yourself that if you do find yourself in a long-distance relationship that I always suggest. Um number one, if you are in a committed exclusive long-distance relationship that's not yet you're not yet married, there should be a plan within the next year for you to live near each other. Uh and if not, then I would not consider this, I would not consider moving forward. For example, I had a client once who was in a long-distance relationship to the man, she lived in Ohio, he lived in maybe uh somewhere on the east coast, like at Lance or something. And he was military over there, and he was not gonna be leaving his post for like six years, and she had kids that were in middle school, and she wasn't leaving until they were graduating, and they were in this long-distance relationship. And that is a relationship I would not recommend. Um, I don't know, curious on your thoughts on that. Because I know the data suggests that you can make it work, but I think if we dove into it, that's that's a that's a tricky one. Yeah, I mean, I think those kind of situations where you know six years that's a long time with kids involved. I mean, that's you're you're adding several layers of complexity to a relationship, which yeah, it's just that's not ideal. That's probably not what people are looking for. I they you know, thankfully, though, a lot of the long distance relationships that people are involved in are are kind of like what you originally described there, which is they're long distance for a period, and then they have kind of a set expiration date. Like they have a plan. Um and that that plan thing is really important because you know there was a big study that just cut out literally like a million, they they brought a bunch of long-distance relationship stuff together. Um they said 1.3 million data points in 33,000 of the spotted, but essentially the number one reason why long distance relationships fail um was a failure to have a plan. They just didn't have an exit strategy, they didn't have like uh how do we transition from this thing to the next thing? And and you know, there's there's other research showing that one of the biggest danger points for a long-distance relationship is when they're not at long distance anymore, right? It's those reunions. It is when people come back together, like everything's going great, and like the relationship's amazing in lots of different ways, and then they they get back together, and it's like crap, and it's exactly what you said about the dating thing earlier, it's like the fantasy's gone, and it's like, no, we actually have to learn how to like live as people together, and that's that can be tough. Yeah, yeah, I that and my I had a friend, a female friend, and she was dating a guy in England for like seven years, something like that. But now following his principles, and then they moved in together. He moved to Boston, and I think they broke up with him like two months. It was so quick, it was it was shockingly quick, but I I get it. Like they they're now you know farting next to each other, whatever. Whatever happens once you live with someone, and you know, you're just living your normal lives, and sorry to be vulgar here, I couldn't think of it back. You're like, what happens when it's no longer these weekend exciting uh vacations, and now you're just living together, you're fighting, and you're like you can put the toilet seat down, and it's like can you just put it down, you know, whatever it is, when you have key. Oh god. So um, yeah, have a plan. I mean, I think one of the things I was gonna say, yeah, have a plan, but I I think one of the things that's a reality about long-distance relationships is like sometimes people want to be in long-distance relationships, and there's almost like a darker motivation to it in the sense that they have uh attachment issues, they're highly anxious, they're fearful about living with a partner, and they're not comfortable sharing their space with somebody else. Um that, you know, they live apart just to deal with the fact that they're they're really picky, they're really fussy, they you know, they they don't want to deal with someone who leaves cabinets open like I know you do. Um, you know, if there's a bunch of things that people like it's like a weird self-preservation thing, and it or it's like you know, they were furt ones before, and so now they're just not willing to cross over and have that living together arrangement. And so if you have some of those kind of reasons behind your long distance, it's not a practical thing, it's more of like, like you said, like a self-preservation comfort thing. When you then do have to or or choose to move in together, that's gonna be a tough transition. Yeah, yeah, I agree. So definitely have a plan, be on the same page, and this is a time where we don't need to be subtle at all about our needs when it comes to commitment and we where we see our life going. If you're in a committed, exclusive relationship with a man who lives further than I would say three hours from you, however it takes to get to one another, I would say it's time to be extremely clear about what it is that you want, where you see your life going, and what level of commitment you're really looking for. This is not a time to play coy, like just see if he kind of comes around. Let's be real with each other and get on the same page. And if that's uncomfortable to him, and he's not interested in that, or vice versa, you're not interested in that, then I would not recommend getting involved because the distance to not make the heart grow fonder actually requires much more work to keep it going, keep it alive. Which some of them to another I'm sorry, we're gonna say I was gonna because you just mentioned it, you said three hours. Is is that like so? I know one of the most common questions I get at least about this is like how far is too far? Like, is that what you think is about is about three hours? It do I in my opinion, it depends on where you live. And so within Love Accelerator, we are in with the little up steps. I'm pretty monstrous on this. I always say keep it within 60 minutes. Like, if you're online dating and you can be intentional about your distance, 60 minutes the maximum or miles, however you want to put it, depends on where you live. Um, and if you're in a major city, keep it within 30. I mean, really keep it as close as evenly possible. Um, now obviously again, there are certain scenarios. We we had a client the other day with Philadelphia, maybe where you grew up near the Amish or whatever, and it was a pretty far, it's a pretty far uh trip to any major area. Okay, fine. If it's gotta be two two hours, then it's gotta be two hours of a situation. Um but usually the I've been doing this for long enough, S of U, to notice that most people live within a major city, and they are creating these long-distance situations because they don't believe that there are high value men locally, and so they're starting to look externally as if that's the solution to all their problems, and it's it tends to not be. It really does, it tends to not be. Um, and so that that's where we really recommend leaning into this process. And if for whatever reason we dive into it and we find out yes, it really is your location, let's say you live in eastern Kentucky and you happen to be just like this uh liberal intellectual who only wants to talk about you know the late the New York Times or the latest thing you read. Sorry, I'm really brushing with a price stroke here, but let's say it's the case, then maybe it's time to consider moving. But I wouldn't recommend getting in a long distance relationship. I'd consider honestly just packing up and moving. And I've also had that conversation with some clients where it's like, okay, if you really feel this way, and you really don't think that there are any men in your environment whatsoever that you can meet, then let's actually talk about relocating. Because what are we doing here? Well, you know, if it's a priority, it's like, you know, what are you what Behaviors are you undertaken of optimizing for the outcome that you want? And if you you want to find some of these and is and they're not and they're really, really, really aren't where you're at, and that's got to be true, right? Then you know you think about belly somewhere else. That's gonna make ultimately because you you're first you're pursuing fulfillment, right? If you want to find fulfillment, it may not be where you're living right now, right? We've never been a more mobile society than we are right now, probably. So it's like it's it's a great time to consider going somewhere else. Yeah, it's it's a great thing to do. And we have a few active clients right now, I know for a fact, who are mobile and they are and I I tell this to clients sometimes when they're considering relocating, just don't relocate for men. For certainly don't relocate for a man that you're not exclusive with. Okay, so not just a man. If you want to relocate for quality of men, I'm open to that idea, but I wouldn't move completely for that. I would get an Airbnb or a short-term rental. Live there for two months. You're single, like go enjoy and try out these different places. That's assuming, of course, you are mobile, which a lot of our clients are and can do that. Go try it out. I I had one client, and God's bringing up so many different scenarios. But I remember she lived in California, and she had this idea that Silicon Valley, I think it was like two hours from her. Silicon Valley is where all the guys are that she wants to date. She's like, I can't get past it. This is those are the types of men, so I'm gonna just keep traveling over there or having them to me and kept getting herself in these long list of situations. And I'm like, why don't you just get an Airbnb over there and see if you like it down there or wherever I should live? Like, never thought about that. And she did it, she actually did it, and she liked it because she was wealthy, she had access. I'm like, just go rent a place, check it out, you're single, what is there to lose? Start going to the local wineries or whatever it is that Silicon Valley people do, and go talk about tech and go find yourself a guy. There's probably plenty of engineers over there, and that that's something I I'm totally cool with. Yeah, and I think that's smart, right? It's like one of those things that people fall in this trap of like all or nothing thinking, where it's like I have to either live here or I have to live there. And it's like, no, no, like there's this middle ground. It's like go do a trial run, like that Airbnb thing is that's that's genius. Yeah, yeah. So I did that for a while. I was I was always traveling. I moved from Boston to New York. Oh no, no, I actually did Boston to LA, discovered I did not jive with the LA style. I like LA, nothing against that I like to visit, but it's just like not incongruous to myself. And then I moved to New York, and oh my god, that city aid in a life. Like, I you know me in my sleep, and I was not getting a lot of sleep over there, and I was like, I gotta go give you back to Boston, and I have elapses. So um but I I definitely wasn't moving for a woman. I was dating, I was just moving because I wanted to meet different types of people. I think was a great, great idea, which led me back to Boston. But um, anyways, one other a few I have a few other important points for those who are in long distance relationships or are finding themselves in a situation. One important thing that I find myself talking about a lot is this idea of quality communication versus quantity of communication. Because I find that when people are long distance, we find that they're they the relationship doesn't exist unless they're in constant communication with each other. So that means texting every single morning throughout the day, at night, phone call right before bed, or else all hell breaks loose. Many kind of touch points throughout the day. And what I tend to recommend is paring back on it, because I think being on your phone in general is not a very healthy thing for many different reasons, and you don't need to get into that. But also it's much healthier to have a good 30-minute FaceTime where you're actually building a connection and talking about the things that matter one time in the day than 25 touch points from social media, Snapchat, texting, yada yada yada. Because you're actually getting to know that person and you're getting away from the fantasy and getting into real light. And you can see if, once again, this thing is real or not. I don't know. I'm curious on your thoughts on that. No, I I think that's 100% right, is that you know, you have to make sure that your communication is going beyond like basic light buck bait. Like, I'm in the line of the DMV, I'm stuck in another red light. Like it's gotta like like that starts to feel like anxious, and like I we have to be in that, like you said, that constant contact, and that's not how proximal relationships are, right? And so, like, that's not the good parts of relationships. The good parts of relationships are like with the at after the end of a long day, you do have that quality 30-minute FaceTime, and you ask, you know, how was your day? And you kind of like meet each other through those moments, and and so that way you get the best of both worlds. You have quality communication, and you also get like a real life glimpse into what it would be like when you're living with that person in the same space. Um, and generally speaking, and the research shows that the people who are in long distance relationships, and again, they're in a long-distance relationship, so obviously, on some level they're they're making it work if we're in that relationship. Those relationships actually have better communication in many ways than people who are living in proximal gifts, mainly because they have to. Like you have to be a really good communicator if you're going to sustain a long-distance relationship because we know like for weeks on time, on end, like that's that's what you have. Like, you don't have those visible connections. It's something like an average that that's the huge data set. It was like an average of 20 days um between times that people in a long-distance relationship actually saw each other physically. So that's a lot of space. I mean, that's that's 19 days at a time stretch. Like, it's just us over FaceTime or Zoom or what have you. And so you gotta find other ways to compet and make it work. Yeah, whereas like if you work at home with your wife, you see each other every single day at all times to tell it. Yeah, yes, before you know it, you're just like, I don't know, I just go through going about your day. So that's interesting. Yeah, like we we kind of think, you know, you have to be together, you have to be together, and like that, there's pluses and minuses of everything. And so, you know, a couple of the other, just real quick, some of the strength aspects of long distance relationships is that when you're in a long-distance relationship, you have to prioritize emotional intimacy over physical intimacy. And so we know for long-term happy, fulfilling relationships, emotional intimacy is the bread and butter, that's the sustaining life force. And so if you're in a long-distance relationship, you have you have to prioritize through no real fault of your own, you just have to do it this way, emotional intimacy. Um, but that goes along with emotional intimacy. Like, what do you define? Emotional intimacy is like being able to share. It's like, you know, if we're gonna have good communication and not be near each other, it can't just be like dumb stuff we did. It's it's gotta be like hopes and dreams and vulnerability, and it's gotta be comfort and support and sacrifice. It's like all of those really weany, like, relationship things that we know are important, that those have to be there. Because you know, when you live with somebody, you can just get by on the day-to-day of like, you know, Whole Foods was out of you know, the organic bananas again, and like you can have 10-minute conversations about inane stuff that just kind of like gets you through the day and never actually talk about anything. Gary, I'm gonna get internet with you for my invulnerable. Is it about organic bananas? I miss you. When are we getting together next? I want to hang out in person, have some man-to-man time. Alright. So I'm calling you out. That's my my vulnerable minute. When are we gonna make it happen? Alright, I'm getting you to New York City sometime. I'm gonna go there. Are you gonna come out for a night? It'll be wild. Perfect. Bring your wife. It'll be wild until about 7 p.m. No, no, no, no. I will stay out if it's New York City. Don't don't you worry. The weekend, I'll stay out. I'll stay out. Um if my like sleep schedule gets so out of whack, like if I stay up till like three in the morning, then I can sleep really far in. The problem is if I go to bed at like 11, that's a bad one, because then I'll still wake up at five, and then I'm all messed up. So it's like either I go to bed at nine, and I wake up at five or four, four. I live at the end. Alright, I thought you were I thought you were inviting me to New York for a wild Boston 7 p.m. night that I just we're not gonna be able to handle. That could be fun, too. We can also just, hey, maybe maybe we're gonna go date. That's fine too. I'll I'm good for any kind. Oh my gosh. Um, any other uh good good tidbits you get from your uh from the research that you found? Sure. Yeah, and I think just some some practical things because some people you know you're gonna find yourself in long-distance relationships, um, either for an extended period of time or maybe you know just for a summer in a three-month period. There are very practical ways to help make it work. Um the one thing is regular contact. And like we said, regular contact doesn't mean like every moment of every day, and it's not like 10,000 texts a day, but it's just you need, like you said, have a plan. Like have some regular schedule, like, oh, every night between seven and eight, we're gonna talk, we're gonna do um, and that kind of thing. Make your long-distance partner a part of your regular life. Um, so they should know who your friends are, they should know who the people are. You know, if your friends are over, you know, introduce them, like, hey everybody, like, check out this is so-and-so. Like, we kind of bring them in into your life as as much as possible. Um, you know, plan ahead, right? Like, so something we know about experiences, like, and experiences are so much more important than material things, but one of the things you really get out of a benefit of experience is you plan a trip for two weeks from now, or you get to see your partner two weeks from now, you know, have two weeks of anticipation leading up to it. So make sure you're doing those kinds of things. Like you should have planned. Um, when you do see each other, try to have all of your mundane stuff done and out of the way so that the time when your partner and you are together, you're just actually enjoying each other. That's one of the big benefits of long distance relationships that you get to constantly date, and it's not like, sorry, I gotta do laundry. It's like, no, no, do laundry on Thursday if your partner's coming on Saturday. Um, and the last thing is that there's a ton of in preparation for this, I started doing like just a little bit of digging around um about like there's got to be technology that helps with this stuff. And they're not a sponsor of this podcast, though they absolutely should be and maybe will be soon. But there's this app called Between that is essentially just a one-to-one conversation with you and your partner, like videos, it's kind of building countdown, it's texting, and it's all the crap that you see people put on social media about their relationship that everyone just kind of like hates. Yeah, but it's just between you and your part. And it's like, hey, babe, check out this thing, or like this is us, or like you can send like a goofy little thing, and it's like it's just you and your partner, and no one ever no one has to be involved. I'm like, that's genius. So that's it. That's at least one of them. And there's a couple others that it they oh sorry, there's just one more. Rave is this thing where you and your partner can watch like Netflix and other shows together, so like you can be like hundreds of miles apart, but like you can both sit down and like watch Ted Lasso together or whatever other show you're you're watching. Like that, it was big during the pandemic, but like it's that's huge for long distance couple for sure. Yeah, we were recommending that during the pandemic. Let me tell you, uh, when we were coaching for that however long that went on during the quarantine, that was one of the strategies we had for our clients uh when they go on first dates because there's all FaceTime, it's all Zoom, we would have them watch a movie, and it we got didn't really work very interrupt design. It was a tough time to date, let me tell you. Tough, tough time, but we're past uh you know how many like you know, in a long go ahead. Sorry. I was just gonna say in a long-term established relationship, I I think some of those things can work. Like there's other ones too that are it's like um Gottman has a card deck where it's like you and your partner share like it's a bunch of prompts and activities that couples do together. Yeah. Um I think all that stuff's really, really weird with dating, but for long-term relationships, you know, it's like we talk about all the time is like what what gets you together isn't what keeps you together, and you kind of have to be good at both. And so, you know, there's different rules for dating and and the long term when it comes to long distance relationships. Yeah, yeah. Well, as always, it's nuance, and we're all over the map, clearly, on this. But I think you know, to sum it up, my stance is if you're dating, do everything that you can in your power to date locally. But if you find yourself in a long distance relationship, which is can sometimes happen, even if you're being intentional with your love life, be very intentional about your communication and how it is that you go about it, because if you aren't, uh it's gonna fall apart real quick. I don't know. That's does that sum it up? What do you think? Yeah, I think so. I I think you know, it's not a great way to start, but if if it happens, there are definitely techniques and strategies to help you navigate that time. And in many ways, it can be like rather than a setback, it can be a secret to success for long-term relationships. Um, again, because you're building a lot of emotional intimacy, which is what keeps you together long term. Yeah, amen. All right, I think we'll leave it at that, Gary. Uh, I'm gonna see you in New York City as soon as possible. We're gonna hang out and party, or maybe I'll just come to the dirty Jersey. I don't know. And get wild. Yeah, you come come out to Central Jersey. Do they call it the Dirty Jersey in Central Jersey? Or no, they they do they call it the dirty jersey anywhere, or does that just make it a other people probably do? But I'm actually not from Jersey, so I'm comfortable with it, but I I know a lot of people that live here would not be comfortable with that. I see. So that's offensive. Got it. Okay, a little bit. Probably. Well, on that note, thank you all so much. This is super fun, and uh, we're here for you anytime. All right, thanks, Karen. Bye-bye. All right, so now you've reached the end of the show. Please make sure you follow and subscribe to the Love Strategies podcast wherever it is that you're listening, so that you never feel alone again on your journey to love. As always, if you want to unlock all of our love strategies and begin your love life transformation, head on over to lovestrategies.com to get started. Stay beautiful and uh speak to you next week.