Young or old, rich or poor, we all have that one person whose smiles bring thunder and lightening to our world. That Adonis of breath-muffling handsomeness. That Titian-haired goddess whose queenly eyes of lantern lits up the dim, dreary alcoves in our souls with its otherworldly and iridescent brilliance. And that one man and woman whose kisses create a halo of little cartoon birds and bees around our heads, enveloping us in an overmastering swirl of sensuality.

We naturally crave to be with that one person. We long to hold him. To hug him. To make gentle and unrushed love to her. And say by some quirk of fate we are seperated from these heartthrob of ours, a lump of urgency forms in our throats and propels us to wayfare towards them like a congress of exuberant ants would to a mountain of sugar.

But, have we paused to ponder if perhaps our cravings for closeness might in fact be largely counterproductive? That in our bid to achieve togetherness we unwittingly douse the flames of desire and sacrifice novelty along with its attendant adrenaline rush of excitement? Or that not being too close to our lovers isn't any cause to set off the warning sirens because it isn't necessarily an indicator of hairline cracks manifesting on the walls of our relationship?

Let's use our relations with our parents and siblings as a case study. Because they – our parents and siblings – are recurrent elements in our daily orbit, because we see them morning and night, and because our ears have grown overly accustomed to the music in their voices, we tend to take them for granted. But when we are separated from them, – say for a year or two – we start to feel the ten-foot pole of homesickness prodding unflaggingly at our sides until we are engulfed by a sickening yearn to reconnect with the members of our family.

The same applies in a relationship setting. When we see, taste, feel, and hear too much of our lovers; when we overdrink from the chalices of their hearts and allow for no space and distance between us and them, overfamiliarity would ultimately pave the way for boredom.

[...]

Echoing Esther Perel, “Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness must coexist with our need for seperatedness.”

Esther Perel spotlights with her timeless words, the existential paradox of love. The paradox of how love in its ardent search for closeness and intimacy thins desire which on the other hand thrives in distance. She also makes known to us that for a relationship to earn the quintessential stamp, a balance must be struck between closeness and separatedness until they go from being dissonant tones to being a pitch-perfect symphonic blend of counterpoints.

We mustn't be too close and we mustn't be too far apart. When we are too close, we screen out the mask of mystery behind which our lovers take refuge, and when we are too distant, we sever the threads which binds us together and lose connection.

We should rather be like the porcupines in Schopenhauer's Die Stachelsweine parable.

The parable of Die Stachelsweine tells of the predicament of a family of porcupines who during wintertime had to huddle up close in order to keep warm. The snag was they mustn't huddle up too close or they risk puncturing themselves with their spikes, thus bleeding to death. They also mustn't give themselves too wide of a berth or they risk freezing to death. To surmount the conundrum, all the porcupines did was to posit themselves in between the two polarities—they stayed not too close and not too far.

We must borrow the wisdom of the porcupines in Schopenhauer's parable and apply it to our relationship. And to add spinach to our relationships using the magic of distance, we should engage from time to time in what I've dubbed relationship-fasting.

Just as Christians and Moslems fast and abstain from food, so also should we fast occasionally in our relationships. Except fasting in a relationship has nothing to do with abstinence from food. It has to do rather with a deliberate and modest abstinence from our lovers.

These are some of the various ways we can go about relationship-fasting:

---By not always inviting our girlfriends/boyfriends over every weekend.

---By avoiding meeting with our lovers on a daily or weekly basis if we can help it.

---By restraining from following and keeping tabs on our lovers on every social media platform.

---By not calling, texting, or checking in too frequently.

---By respecting their personal space (You don't have to know the password to their cellphones trust me)

---By putting off sex ocassionally for as long as possible so as to garner momentum.

[..]

On a final note, if you feel your relationship is teetering on the verge of a collapse, and if it appears to have lost all its sheen and sparkle, then all you need do is play the distance-card and watch it rekindle the desire which the bulky fists of “overcloseness” have beaten to a brutal submission. But remember, a little distance is all you need...That and a little closeness as well.

cc: mynd44, lalasticlala, dominique, rocktation

...........

I think I can relate to the message of this thread.. Lemme read back again later ...

...

QueenSuccubus:


I think I can relate to the message of this thread.. Lemme read back again later ...

Kindly read back and do tell us why you found it relatable.

Somebody like me that likes to kpansh, I cant do distant relationship oo

Was Enjoying It Until I Discovered I Became So Long N Boring

There is no manual for having a good relationship. The tips that works for Mr A might not work for Mr B.


Just pray nd hope for a partner with a good heart.

Nice post. Keep it up!

sinaj:
There is no manual for having a good relationship. the tips that works for Mr A might not work for Mr B.

Of course.

oluspicy:
Nice post. Keep it up!

Danke schön.

REIIGN:
Somebody like me that likes to kpansh, I cant do distant relationship oo

It's not in anyway encouraging long-distance relationship, but that we should allow for some little pockets of distance [occasionally] to keep our relationships from going ice cold.

When you visit Nairaland everyday there's the every tendency that it will eventually grow drab and that you'll get bored of it. But stay off Nairaland for two weeks or two months and you would be itching to log in because the distance you've created must have sparked a new interest and curiosity in you. You catch the drift?

Softorgasm:
Nice op....
Often times i see people destroy their relationship as a result of what i termed in my own language" BEDROOM FAMILIARITY"...
Just because she said yes or he agreed to date you, do not mean, you have to be a relationship police in his or her life....
There are days yoh shot her out of my life, without her having any idea what you up to or even where you are..
Its not like you no longer want her but you are trying to make her realise that distance makes the heart grows fonder...
And it will work, because she misses you more thereby increasing the love....

Thanks.

...

This portion of your post says it all:

Just because she said yes or he agreed to date you, do not mean, you have to be a relationship police in his or her life....

DarkRebel101:


It's not in anyway encouraging long-distance relationship, but that we should allow for some little pockets of distance [occasionally] to keep our relationships from growing cold.

When you visit Nairaland everyday there's the every tendency that it will eventually grow drab and that you'll get bored of it, but stay off Nairaland for two weeks or two months and you would be itching to log in because the distance you've created must have sparked a new interest and curiosity in you. You catch the drift?

Yes. But people differ.. Some people would rather spend every second in the arms of their lover. The hopeless romantics won't mind bonding day and night! They don't want that vacuum created. You know those type of romantics that do coke and fight right after juicing up? Then they move to hate-fūcking each other before doing some more coke!

I used to have a gf who picks out a day when we wont come outside my room. We'll stock the room with enough food items to last atleast 2 days then we'll go naked, eat, fück, drink and smoke, watch TV and repeat it till the weekend is over and when its time for her to leave on Monday, she starts crying bitterly! She doesn't wanna go! She didn't like staying a minute away from me. The only thing that tore us apart was when she left for malay. Like _sinaj said, what works for one might not work for another.

But my long distance relationship could not survive it. I was so faithful but it later crashed.I don't just have any advice for people wishing to be in it because mine crashed after everything.

sweetilicious:
But my long distance relationship could not survive it. I was so faithful but it later crashed.I don't just have any advice for people wishing to be in it because mine crashed after everything.

It crashed because distance was not balanced with intimacy and closeness. The two must always work hand in glove.

It takes a great deal of maturity and forbearance to make a long-distance relationship work. I know some people who have done it successfully but I still don't think it's the ideal form of relationship. Long-distance relationships are studded with so many uncertainties and are very much subject to Murphy's Law which states that if there's even a fragment of chance that something can go wrong, then it would eventually go wrong.

nice one darkrebel101...

Lalasticlala mynd44 make una come see oo.

REIIGN:

I used to have a gf who picks out a day when we wont come outside my room. We'll stock the room with enough food items to last atleast 2 days then we'll go naked, eat, fück, drink and smoke, watch TV and repeat it till the weekend is over and when its time for her to leave on Monday, she starts crying bitterly! She doesn't wanna go! She didn't like staying a minute away from me. The only thing that tore us apart was when she left for malay. Like _sinaj said, what works for one might not work for another.

sweetilicious:
But my long distance relationship could not survive it. I was so faithful but it later crashed.I don't just have any advice for people wishing to be in it because mine crashed after everything.

that means you are very single right now

The saying, what works for A, may not work for B is not applicable to this write up.



Sinaj take note.



Darkrebel101 the write up Is magnificient!

dingbang:
The saying, what works for A, may not work for B is not applicable to this write up. Sinaj, take note

Meaning the write-up is applicable to both A and B, right?

Darkrebel101 the write up Is magnificient!

Thanks, brov.

DarkRebel101:


Meaning the write-up is applicable to both A and B, right?




Thanks, brov.

yes. Let's take Linda ikeji for example. Let's say she likes sex.. but she is a blogger. If she settles down with someone who likes sex more than she does, she'll get fed up since her work requires a lot of time and commitment with a laptop..


Now that's where moderation comes in.



In essence, no matter how much someone likes smth, the moment they meet someone who does that thing more than dey do, it gets boring.

Roel:
do you still have her number are you at the office now?

Even if I still do, I nor go give you.


Yes I am, sir.

dingbang:
The saying, what works for A, may not work for B is not applicable to this write up.



Sinaj take note.



Darkrebel101 the write up Is magnificient!

Please summarise for me...

Nma27:
Please summarise for me...

lol the post is saying that there has to be a balance in every relationship for it to last optimally

dingbang:
lol the post is saying that there has to be a balance in every relationship for it to last optimally

Eheeeeen... OK o

Romance section and people that don't like reading sha

This is really an insightful article Michael. Thats one of the formula long lasting partners say they use in their relationships, a little distance doesn't hurt.