One day, one blessed day, you may come to the decision that a long-distance relationship is an okey-dokey relationship. Your love is fair and fabulous, and so it can withstand the mild quirky bits of the separation and all of the communication snafus that will attempt to snarl things up. You are not alone. There are millions of others already doing just that: bucking that trend, building that intimacy that would not naturally be built were you in each other's space all the time, being centered and exuding love from your pores even when Skype is making each of you speak five seconds after the other has already started talking and also looking like you lost an eye since the two of you last spoke.
But one day, one ugly day, you'll get in a fight with your long-distance beloved. You just will. There is a particular energy that builds between those trying to keep it together via telephone and computer, like static electricity. And some day that static love frisson will surround the balloon life head of your talks, and it will have to come out in the air, and then it will hang in the air while one of you looks confused at the live video on screen while the sound catches up. In order to make it good- to ensure that your slow-motion fracas can go on for days, if not weeks- you'd best follow these steps.
1) Make it Small!
A common mistake of the newbie is to hash things out and especially to keep things in context or in the big picture or whatever. That is such a common mistake that you might even feel good about it, like you'd just been chosen for some Olympic Fight Avoidance Team and your partner is your team mate- you might even be online, shopping for matching sparkly unitards complete with sequined headbands. What you really want to do here is forget all those high-falutin' dreams of gold-medal glory and start looking back at your discussion.
Pick some point (you may develop a method for choosing, but don't be afraid to wing it at first) and then pick at that point. Was it fair that they brought up your expensive stock car racing when you were really talking about your five-year plan? Did they actually refer to that racing as a "hobby"? Because that is just not cool, now that you think about it. Haven't you already had the conversation where you described how the burning rubber smell and the unhealthful heat and the team of spandex-clad co-eds spraying water into your mouth while you waste gas making the motor go R-R-R-RAAAAWRRRR is the only way you feel really free? How dare they say that's a "hobby"! The fact that it costs more per annum than the asking price of a small rural home is not the point! A"Hobby"!...If you look at it this way, you can bicker about the diplomacy of that particular choice of words for hours. And it will feel longer, which is just gravy.
2) Forget Your Progress!
Look, every couple has had it's fights, right? And every couple has figured it out, in some way. Perhaps you went to therapy for months on end and came out slightly more calm and much more broke. Perhaps you just decided the best way to go about this involved a fifth of whiskey per person and a series of shot glasses until one of you falls down first, enabling the other one to crow "I'm the winner!", throw up, and collapse on top of the body of that beautiful, wonderful person who is the loser. Maybe it involved a referee and a closed cage- I don't know what you kids are into these days. But I know this: for the kinds of fights that must be fought over long distances, you have to just let that go. Let it go.
The trusty Keep of Bitter Snipery cannot be conquered through politeness and thoughtful response. Revert to old, bad habits, such as mentioning previous fruitless bickering about something completely off topic ("This is just like when we went snorkeling. You were such an asshole. I swear every time we go to a reef and you get anywhere near some neoprene, it's just like snorkeling with Uncle Ted, because he was such an asshole.") Or you can make half-empty ultimatums ("If you mention my insignificant, completely controlled coke habit one more time I swear I'm going to have to consider whether or not this relationship is as solid as I thought it was." If you're Skyping while you do this, don't forget to make a haughty face!) Works like a charm!
3) Just Hang Up!
Someone taught you not to do that, didn't they? You listened while some well-meaning authority intoned about some golden rule and what constitutes being horrible, didn't you? We all did. And we believed, with our whole half-wit hearts that it was our duty to extract ourselves from a conversation by listening and responding with kindness to the jerk on the phone or the computer that we're trying to correct. If we must, said the nice lady/gentleman, we might write a letter filled with the all that vitriol- and then rip it up. Which is downright crazy.
Listen, well-intentioned people told you not to play with yourself, too, but you didn't listen to that bit of wisdom, did you? Of course you didn't! No one did! And the "be nice" rule is the same. Sure, it makes sense that one must give love to receive love, and you may feel just a wee bite of conscience trying to make you reconsider, but you must take that gnat-like conscience of yours and spray it with your anger spray. Then, just when the conversation you're having with your combatant lover is reaching its' apex and therefore its' possible resolution, get off. You can choose to inform them that you're about to hang up and then do so before they have a chance to "communicate their feelings"; or you can simply disappear. Either way is going to really, really piss off the one who's on the other end- and that's the whole point. The next time you are in touch with them, the tension will be tenser and the rage will be awful and the fight will continue, except the stakes will seem even higher! Woo!
...well, that covers the basics of long-distance relationship fighting. The rules listed above are really just guidelines, so don't be afraid to improvise. As long as you stick to your stupid, self-defeating metaphorical guns, you can be brawling with your loved one for a span of time that is measurable but will feel like many many eternities. Good luck, and remember: only one of you can win the luggage set, and by god, it's going to be you.
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