Jasbina Ahluwalia is an
Indian-American attorney
turned entrepreneur,
Relationship Expert, Radio
Show Host and Match-
maker / Dating Coach.
She is the Founder /
President of Intersections
Match, the only Elite
Personalized Matchmaking &
Dating Coaching Firm in the country serving Selec-
tive Singles of South Asian descent Nationwide in
the U.S. Jasbina is also the host of Intersections
Talk Radio, a monthly holistic lifestyle show featur-
ing conversations with published authors/experts on
relationships and health and wellness. For more
information, please visit
www.IntersectionsMatch.com. Feel free to submit a
Question to be considered for this
column to
Jasbina directly at
Jasbina@IntersectionsMatch.com.
ANSWER
by Jasbina Ahluwalia
A Long-distance relationships can face a number of challenges.
Spending time together (not easy to do when living on opposite coasts)
can generally be helpful in getting to know a prospective partner well
enough to assess mutual compatibility on a number of different levels.
That said, as your experiences suggest, really connecting can be
relatively rare. In my opinion, geographical distance need not necessarily
be an insurmountable hurdle to exploring the potential of your
connection further (unless there’s reason to believe eventual relocation
would be absolutely impossible on the part of either of you should
things get serious). In fact, our matchmaking service introduces people
from different cities throughout the country all the time. Should you
decide to explore the potential of your connection with this guy, below
are some general suggestions to keep in mind:
Invest the time/energy/money required to meet in person prior
to getting emotionally invested. Since far easier said than done,
I generally advise people to meet sooner than later, as opposed to
investing considerable time, energy (and heart) into voluminous
email and/or telephone exchanges. While traveling to meet does
require a certain level of time and money, meeting only after
engaging exclusively via email/phone/IM’s/texts can be far costlier
on many different levels in the long-run.
With geographical distance, it can be difficult to get a sense of each
other’s authentic everyday way of being from day-to-day (as
opposed to the substantially more limited personality during
periodic and relatively brief fun-intensive visits together). For this
reason, I generally recommend both people be vigilant of advancing
the relationship too quickly as a way of resolving the infrequency of
contact; as well as spend time while together doing more typical or
mundane day-to-day activities, i.e. errands, cooking, and/or simply
co-existing with each other in private, as opposed to exclusively
limiting together time to places like restaurants, lounges, theaters,
concerts, and museums.
Invest in regular contact via phone calls and visits as the relationship
unfolds.
Address any potential “emotionally unavailable” issue head-on in
the event the other person’s behavior gives reason to suspect he/
she may be seeking out a long-distance relationship as a means of
maintaining emotional distance.
Remaining mindful of the above suggestions will likely mitigate
common pitfalls in long-distance relationships.
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QUESTION
I recently had a few great
phone conversations with a
guy introduced to me by my parents
(via family friends). This is the first
guy in the last few years with whom
I felt I really connected. The only
problem is that he’s based on the
East Coast, while I’m clear across
the country on the West Coast.
Given the geographical distance,
should I even bother?
