FEATURE
The Rush of Late Night Love
Written By Ocean King
With over fourteen million couples worldwide
attempting long-distance, there’s only a
58 percent success rate. Losing sleep to
sneak a few extra moments with our loved
one can be exhilarating, but with just over
half a chance of success and limited contact
through a mobile phone, is it worth it? With
an eight-hour time difference between London
and Oregon, Jessie McKay shares ways to make
long-distance the most rewarding experience.
After meeting on McKay’s partner’s year
abroad in London from the States, the two were
inseparable, so when the inevitable happened
and he had to fly home, they had made a
detailed plan to make the relationship work.
‘Originally, we had a little rota. We stuck
to it for about two weeks before it became
near impossible,’ McKay says. She expresses
how hard it was to follow the schedule when
there were other commitments. ‘We both have
jobs and would take on extra shifts without
thinking about how it would affect the other
person,’ she says. Their routines rarely
align, and although all she wants to do at the
end of a long day is go home to her partner
and let her worries fade away, McKay, and so
many others, don’t have this privilege.
Because of the time difference, McKay says
she’s ‘definitely adapted to being more of
a night owl since we speak a lot during the
night’. Although she admits the transition
was tricky, she says ‘there’s something
inspiring about the night. It feels more
intimate because the world’s sleeping and
I’m awake’.
Dating across time zones isn’t too
different to being a night worker when your
partner’s schedule is the standard nineto-five.
Trying to find time to see each
other can prove extremely challenging and
having schedules that don’t align in the
slightest can deter from relationships in
the first place. For both long-distance
and shift-worker couples, communication is
key to overcoming the time difference. In
today’s digital world, staying connected
with the other side of the world is only
a tap of a button away, but McKay and
her partner often send letters and care
packages to one another, too, to ‘keep the
relationship alive’.
"It works for us because we’d always go
the extra mile for each other. Even if that
means 5000 miles, sometimes,"
And if you’re still not convinced, ask
yourself whether you’re willing to give
up your sleep and your spare time for your
partner. If the answer is no, perhaps latenight
love isn’t for you.
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