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By Will Randolph
A long distance relationship isn't really that unusual nowadays, especially for college students. Social media, FaceTime, Snapchat, and texting have all made communication across vast distances a problem that can be solved in seconds. With communication no longer an issue, long-distance relationships shouldn't be that hard to maintain. And as one half of such a relationship, I can say that they really aren't. . . At least, the communication part isn't. There are of course, other aspects of a relationship that are just as necessary as communication. Quality time is one, and quality time is hard to replicate with a screen. That's one reason why it is so important to plan and find time to sit down face-to-face with a long distance partner. For my girlfriend and I, that means meeting in the middle.
I go to school in Louisville (a fact the reader of this McConnell Center blog probably knew already), but my girlfriend goes to school in Bowling Green (at the other red university in Kentucky). These places are roughly one and a half hours away from each other, which is a lot less distance than many relationships, but isn't exactly as desirable as 5 minutes might be. As a consequence, we don't get to see each other as often as we would like. Now, maybe that's not a world-ending problem, but like I said, quality time is important for a relationship, and that's especially true when the two parties involved are consistently stressed-out college students. How then, is this problem solved? Teleportation technology would be ideal, but Elon Musk is at least 15 years from getting to that, so a map will have to do. On this map (of Kentucky), there is a large settlement about 45 minutes north of Bowling Green and 45 minutes south of Louisville. If the reader hasn't discovered already, I'm talking about Elizabethtown, E-town for short.
Over the last two years, Elizabethtown has been the designated meeting place for my girlfriend and I to spend quality face time together, away from all of the distraction that college brings and without the use of screens. It's convenient for the two of us (it's almost exactly in the middle of our two cities), and actually seeing each other is worth the drive and late night getting back to school. I say late night because our schedules only permit dinner, and only on Wednesday evenings. This is quite nice because Wednesday also happens to be Trivia Night at E-town's quirky English pub, The Wicked-Eyed Woman.
I'll admit, it's an odd place. There's steampunk art on the walls, t-shirts with rather lewd phrases for sale, furniture meant to look like it's from old-timey England; but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't charming. The pub is housed in a historic building right off E-town's square (or circle, I'm not really sure), there's a little Union Jack waving outside the restaurant, and it's always full of bright and boisterous conversations. Sure, sometimes we have to yell across our table to understand each other, but it's fun to play along and answer the questions to ourselves, especially when we're right.
The Wicked-Eyed Woman has played host to a lot of the mid-week meetings between my girlfriend and I, and I hope it plays host to many more. And who knows, maybe we'll join in and win a trivia game sometime in the future. But for now, with Diamond Rio lyrics dancing in my head, I'm just glad that we have a place to meet in the middle.
Will Randolph is a McConnell Scholar in the Class of 2022. He is studying Spanish and political science at the University of Louisville.