Sign in or 
Share this
Telecommuting Love
by Herman Wong
The legions of people who transplant their lives from elsewhere to make it in New York City invariably leave people behind. Often this person is a girlfriend or boyfriend, forcing couples to either break up or try their hand at the dreaded long-distance relationship. While fighting to stay together in absence can be difficult enough, throw in a time difference and the displacement reaches a new level of chaos.
My girlfriend of four and a half years and I live 6881 miles apart. We can do nothing about it. She has a bank job in South Korea and I have graduate school in New York.
So now, we co-exist thirteen hours apart. When she wakes up in Seoul, the sun sets on my day. We call everyday if we can – she doesn’t like emails. I get up in the mornings a few hours before classes so I can call Korea through Skype, the Internet telephone network (7 cents a minute to her cell phone, 2 cents a minute for the home). When we can’t, she leaves me text messages that range from the mundane to the mischievous. “Callme” she’ll write one day. Or “didn’t call me again. Hate you.”
It is a life of inconvenience. Like most long-distance couples, we grapple with our disconnected lives. The first question is always ‘So what did you do today?’ though neither side really has much to report. Luckily we have the weather (it’s cold there, it’s cold here; we commiserate). She listens to me talk about classes and classmates she knows nothing about and I parse what I can from her news about work and friends. I miss having her beside me, and you can only feel so close to someone without those afternoons at the coffee shop or just watching television together all night. But our main trouble lies trying to catch each other on the phone.
My cell phone can receive overseas calls but can’t make them; so once I leave my apartment I have to wait till my night/her morning to reach her again. I have to race home in the afternoons to get on the Internet to call, but the window of opportunity closes quickly. Calls can’t come before she’s finished showering and dressing in the mornings. Nor after she’s arrived at the office. Her challenge is to catch me when my subway is still above ground, or before I step into class.
Our relationship has also become a comedy of timing. Our dissonance in time means any given Wednesday afternoon here in New York can be interrupted by a call that doesn’t quite fit the hour.
One time my girlfriend called me at my 6 pm, catching me on my way to Happy Hour. But at 4 am Seoul time, she was ending a night of drinking with friends and making the obligatory drunken phone call, talking of breaking up. What made total sense to her - a past midnight-type of call - was too unexpected for me to handle in New York.
Like overcoming jetlag, I’ve gotten used to these calls that arrive before their appropriate time. But it seems I only pick up the bad calls - the good often slips to voice mail. For every heartfelt, loneliness-inspired inebriated plea to split, my lovely girlfriend also leaves me rambling but moving messages that come while I’m in class or work.
“Hey I’m going home now. It’s 2 o’clock in the morning in Korea. I was crossing the road and there were so many cars and I thought they were going to hit me. I’m going home and I’m going to sleep and I really, really miss you. I think you should be here because I’m so easily tempted to break up. I hope you can come here and we can be together. So goodbye, and I love you.”
I find these calls infinitely touching, her voice a bit wobbly but so genuine. But by the time I check the message and attempt to call her back, she’s asleep.
The legions of people who transplant their lives from elsewhere to make it in New York City invariably leave people behind. Often this person is a girlfriend or boyfriend, forcing couples to either break up or try their hand at the dreaded long-distance relationship. While fighting to stay together in absence can be difficult enough, throw in a time difference and the displacement reaches a new level of chaos.
My girlfriend of four and a half years and I live 6881 miles apart. We can do nothing about it. She has a bank job in South Korea and I have graduate school in New York.
So now, we co-exist thirteen hours apart. When she wakes up in Seoul, the sun sets on my day. We call everyday if we can – she doesn’t like emails. I get up in the mornings a few hours before classes so I can call Korea through Skype, the Internet telephone network (7 cents a minute to her cell phone, 2 cents a minute for the home). When we can’t, she leaves me text messages that range from the mundane to the mischievous. “Callme” she’ll write one day. Or “didn’t call me again. Hate you.”
It is a life of inconvenience. Like most long-distance couples, we grapple with our disconnected lives. The first question is always ‘So what did you do today?’ though neither side really has much to report. Luckily we have the weather (it’s cold there, it’s cold here; we commiserate). She listens to me talk about classes and classmates she knows nothing about and I parse what I can from her news about work and friends. I miss having her beside me, and you can only feel so close to someone without those afternoons at the coffee shop or just watching television together all night. But our main trouble lies trying to catch each other on the phone.
My cell phone can receive overseas calls but can’t make them; so once I leave my apartment I have to wait till my night/her morning to reach her again. I have to race home in the afternoons to get on the Internet to call, but the window of opportunity closes quickly. Calls can’t come before she’s finished showering and dressing in the mornings. Nor after she’s arrived at the office. Her challenge is to catch me when my subway is still above ground, or before I step into class.
Our relationship has also become a comedy of timing. Our dissonance in time means any given Wednesday afternoon here in New York can be interrupted by a call that doesn’t quite fit the hour.
One time my girlfriend called me at my 6 pm, catching me on my way to Happy Hour. But at 4 am Seoul time, she was ending a night of drinking with friends and making the obligatory drunken phone call, talking of breaking up. What made total sense to her - a past midnight-type of call - was too unexpected for me to handle in New York.
Like overcoming jetlag, I’ve gotten used to these calls that arrive before their appropriate time. But it seems I only pick up the bad calls - the good often slips to voice mail. For every heartfelt, loneliness-inspired inebriated plea to split, my lovely girlfriend also leaves me rambling but moving messages that come while I’m in class or work.
“Hey I’m going home now. It’s 2 o’clock in the morning in Korea. I was crossing the road and there were so many cars and I thought they were going to hit me. I’m going home and I’m going to sleep and I really, really miss you. I think you should be here because I’m so easily tempted to break up. I hope you can come here and we can be together. So goodbye, and I love you.”
I find these calls infinitely touching, her voice a bit wobbly but so genuine. But by the time I check the message and attempt to call her back, she’s asleep.
|
billkerr |
Latest page update: made by billkerr
, Apr 26 2007, 12:13 PM EDT
(about this update
About This Update
Edited by billkerr
9 words added 6 words deleted view changes - complete history) |
|
Keyword tags:
None
More Info: links to this page
|
There are no threads for this page.
Be the first to start a new thread.
