Traveling.

For starters, I’m just going to clarify.  In this situation, I think traveling is better when single versus dating someone, but not necessarily when the other option is married. When you’re married (if it’s a good marriage) you don’t worry about what happens when you’re away; you enjoy your break but also look forward to returning home and sharing your adventures with your best friend.  Of course, it’s nice to have your other half traveling with you, but if that isn’t an option it doesn’t mean your travel experience is doomed.  My parents have both traveled during their marriage.  And although my mother probably would have enjoyed having my father there when she climbed the Great Wall of China (yeah, be jealous), this experience wouldn’t have been better if she was single. Because if she had been single, I would have never been born and THAT would be a tragedy.

When you travel while dating someone, a new relationship or semi-serious, this is a different situation.  There are two ways this could go: spending way too much time on skype, or spending too much time wishing you were back home (or both).  If talking to them is really that important, why did you leave in the first place?  Buy a plane ticket for someone else who will enjoy seeing the world.  Your significant other will still be there when you get back.  And if not, that relationship wasn’t going to work out anyway.  I appreciate a good homebody, and being a homebody too, but one of my pet peeves is someone with amazing opportunities that just bitches about their “awesome” boyfriend back home.  If he was so awesome, he’d be with you, or at least be able to give you a little space when necessary.  He would be excited about your return, but not overbearing while you’re gone.  (I am in Switzerland, so no, I am not going to call you right now.)  If you’d prefer looking at a picture of Big Ben, rather than actually experiencing its glow under a London sky, so be it.  But instead of studying abroad and whining, give your plane ticket to someone else.  Or spend your money feeding starving kids in China.   

Disclaimer:  I have two wonderful friends who just traveled for a few weeks.  And their wonderful boyfriends were still in the states.  And although I’m sure they missed said wonderful boyfriends, it did not keep them for soaking up every moment.  So if you are going to travel whilst dating, be like them.