Long-distance relationships suck. There might be more eloquent ways to say that, but I can’t think of any more direct.

The way I see it, there are two types of long-distance relationships. In the first, your significant other lives a couple hours away but is still in the time zone. It is hard, but you can always talk to the person, and within a few hours you can be with him or her. The second type means that your significant other is one or more time zones away, which means every form of communication has to be planned in advance. Phone calls, instant messages and, if you are lucky, Webcam, have to be coordinated and planned like Eisenhower planning D-Day.

I, unfortunately, am in the second group. My girlfriend is 5,000 miles away in Austria for the quarter. Dating someone in Europe is like dating a time-traveler. I receive e-mails at 7 a.m., and I am told about how beautiful the afternoon is. I’ve awoken hung-over a few times and have been bewildered by reading about what my girlfriend ate for dinner. I barely understand what’s going on in my own time at that point, but reading an e-mail about the future is even more perplexing.

I’m not going to lie: I am extraordinarily envious of her. I went to Austria last year and know exactly how much fun she is having. The classes are tough, but it is worth it. When I get an e-mail and she says that she is going to Florence for the weekend, I can’t help but feel a twinge of envy. I am sitting in my apartment with my loud, dirty roommates, and she’s traveling through Tuscany and admiring the statue of David.

There has to be a lot of trust in a relationship to endure being thousands of miles away from each other for an extended time, especially if another continent is involved. I have heard the horror stories about people going abroad and cheating on their partner and the person back home never finding out. There is anonymity and freedom with being so far away, and it can be a huge temptation. I am not naïve; I know there are more attractive men than me out there. I know my girlfriend is going to flirt with guys. It’s natural. So before she left we laid down some ground rules that certain things were okay and others weren’t. But it doesn’t hurt that I completely trust her too.

It’s a sick joke about modern language majors that you don’t realize when you start dating. They will eventually go abroad to study the language — the smart ones anyway. And if two of them are dating, they will never be in that country at the same time. It is a weird intercontinental game of tag that we play. You get to be with each other for a couple of months, and then one person goes to another country. It sucks; then they come back, and you have to leave.

I made my choice, and I am sticking with it. My girlfriend had to deal with me being in Austria last year, and maybe absence really does make the heart grow fonder.