Relationships Departure Lounge: Baggage Allowance Assessed

The classic post-uni life transition often kicks off with hopping on a plane and jumping full force into a travel expedition. But for those of us leaving university with a partner, does this travel pursuit have to come at the cost of losing a meaningful relationship? Can cuddles,  commitment, and the need for solo world exploration coexist?

The longest relationship I’ve ever maintained lasted a mere 12 months. 

I met him through friends, after arriving back from my gap year OE. It was the kind of relationship where, if you’re not careful, you could blink twice and suddenly find yourself ten years down the line with two kids, an affordable house, and a mediocre job. When we first met, I was hot off the press from Europe and glowing with newfound confidence. I was both excited and nervous for my first year of uni, ready to keep growing with even more life experience another year down the line. 

Ten months into our relationship, any spark that had been there was out. The tap had run dry. He grew comfortable with us staying stagnant, just how we were. I thought back to my year overseas and everything I had learnt on my own. I wanted to keep growing independently.

He told me he was going travelling. It was the perfect opportunity to break up, except he didn’t want to. I tried explaining that for us to be on the same page, he needed to solo travel just as I had, and he couldn’t grow into the best version of himself if we were together. He kept arguing.

It didn’t matter to him. He loved me, and he was only going to be gone for six months. I wanted to prioritise myself, and he needed to learn how to prioritise himself, so I called things off. 

Reflecting on how I was within the relationship, I didn’t recognise it at the time, but I wasn’t ready to be committed to someone. It’s fair to not be ready in your early 20s. If you’ve been in a relationship for most of your degree, and by the end of it you feel a desire for self exploration, then that’s fine. You have to be in the right place for a relationship to be able to put your all into it. 

At this point in my life, that's no longer something I need. I know who I am (well, kind of). After a billion years, I’ve (almost) left uni, and I no longer feel the need to figure myself out alone. I have the space in my life for a partner by my side. 

What I am struggling with, though, is whether or not I’m committed enough to do long distance. Once again, my (new) boyfriend is going travelling. But this time, I have to make a decision. Do we keep it going long distance or would it be easier for both of us to just end it? Whilst I’m happy in my relationship, the same questions and intrusive thoughts are back. What if this is a sign that he’s not right for me? What if he finds something better overseas? Could I find something better?

The allure of solo travel filled with whimsical, romantic bliss seems to have painted a skewed picture of what the correct path toward true happiness looks like for our generation. We find the idea of being tied down unsettling, and question whether a committed relationship is going to hinder our journey of self growth. We’ve fallen prey to the notion that non-monogamy and solo exploration in our 20s is the life experience we need if we’re going to live a fulfilling life. We need to have experienced a life liberated of emotional strings, where we have the freedom to pursue any individual desires.

The reality is that love is a choice that waits. It doesn’t have to be some big, complicated, life-interrupting enigma. 

It is possible to improve and experience life at its fullest alongside a partner. The idea of finding ‘the one’ is a modern-day myth perpetuated by pop culture. Love is about finding the one who works for you, and choosing to be with them each and every day. You acknowledge their flaws and choose to focus on how they make you better, committing to a journey of growth together. Being in a committed relationship shouldn't mean sacrificing your personal dreams. If you can’t grow alongside a partner long-term, that is a sign something needs to change or the partnership isn’t right. 

“It feels to me that our generation is afraid of commitment, and marriage epitomises commitment,” my friend Chloe said. I’d asked Chloe to meet me for a drink to chat about her relationship and whether or not she thought that she’d found ‘the one’ for her. Chloe got married last year at the age of 21, to her boyfriend of three years. “Essentially, I’ve just said, ‘Hey, I’ve found the person I wanna spend the rest of my life with [now], and I’m okay with that.’ Sure, I might have crushes every so often. But at the end of the day, I’m gonna come back to my husband and he’s the one that I’ve chosen to be with.”

Chloe has a different lens on life experience to mine. Where mine is shaped by the three-day whirlwind romances I experienced during my solo travels, hers is centred around a long-term commitment. The romantic experiences I had overseas felt euphoric. In those moments, everything feels perfect and amazing—you’ve clicked with this random person. You think, ‘What are the odds, coming from two different countries on opposite sides of the world, that we both found each other here and met by chance?’ All of a sudden, one of you decides to leave for a new city. You’re left pining over an imaginary life with this person. Leaving that person on such a high gives the illusion that your lives could have been that way forever. 

Contrast that to having met your current boyfriend on Hinge. You grew to know him, and the spark truly began after three or so dates. Is it fair to compare the two? Not really. Someone who's grown to know you over six months is hardly comparable to an instantaneous, glamorous, three-day romance that’s not fit to last.

In the months leading up to my current relationship, I’d said yes to a date with a recent, short-lived ex. I sat at one of the dimly lit tables at the back of Goldings, clutching my glass tightly. He took a chance, grabbing my other hand, holding it softly in his, stroking my fingers. “Come travelling with me next year,” he said, looking down at our palms. I knew then that I shouldn’t have been there. His lips crooked slightly upwards into a devilish smile, as if pulled by puppeteer strings. 

Afterwards, I went over to my friend Rose’s flat to ask for advice on my now boyfriend’s travel plans. I was feeling a strain between the desire to stay with my now boyfriend and the lure of my ex’s proposition.

“The thing is, Lauren,” Rose said, “relationships are very different to a short-lived fling or a little travel romance. Relationships are hard. They’re quite horrible in a lot of ways, because you get to know someone at a very deep and intimate level. Maybe [there are] some things you don’t like, maybe some you do. That experience will never compare to someone that you dated for a short amount of time. [With a fling, you only get to know them] on a surface level. And maybe [you] had a wild time with them, so in your head, that thing looks so shiny and so nice compared to the gritty hard stuff of everyday life.”

She was right. I needed to stop comparing reality with fantasy. 

“I feel like there is, especially in New Zealand, this ‘grass is always greener’ approach—[the reason] why everyone does their OE. I personally don’t see a problem if I’m in a relationship with someone and they want to go off travelling for a few months. I’d be like, sweet as.” 

Rose had a point. The grass isn’t always greener. Usually, the wild ride you have with someone overseas stems from the fact that neither of you are looking for anything more. You’re looking for short-term excitement, so that’s what you get. The ‘what ifs’ are always going to exist. There is no right answer, but it should be based on real feelings, not on the idea of something.

Rose was the perfect person to talk to. She’d done long distance with a long-term boyfriend. “We stayed together because I was in love with him. I didn’t want that relationship to end, [but] it got too hard. It was a situation of, ‘Yes, I don’t have this person with me, but I love them enough to stay with them. I want them to be a part of my life.’ It honestly never crossed my mind to break up with him. I think we did, in total, eight months of non-consecutive long distance where he’d be off travelling or I’d be back in New Zealand.”

“But I’ve also had the opposite in another relationship, where they've been like, ‘What do you mean you don’t wanna travel?’ [...] I was at uni. I was working part-time. I wasn’t just gonna quit everything and leave. But he saw it as that. He was concerned about how he fit into [my] plan, and it became part of the deal breaker for that relationship. I knew that what I wanted to do was not going to be supported by him.”

What my discussions with friends have highlighted to me is that every relationship is different.  Ultimately, I know myself and what I need the best. Rose made me understand that support and trust are the two biggest things. If you’re not feeling those in your relationship, maybe that’s a helpful indicator to influence your decision. With that being said, my current relationship is full of support, so throwing that away for the unknown doesn’t add up. I’m still stuck. 

To this day, I still think about the men I met on my travels and wonder whether we could have ever been more. I think of those whirlwind romances as a privilege, because at the height of freedom, I got to experience the euphoria of love with an expiry date. A huge positive about travelling alone is that you can solely dictate where and when you go, and what and who you want. It creates the space for you to grow into yourself by gathering new perspectives and breaking routines. Things that, ultimately, will better you for any eventual relationship.

Regardless of what you choose, every experience will teach you something. There is no perfect decision, and it’s okay to regret things. If you want to go travelling alone, maybe it’s because you’re not satisfied in your relationship, you feel like you need independence, or you’re not ready for a serious relationship. That’s okay too. If you want to stay with your partner and try long distance, maybe you’ll grow closer from the challenge, or maybe you won’t. But it doesn’t hurt to try. 

As for me, I’m deciding to take things day by day. It’s too soon to tell. Sometimes all you need is time to think. I’ll keep you posted…