The unspoken reality of being in lockdown away from your partner

This is not going to be an article which offers any specific advice, in fact it will probably be extremely unhelpful. It is also not an article which will be an escapade of admiration for my S.O. (significant other), no one needs to read that. This is basically just going to serve as a place to complain voraciously about the aspect of long distance relationships that NO ONE talks about, specifically when you’re stuck at home whilst your S.O. is at their uni house.

Jealousy of uni life

Since living at home for so long now, I have become disgustingly functional. My sleeping pattern is horrifically perfect, I’m eating three meals a day (none of which are takeaways). I am following what studytubers seem to call a “routine.” Meanwhile, I get sent Snapchats at 3am of my S.O. eating Dominos after a night of getting hammered with his housemates. I get drunk incoherent videos of them doing shots, I get bombarded with complaints of hangovers in the mornings. I detest my lack of headache, my lack of regret, my clear head, and my incessant productivity. This is not the uni experience I signed up for. I am jealous of my S.O.’s freedom to be as dysfunctional as he likes.

Timezones. That’s it.

A result of living at home means that I can’t really stay up late on Zoom calls. (My bedroom walls are very thin and my parents don’t massively appreciate getting woken up at 3am from me laughing). At the beginning, I found this quite isolating, but the more I got used to becoming a social recluse the less it seemed to bother me. I mean, at some point I’ll be able to go back to uni right? (Right Boris? Right? Please?). But too many Facetime calls with my S.O. have ended with the classic phrases “you’re such an old woman”, “who tf goes to sleep before 11pm”, “don’t tell me you’re going to sleep already.” Yes I am ready to go to sleep. Yes I know it’s barely nine o’clock. Yes, I know I’m pathetic.

Cupid Missed His Shot

I know Valentine’s day has been and gone, but I’m not over it. Vday isn’t that deep for me (or him), so being apart from my S.O. was fine. I mean, we’ve effectively been long distance since March 2020 so what’s another day to add to the tally? However, pre-Covid, I would spend Valentine’s day having drinks with my friends. Being at home and not having had the chance to do that was sad enough, but seeing him at his uni house with absolutely no plans to do galentines with his house full of male housemates was just TRAGIC. Where were all the pink cocktails, marshmallows, face masks, the sentimental (yet hilarious) cards brimming with inside jokes? If we spend Easter in lockdown and he doesn’t do something cute to celebrate with his house, I will be calling the police.

Long-distance Procrastination

I saw an article which suggested that knowing your partner’s schedule could be a good way to make long distance easier. I guess that would make sense. The issue arises in the midst of the pandemic when no one has a schedule apart from their biweekly breakdowns. (Mine are scheduled on Wednesdays.) Even though neither of us really have anything going on in our lives other than online seminars and a horrific number of deadlines, there is something so much more idyllic about the idea of doing all of this at my uni house.

Seeing my S.O. do nothing at uni just looks so much better than me doing nothing at home. I mean, I am not far from living my 13 year old life at the moment, and as a 21 year old about to graduate, existing like I’m 13 just isn’t it. So I hate to admit it, but I am envious of my S.O.’s ability to do nothing at uni. Its just got a certain Je Ne Sais Quo that my family house lacks.

If you’re in the same boat, I hope you manage to overcome the trials and tribulations of opposing locations, routines, social lives, and basically everything else. Hopefully soon I’ll be back living the university life I signed up for, but until then I guess I’ll just have to live vicariously through my S.O.

Related stories recommended by this writer:

What it’s really like to live with a couple in a national lockdown

I went on a virtual date with a guy from every college, so you don’t have to

Holding out for a hero: The saviours of the online seminar