Why do people think long distance relationships can’t work – when clearly they can!

Posted on 08. Sep, 2009 by lisa in General Relationship Advice

I’ve been doing some research lately on heuristics and biases, specifically the availability heuristic and representative bias. I think it has something to do with the bad reputation that long distance relationships have. Yes, the distance is tough – but not impossible. So, why the bad rep?

Here is my theory: People like to tell interesting stories. And people tend to remember the most interesting stories easily – no matter how realistic they are (this is essentially the availability heuristic at work). This means that the bad story of the couple who were in a long distance relationship, where the Julia was cheating with every single person she met OR John is actually married to someone else OR Dan moves to be with his long distance girlfriend only to learn that she is really a crazy axe murderer (okay, perhaps that last one isn’t so common). The point is that this one extreme story gets told and told again, so people begin to believe (incorrectly!) that that is representative of how all long distance relationships are.

How do we fix it? We keep on truckin’ in our own long distance relationship and make sure that the people we know hear about how it is working and how it can be done!