Of course the emails fly back and forth. And we schedule a mid-week Skype date, Skype during football on Saturday/Sunday morning, and shoot to have a Sunday-evening Skype date as well. These aren’t set in stone, but keep to this plan 90% of the time.

The rest of the time? It’s ours. Work, cooking, cleaning, friends, family, exercise, our own projects, our own interests all take up plenty of time. When you get quiet moments, it’s actually quite nice to spend them peacefully alone.

Being comfortable with all that keeps the relationship alive and secure. First, you’re not sitting around, focusing on the fact you’re not together. Second, you have new things to talk about when you do get on Skype. Finally, you each know that you’re important enough to the other to warrant their time, which is a really nice feeling.

That’s not to say we don’t hope we can sort ourselves out soon. The romantic ideal of stepping off a plane and into a passionate kiss lost its lustre ages ago. Skype is a poor substitute for actual human contact. We desperately miss being together in all the mundane ways that other people get to take for granted. But being independent individuals makes coping with those factors easier.