Date LocalThe case against long-distance relationships.

I'd like to think this article actually reached somebody and convinced them to break off their silly long distance relationship. It would be a tremendous waste of resources if anyone so naive they'd seriously spend time weighing the ecological impact of their relationship actually reproduced.

--Socklin

(To reply, click here)

Geographically undesirable. That's how my mom described the girlfriend I was pursuing in 1974. She lived 30 miles away. In rural Idaho that meant I skipped someone in our town of 3,000 and passed by the next town of 1,200 to go see my sweetie. I persisted for three months before agreeing with Mom. The 30 mile drive made her Geographically Undesirable.

If you're pursuing a long distance relationship ask yourself how many thousands of potential partners you are flying over on the way to your rendezvous. If you live in a city you probably have more eligible partners within ten miles of your residence than there were total human beings within my 30 mile high school home town radius. Is there really no one for you in that group? Of course, you can live with the environmental impact. It's just a value call.

MichaelNW

(To reply, click here)

The author confuses "dating" and "hooking up" with "long term relationship" and "love", seemingly conflating them into one concept, when they are in fact distinct. I'd venture to say that the people flying across the country or the world to be with one another are not primarily interested in casual encounters- the pricing mechanism already does enough to discourage that. (Why pay $600 for casual sex when it's available in the neighborhood?)

--Andrew MacLaggan

(To reply, click here)

I think it is very important to point out green hypocrisies, because they undermine real issues, and make environmentalism look like a silly fad, promoted by puffed up posers, who think that small things like recycling will absolve them of every other environmental crime they commit. Make no mistake I'm no evangelical when it comes to rescuing the environment. I am just a rationalist, and I believe that we should be honest and level-headed about what we need to do to make real change. Buying eco-friendly dish liquid is not going to make up for the fact that you fly across the country regularly to see your lover, or to go to a green business meeting, or to make an impassioned speech on a different coast about how we need to save the environment. That is just common sense. I think the best approach for green-minded people who insist on having long distance relationships would be for them to drop the whole bleeding-heart environmentalist act entirely, because then at very least, you are not a hypocrite. In reality, very few people are willing to do what really needs to be done to live a low carbon lifestyle because it requires sacrifices, and Americans are not good at sacrificing things

--karayozi

(To reply, click here)

(10/27)