eat et Op January 22, 2003 continued from page 15 - not harping on every little thing, as it will do your head in - not forgetting to have fun where youre at/having a life of your own + patience - trust - establishing who is going to move where . being really up front about what each other is about and what you each need from a relationship - letting go and not trying to control someone from a distance - not doing an LDR unless youre absolutely sure you want to be with someone - what you say and how you say it Of course, there are the risk factors with LDRs. For Janet, 24, her worst LDR moment was “get- ting dumped and having to sit on the train for five hours without screaming, with a train full of strangers.” My 43-year-old friend Bernice, still hurting from the sting of an LDR gone bad when she was 21, says she'd never have an LDR again. Her guy wrote a letter every day, then every second day, then once a week, then once a month. He'd even asked her her ring size. In her thick Jamaican accent Bernice now says, “Better deh devil beside me dan deh angel far away.” Still, outnumbering sad stories were happy ones. PEOPLE’S BEST LDR MOMENTS: - “His cheesy ‘I love you and can’t live without you postcards. All the roommates looked forward to his postcards.” Features http://otherpress.douglas.bc.ca - “Kurt surprising me with roses. He came to my house and hid in the apartment.” - “Racking up VIA rail points.” That was Janet. The contenders for the best unexpected benefit of having an LDR are Janet and Jenny. Janet says that she learned there’s a whole contingent of people doing LDRs. “We would sit on the train in a little four-seater every weekend and chat. When some- one disappeared you knew theyd broken up.” I certainly had no trouble finding people to survey. We're everywhere. We're a trend that’s not going away. We're pathetic. Jenny, who can say so since she made it and has set a wedding date, says her unexpected benefit was discovering that, “when you get through it, it’s a pretty good sign you're meant to be together.” I think the key word here is unexpected. LDR RESOURCES: -