here are a couple of lists. first, the list of places i might live next year. i haven't lived in most of these places (new york and boston are the only exceptions), so i'm especially curious about information you might have on what it's like to live somewhere. i'm applying for a whole bunch of things and will likely have only partial control over where i end up depending on who accepts me.

• davis, ca (uc-davis)
• princeton, nj (princeton, institute for advanced study)
• ithaca, ny (cornell)
• minneapolis, mn (umn-minneapolis)
• chicago, il (univ. of chicago)
• palo alto, ca (stanford, which i guess is technically in stanford)
• madison, wi (uw-madison)
• new york, ny (nyu, columbia)
• philadelphia, pa (penn)
• san diego, ca (uc-san diego)
• boston, ma (mit, which is actually in cambridge)
• piscataway, nj (rutgers, dimacs)
• fairfax, va (george mason)
• berlin, germany (tu-berlin)

second, off the top of my head, five important reasons why long-distance relationships suck.

• it's very hard to live up to someone's expectations when you only have one consistent sense (hearing) to work with. this will cause the other person to form a deficient image of you, which may lead them to give up on the relationship because it seems so inferior to other possibilities.
• when you don't see another person often, your imagination is free to form a theoretical (rather than empirical) image of them. this results in cognitive dissonance when you actually do see the person, along with misplaced expectations. the inevitable letdown will likely tear apart the relationship even if you are meant for each other.
• if the relationship is going to end, it will end much faster in person than long-distance. this is just a pretentious way of saying that if you're not right for each other, the LDR will last much longer than it should because of the decreased contact. the net effect is that you end up missing out on opportunities for something which isn't as stable as you think. (translation: usually when you date someone for a year you think you know them pretty well and have a good idea of where the relationship is going. but long-distance, this isn't the case; nevertheless, you may think it is because it should be enough time to know what's going on, generalizing from in-person interaction.) it's not a good thing to wake up when you're 25 and realize that you've spent the last five years maintaining an untenable concept of the future. this can happen with a non-long-distance relationship too, but it's much less likely because you get to keep a dynamic, continuous view of the situation. plus your impression of what the situation will be is much better if it's just an extension of what your life has been so far instead of something qualitatively different.
• if you really are right for each other, the LDR is unnecessary. when you're in the same place again (i presume that none of my loyal readers are contemplating an LDR as a permanent solution), you're going to click again anyway. the strain in an LDR is palpable, and unnecessary.
• the LDR provides a false sense of sameness. usually when you're in a relationship with someone you're both changing, and the relationship changes with you. but something as compartmentalized as an LDR is insulated from these changes. the result is that when you are physically together again, you expect the other person to not have changed that much since your interaction with them has been more or less of the same nature. but everyone changes; this is a good thing, as we're all learning and becoming better people.
• along the same lines, the LDR represents something static from your old life that you feel you must be faithful to. you have a person who has fixed expectations of you, and these expectations give you a lot of inertia. this is actually a catch-22 with relationships in general, though i think it's worse here. i've mentioned this before: the inherent endorsement of your current persona by a special someone provides a disincentive to grow, so most personal growth happens when we are unhappy/unattached/friendless. yet you need this personal growth to have the emotional intelligence to understand how the world works, which is i think key to a healthy friendship or relationship or parenting.

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