Long distance relationships seem to be pretty unpopular in the U.S. — or at least that’s what I have gathered from talking to people in general about it.

Over the past few weeks, a couple of my friends have been trying to make long distance relationships work.

As international students, we’re forced to make our relationships with friends, family, old classmates and the occasional significant other work.

Many of us have attended boarding schools from a young age, and this may have prepared us better for dealing with the lack of physical proximity.

View it as an opportunity: The culture out here places a lot of importance on being in a relationship.

Several people I know define themselves largely by their relationship.

The healthier alternative is to define yourself as a person who participates in a relationship.

Taking all of this into account, being in a long distance relationship is an opportunity to understand yourself better.

It’s an opportunity to indulge in hobbies you may have lost touch with.

If you haven’t had one, it’s an opportunity to start a new hobby. Fundamentally, it is an opportunity for you to simply be.

To trust and believe: Sometimes, it can be easier said than done.

It’s as simple as this — if it’s going to last, it will. Fretting over the negative possibilities often reduces your capacity to be a confident, positive person in the relationship. Elevate.

Dwelling on the negatives often results in being clingy and/or suffocating and ends up increasing the stress levels within the relationship.

Communication: Several people talked to mentioned that the agony of not knowing when the other person will contact you is too much to bear.

First of all, we have the luxury of the Internet, and this is a complete first world problem in the world of long distance relationship issues.

Merely one generation before us, communication itself was uncertain.

My mother would drive three hours to another city’s post office to receive phone calls when she worked in a different country.

Half our grandparents have stories about waiting weeks for letters. — And that was if the mail didn’t get lost on the way.

We can Facebook, email and video chat in order to keep in touch with our friends and family today.

However, what several people fail to factor in is the difference in lives and schedules.

 Your life/schedule is significantly different from someone working or studying in a country seven time zones apart from you.

Communicating spontaneously in such situations can easily result in frustration as most of your conversations start ending abruptly.

A necessity in such a situation is to set ground rules about communication.

Let’s say Saturday afternoons work as an ideal time for every part involved.

Then that’s when you catch up with your friends, family or significant other.

Any other communication you may have with them should be viewed as a bonus.

That way, you’re not disappointed when you don’t talk for one day after maintaining a 10-day streak of talking every day.

It’s about realistic expectations that can be met.

Catch up with friends you’ve lost touch with, or watch all the horror movies you missed because your significant other got nightmares.

Enjoy life and rediscover yourself.

This is a good thing.