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ФЕДЕРАЛЬНОЕ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОЕ АВТОНОМНОЕ ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ ВЫСШЕГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ

«НАЦИОНАЛЬНЫЙ ИССЛЕДОВАТЕЛЬСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ

«ВЫСШАЯ ШКОЛА ЭКОНОМИКИ»

Факультет социальных наук

Выпускная квалификационная работа

Maintaining long-distance relationships: verbalizing intimacy through social media

Долецкая Ольга

Table of Contents

• Abstract
• Introduction
• Theoretical Framework
• Intimacy in the Digital Age
• Living Apart Together
• Working on It
• Instagram as a field
• Methodology
• Research design
• Method and sample
• Delimitations
• Ethical note
• Long-distance intimacy and the role of social media: empirical analysis
• The construction of intimacy
• The verbalisation of intimacy
• Conclusion
• References
• AppendixA
• Appendix B
• Appendix C
• 

Abstract

Long-distance relationships are becoming more common, especially among students. Despite the lack of co-presence and face-to-face contact, long-distance couples successfully construct intimacy at a distancethrough digitally mediated communication. How do long-distance couples maintain the relationship online, construct intimacy and verbalize it on social media? This research focuseson exploring how undergraduate and graduate students from Moscow and Saint-Petersburg who have an experience of being in a long-distance relationship construct intimacy online and what role social media plays in relationship maintenance. A combination of 22 semi-structured interviews and an online-ethnography of 15 Instagram profiles was used to achieve this and examine both meanings that the long-distance couples construct around verbalizing intimacy and observe their online behavior. The research showed that for my informantsemotional closeness and intimacy are constructed through connected presence, which is ritualized and plays an important part in relational maintenance and emotional support.Interestingly, for my informants time feels more significant than distance: they focus on controlling time, synchronising time, and managing time. Temporality is inherently connected education and academia, because of the specificity of my sampling. Hence, my informants make sense of their relationships through the language of productivity and learning, which is the framework that is most familiar to them. Young people do not seem to feel the need to validate their long-distance relationship through verbalisation of intimacy online. Furthermore, the public verbalisation of intimacy and closeness is more often geared towards the partner or done for themselves rather than for the followers. It is about creating and reaffirming an identity and shaping memories, curating a photo album that you can look back on. Social media posts also solve the problem of temporality and lack of control over the time the couple spends together: sharing images and posts creates your own timeline, an illusion of control and makes the experience easier and more bearable. Lastly, relational maintenance involves relational work (in negotiating relational boundaries) and emotional work (aligning oneself with a positive view and a specific emotional track).

Key words: intimacy, long-distance relationship, LDR, digital intimacy, digitally-mediated relationships, verbalisation of intimacy, relational work, emotional work proximity distance verbalization

Introduction

A long-distance relationship (LDR) is defined as a relationship where geographic distance limits togetherness and prevents daily physical interaction between partners (Billedo et al, 2015). Geographic separation of partners can vary from being on other sides of the world to living in cities an hour apart. Although historically long-distance relationships (LDRs) have always existed, especially in certain communities (migrant families, among prisoners or soldiers), it has been more of a necessary measure, than a choice. Now, LDRs are becoming progressively more widespread through increased mobility and family life becoming more “dispersed” (Urry, 2016). Research suggests that up to50% of all college couples in the US are long-distance (Sahlstein, 2004). Despite the prevalence of long-distance relationships, especially among students and young professionals, it remains an under researched area, mostly studies by social phycologists, rather than sociologists.

Geographical distance is a challenge to maintaining a relationship, yet, long-distance couples do not differ significantly in reported closeness, trust and relational satisfaction from couples in proximal relationships (Dainton et al 2001, 2002, Cameron, Ross, 2007). Although intimacy and emotional closeness are known to be constructed through face-to-face contact (Jamieson, 2013, Ben-Ze'ev, 2003), long-distance couples manage to together while being apart.This could be attributed to digitally mediated communication: audio and video calls, audio messages, texting, etc. Practically, the relationship is “played out” through social media, both public and private.

Researchers have noted that people in LDRs have higher levels of social media use intensity and higher levels of expressions of strategic maintenance online compared to people in proximal relationships (Billedo et al, 2015). Meaning that long-distance couples use social media to perform strategic and routine actions with the strategic intent to maintain their relationship (Stafford et al, 2000). This could indicate that long-distance intimacy is constructed though connected presence - closeness that is created by constant interactions (Licoppe, 2004). However, digitally mediated relationships involve higher levels of surveillance and jealousy (Billedo et al, 2015), constant availabilitycould create “panoptic presence” - being constantly under observation online causes self-policing(Yu et al, 2017).How do couples find a balance between closeness and control? How is the intimacy constructed and what role does social media play?

It is not uncommon for couples to engage in verbalising intimacy through social media posts (about each other or the relationship) or public social media interactions (comments, replies, reactions), but for long-distance couples it becomes one of the only ways to interact in public. Miller (2016) suggests they “validate” the relationship through social media and get approval of their immediate circle through likes and comments on their posts. While it is true for Asian cultures, like China and Korea, where online relationships are seen as more authentic, and couples sometimes start a group chat just to say “I love you” to each other (Miller 2016, Hjorth 2008), it is unclear how relevant it is Russia. S.Livingstone (2008) suggests that young people create content on social media to manage one's identity, itis a way of narration but also an integral part of communication and communality (Tiidenberg, 2015). Social media platforms develop asan “ongoing network conversation” for communal interaction (Tiidenberg, Baym, 2017). Curating a social media feed could be a way in which long-distance couples verbalise intimacy and perform relational maintenance.

Thus, long-distance relationships are becoming more common, especially among students. Long-distance couples manage to stay close while being apart and live out the relationship online through digitally mediated communication. However, it is unclear what this success is attributed to and how intense social media use affects the intimacy and emotional closeness. How do long-distance couples maintain the relationship online, construct intimacy and verbalize it on social media? This research aims at exploring how (1)long-distance couples construct intimacy, what role does social media play in it and (2) how they verbalise intimacy online. I focused on undergraduate and postgraduate students that have an experience of long-distance relationships and are living in Moscow or Saint-Petersburg. A combination of semi-structured interviews and an online ethnography was used to achieve the aim and examine both meanings that the long-distance couples construct around verbalizing intimacy and observe their online behavior.

Theoretical Framework

Intimacy in the Digital Age

Intimacy has been known to be constructed through physical association and face-to-face interactions, since co-presence is essential for forming a close, intimate bond (Jamieson, 2013, Ben-Ze'ev, 2003). Intimacy is contingent on sharing a common set of experiences and meanings, not only the present, but also reinterpreting the past together and constructing plans for the future (Licoppe 2004). However, it is getting increasingly clear that intimacy can be digitally mediated both in geographically close relationships and online relationships (Licoppe, 2004, Jamieson, 2013). Furthermore, the level of trust and feelings of closeness are often at a higher degree in online relationships than in offline relationships (Ben-Ze'ev, 2003, Cerulo, 1997). Cerulo (1997) calls this “instant intimacy”, the deep emotional connection that is cultivated online much quicker and more intensely than through offline communication. Ben-Ze'ev (2003) argues that intimacy is built upon openness, but there is also always a strong desire to safeguard our privacy, which causes a conflict between disclosure ad confidentiality, that is particularly relevant for online communication. Cyberspace solves this conflict with relative anonymity and the ability to control the information you put out into the online world: it is easier to perform self-disclosure while keeping your privacy intact, which is sometimes referred to as “managed vulnerability” (Jamieson, 2013).

Living Apart Together

Long-distance relationshipscan be considered a prominent example of a digitally mediated relationship, as partners in LDRs communicate predominantly through online means, video and audio calls, and public online communication on social media. Couples in long-distance relationships report the same levels of relational satisfaction and trust in their partner as do couples in proximal relationships (Sahlstein, 2004, Scott et al, 2006). More than that, LDRs and same-city relationships have approximately the same survival rates (Sahlstein, 2004, Scott et al, 2006). This can only be achieved if physical co-presence, which is so important in establishing trust and creating closeness, is replaced by another type of presence mediated through digital media.

In his analysis of close relationships mediated through phone calls and SMS, Licoppe (2004) proposed the concept of connected presence - the continuous connection resulting from communicative behaviours in two modes (conversational and connected) (p.137). While the conversational mode creates a bond through long phone calls and that are often ritualised, the connected mode is short and frequent “check-ins” that preserve the ongoing conversation, the mutual engagement in the relationship. In the connected mode the quantity of interactions is more important than duration or depth of conversations. This is what Urry (2016) calls “absence-presence”, digital and phone communication substituting physical face-to-face interaction. Even though Licoppe wrote about mobile phones and SMS, we can propose that connected presence is also constructed through digital means: messaging, social medial presence, likes and comments, etc.

Connected presence is linked with a “continuous and uninterrupted conversation” that can only be possible with constant availability. Yu et al (2017) argue that in some cases this availability created by social media use transforms into “panoptic presence” (p.124). Studying how Chinese young adults who moved away from their family for education or career manage relationships with their parents through social media presence, the authors show surveillance that emerges from the visibility afforded by social use causes self-policing and self-discipline. Being constantly watched and evaluated by significant others leads to young people performing their identity online in a way that is approved by their parents. Thus, digitally mediated relationships with constant availability create heightened intimacy, but also more opportunities for surveillance (Jamieson, 2013).

Posting about one another on social mediacan be interpreted as “validation”: couples validate the relationship on social media and get approval from their immediate circle through likes and comments on their posts (Miller, 2016). That is especially evident in China where online relationships are often seen as more pure or authentic, since they are not “clouded” by real life responsibilities and inequalities: a person is not friends with someone because they are neighbours or colleagues, but because they are genuinely interested in the person's individuality. Young couples in China often create a group chat with all their friends and family just to say `I love you' to each other for the first time. They validate their relationship in the online space, publicly exchangingthe renowned three words (Miller, 2016).

There is a point to be made about how reciprocity and gift giving that takes place offline are re-enacted online. In Cyworld, an online community of Korean origin, “traditional forms of intimacy” follow this logic and are facilitated through reciprocal gift giving, sharing photophores, signing in each other's guest books, etc. Reciprocity in various kinds of virtual communication is key to growing social capital inside the Cyworld, which in turn can be converted to offline social capital (Hjorth, 2008). Since acts of care are crucial to building and sustaining intimacy, it is important to perform “being there” for each other online, for example,by sending messages,making check-in calls, or transferring money (Jamieson, 2013). Can we then argue that couples perform acts of care online in a form of public online interactions: likes, comments, and mentions?

Working on It

Licoppe (2004) states that mediated relationships often require effort to maintain, and couples do not just naturally stay close and intimate, as they need “strategic calculation”. Thisrelationship maintenance work can be conceptualised drawing on Zelizer's relational work, the effort actors make to manage the boundaries of relationships, especially when it comes to the intersections between the sacred and monetary transactions (Zelizer, 2000, 2012). Zelizer argues that economic relationships are not just embedded in the social context, but intimacy and market economy cross paths and intersect as hostile worlds (Zelizer, 2012). This intersection is especially problematic when market relationships take over culturally sacred spheres: body, sexuality, intimacy, etc (Zelizer 2000). This is where relational work comes into play, it helps people negotiate relationships, meanings and economic transactions, just as Zelizer shows in her seminal work “Purchase of Intimacy” where partners negotiated paying for sex and intimacy, but without the relationship being classified as transactional (therefore as sex work) (Zelizer, 2000). At first glance, relational work is more about economic activity, however, Zelizer specifies that relational work can be performed through different mediums of exchange (money, the Internet, sexual encounters) and the medium is matched with different relational category (Zelizer 2000, p.56). Sociologists utilised the concept of relational work to study a variety of different topics, including using relational work as an alternative to network embeddedness, studying egg and sperm donation or other bodily commodification through the lens of relational work, and exploring religion through the relational work framework (Bandelj, 2012, Garcнa, 2014).

Long-distance relationships require financial investments (plant tickets and other travel expenses for one), but also could require more negotiation of relational boundaries, definitions of the relationship. Tilly identifies four types of relational work: creating newrelationships, confirming existingrelationships, negotiating the sharedmeanings of the current relationship, andrepairing damaged relationships (Tilly, 2006, p.19-20). Being vocal about the relationship online can be a form of establishing boundaries for other people and clarifying the monogamous status of a relationship for the couple themselves. Tilly emphasises the reciprocal nature of relational work: the constant (re)negotiation of boundaries and meanings of transactions is only possible if both parties reaffirm this understanding through repeated transactions (Tilly 2006, Bandelj 2012). Publicly sharing about the relationship, liking each other's posts and public online communication can be interpreted through the framework of relational work.

What reinforces the topicality of debates on relational work in this context is thatwork that couples in long-distance relationships perform to maintain the relationship, especially online, is not genderless. It is worth mentioning Hochschild's concept of emotional work, a more gendered way of interpreting the commodification of social relations (Bandelj 2012). That is, acts of emotional work are efforts to actively change an emotion in degree or quality within oneself and are overwhelmingly performed by women both as unpaid labour and in their personal lives (Hochschild, 1990, 2012). Emotional work is often used as a more pessimistic view of how capitalism causes detachment and estrangement in intimate relations, whereas relational work is more neutral, stating that certain economic transactions can be damaging but they do not necessarily become such (Garcнa, 2014). Long-distance relationships being an emotionally hard experience can require emotional work to maintain, that supposedly is asymmetrically performed by women.

Instagram as a field

We live in a digitally saturated world where communication and self-representation often takes place on social media, particularly through visual content with such platforms as Instagram, Snapchat, tumblr.com immediately coming to mind (Tiidenberg, 2015). Henceforth, we cannot ignore posts and photos on social media when studying young people's experiences in any area of life, much less when our research questions focus on romantic relationships that are largely digitally mediated. In this case, researching how young people in long-distance relationships construct intimacy and verbalise intimacy online has to include an online ethnography of how exactly they behave on their social media. With social media, as it is often the case, what people say and think, and what they do can vary drastically (Van Dijck, 2008).

Instagram is an image, and video-sharing social media platform launched in 2010 (subsequently sold to Facebook for $1 billion in 2012). By June 2016, Instagram had 500 million active users, 300 million of whom use the app every day, and that number is still growing (Instagram Blog, 2016). The second greatest share of Instagram traffic comes from Russia (Statista, 2016) and is one of Russia's most popular social media platforms (Instagram Blog, 2016). Scholars researching Instagram images have suggested, that the way the platform is built (the feed is bound to a temporal progression and the grid portrays a timelaps of user's posts) creates what can be described as an “interactive autobiography” (Fallon, 2014). Instagram is performative and identity-building, it creates discourses and normativity (Tiidenberg, Baym, 2017).

For many, creating online content isbecoming an integral means of managing one's identity and social relations (Livingstone 2008). Research has been made focusing on how posting images on social media played a part in supporting and reinforcing an identity or creating a narrative opposing a common discourse. Pregnant women (Tiidenberg, Baym, 2017), NSFW blogs on tumbler (Tiidenberg, 2015), terminal and chronic illness (Bell, 2008), etc. Yet, the different relationship styles and online profiles of people in digitally mediated relationships, to the best of my knowledge, have not yet been researched, although it has been found that people in long-distance relationships use social media more “intensely” compared to geographically close couples (Billedo et al, 2015).

Photography have always been used not only as keepsakes in someone's (family) album, but a tool for identity formation(Van Dijck, 2008). The ability to take pictures wherever you go and post them onlinegave an added value to communication through online picture sharing,as well as constructing autobiographical memories. Hence, the communality and performativity of a pictures that is shared on social media is inevitable.

Visual narrative analysis is often used to study social media posts. Riessman (2008) distinguishes three interconnected sites” that are useful to unveil the narrative: the production of an image, the image itself and its audiencing. The production of an image is the context of how the image was made and edited, including the motivation for doing so. The image itself can be analyzed through focusing on composition, editing, genre, the narrative it seems to present, etc. Lastly, the audiencing is the interaction of the viewers and the image, comments, likes, reactions, as well as the caption, title and hashtags used as “textual viewing guidelines”.

As Instagram posts have been interpreted as presentations of self and an “ongoing network conversation” for communal interaction (Tiidenberg, Baym, 2017), it is interesting to see how young people in long-distance relationships choose to curate their Instagram profiles. Which narratives do they reflect? How do they use Instagram to verbalise intimacy and which strategies do they employ? What are their motivations for using Instagram?

Methodology

Research design

The aim of this research is to study how young people construct intimacy in long-distance relationships and the role social media plays in verbalisation of intimacy and relationship maintenance. Theresearch object is young students who have been in long-distance relationship or are currently in one and live in Moscow or Saint Petersburg. The research subject is the narratives that students with long-distance experience construct around the intimacy and the use of social media.

The first assumption is that long-distance intimacy is constructed through connected presence, which, in turn, is facilitated by social media. Second assumption is that young people verbalise intimacy online to validate the relationship among their followers and significant others, to normalise and legitimise it. Thirdly, couples in long-distance relationships perform relational work in order to maintain their relationships as a way to negotiate relationship boundaries and restate the relationship status or prove relationship viabilitythis relational work is geared towards the partner, but more importantly, to the audience of friends, family and acquaintances who are always watching the relationship unfold online. Forth, social media provides more opportunities for control and surveillance, and the performance of intimacy online becomes more overtly managed. Lastly, emotional work is performed in long-distance relationships through digitally-mediated care work.

Method and sample

This work is most interestedin relationship stories and experiences, meanings that people ascribe to their public online presence or absence and their online behaviour on social media. In-depth interviewing can produce detailed descriptions of media use, but this method disembeds practices of use from their spaces of performance (Keightley, Reading 2014). To ensure that both practises and subjective meanings were explored, a combination of semi-structured interviews and an online-ethnography was applied (Horst, Miller, 2013). The research employs an open targeted sampling with a focus onheterogeneity of narratives.I conducted 22 interviews (face-to-face and over Skype) with undergraduate and postgraduate students aged 18-26 who are currently studying in Moscow and Saint Petersburg and have an LDR experience for at least 3 monthsTheoperationalizationwasbasedondiscussions with people with long-distance experience and their judgement of what qualifies as being long-distance. Some researchers use a year period as the minimum to qualify a relationship as long-distance (Cameron, Ross, 2007), however, considering that my informants are students who often do short-term exchange programmes, I chose to define long-distance more broadly. .

The interviews were analysed through two cycle coding. To guarantee a (adjective) level of heterogeneity, I interviewed three distinct groups of people:

1. People who are currently in an LDR.

2. People who had that experience but have since broken up.

3. Those who had been long-distance but are now living in the same city.

I interviewed 6 couples (12 separate interviews) to get both sides of the story (a lot of the time there are two roles in the long-distance relationship - the one who leaves and the one who stays).This included 2 couples who were broken up at the time of the interview. There were 4 informants who were in binational relationshipsInthiscasebinational is used to mean a couple where one of the partners is Russian-speaking and the other is non-Russian-speaking (French/Russian, German/Russian, etc), which provided additional specific practises related to communication in a non-native language.

The online ethnography was conducted on Instagram as an example of a social media platform. Instagram was chosen because it is one of the leading image-sharing social media platforms and is popular in Russia(Tiidenberg, 2015). Additionally, personal connections with active Instagram sharers allowed easy access to the Instagram online community.The online-ethnography included 15 Instagram profiles of people who are either currently long-distance or have been in the last 2 years and are now geographically close (5 profiles were of people who were also interviewed). The couples who broke up were not included in the online ethnographyfor the sake of consistency, given it is typical for people to delete pictures related to the relationship after a breakup, and some of the informants confirmed they had acted in such a way during interviews. Analysis included grid postsMain feed posts (different to “stories:, that are temporal posts that disappear after 24 hoursmade during the long-distance period, with a special emphasison the posts that were related to the relationship or partner. However, other posts from the user were used for context. The analysis was inspired by the logic of visualnarrative analysis (Riessman, 2008) that combines the interpretationof images themselves with the narrative analysis of the captions and comments. The narrative analysis was also replenished with the information from the interviews.

The recruitment was held through the snowball sampling, with personal connections as the main access points. Insider contacts provided access to bothfrequent social media users and people with smaller or even minimal social media presence. The online-ethnography also relied on the snowball sampling: informant recommending people they know who post/used to post about their LDR on Instagram or through comments on Instagram posts related to LDR. This way both active online “sharers” and people with smaller online presence were reached. Because of the risk of recruiting a rather homogenous group of heavy social media users personal connections and insider contacts were to access a more diverse group of participants. And??? They were to access, and…

Delimitations

Firstly, younger people are more active and engaged social media users (Johnson et al, 2008) and since long-distance relationships are more prevalent among students, it is more compelling to study this group and the specific ways in which they utilize social media platforms. It is suspected that young long-distance couples who are not married or have children will ascribe particular meanings and behaviours to verbalising intimacy online compared to other social groups in LDR, for example, dual-career commuter couples (Rhodes, 2002). Focusing on a more narrow group of undergraduate and postgraduate students allowed me to gain insights into their particular motivations and practises, but did exclude the meanings that other kinds of long-distance couples ascribe to their public online communication (migrant couples, dual-career commuter couples, married couples and families with children, etc). The choice of focusing on a younger age group was also motivated by having connections and access points within this particular niche which provided a more fruitful and full analysis.

Secondly, my informants were of middle and upper middle class, students studying in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, for whom travelling in general and specifically academic mobility (international academic conferences, summer school, exchange programs) is very normalised. Long-distance relationships and binational relationships are more common and unquestioned by their peers and significant others than for people in smaller cities and from lower middle and workingclass backgrounds. Even though some of my informants felt the societal pressure to have a “real” relationship that is geographically close, there was still no significant conflicts with people in their lives or inner conflicts. Thus, my informants did not feel a need to prove the validity of their relationship online, but this could not be the case for other less fortunate social groups.

Thirdly, there are certain limitations of doing an online-ethnography of private Instagram posts. Instagram allows users to post “grid” posts (a picture or a series of pictures with a text description) that come up in their followers' feeds and can be liked or commented on as well as to post stories (pictures with drawings or texted added onto them that disappear after 24 hours). Typically, stories are rawer and more candid, whereas posts are more “performative”. I chose to only analyse posts for this research, because I did not have access to all stories posted during the long-distance period and there are practical difficulties in analysis. But this means that some meanings and practises that informants engage in were not reflected in the analysis. That was partly compensated by talking about stories and different types of Instagram activity during the interviews, but still, more research in this field could provide more interesting insights.

Lastly, it needs to be noted, that qualitative analysis eliminates the possibility of any generalisation or comparison of long-distance and same city couples.

Ethical note

Despitesocial media posts, including Instagram,being publicly available, users can perceive the contact they put out to be private, which differs from the platform's understanding or user agreements (Markham, Buchanan, 2012). Individuals also perceive information as more private if it is more sensitive, which is in the case of posts about romantic relationships.Thus, informed consent is essential for participants to weigh out the risks and benefits involved and reach a decision. Unfortunately, full informed consent isa well indented,but problematic concept in Internet Studies (Markham, Buchanan, 2015). Informants sometimes cannot foresee how the information used in the study can potentially cause them harm or change meaning in the futureand the researcher herself cannot predict the ways in which the information is going to be used or quoted(Markham, Buchanan, 2015). The informed consent form is growing with every second, risking to scare away the informants and still miss out on some crucial details. Additionally, while giving informed consent, the participant is agreeing to anonymous use of their data, but we can never be sure of full anonymity, especially when it concerns the Internet and digital materials. There is always the issue of protecting personally identifiable information, since social media posts are hard to make anonymous: the posts are publicly available online and are easily recognisable by followers or “googlable” (Marhkam, Bride, 2006). The AssociationofInternetResearchers(AOIR) suggests using a harm reduction approach to ethics of online research rather than just filling in the informed consent requirement (Markham, Buchanan, 2012). It means that the researcher has to have the community's and the individual's best interest in mind and consider all opportunities for harm from her research, as well as ask for consent depending on the context of the research, since consent can becounterproductiveor even harmful (Markham, Buchanan, 2012).

For this work the informed concent was obtained from all participants, the information (text and images) is stored on a separate devise and all data was anonymised.Based on Tiidenberg's example, all of the images used inhis research are altered with an IOS app called toonPAINT toprotect participants and are reproduced with permission (Tiidenberg, 2015).

Long-distance intimacy and the role of social media: empirical analysis

One of the first interviews I did for this research took place in a small coffee shop. After the interview a girl came up to me from another table and said, that she overheard I was doing a study on long-distance relationships and since she was currently in one, maybe I would be interested in interviewing her as well. After which the barista came up to us and offered to give me contact details of her friend who had just broken up with his long-distance girlfriend (third on a row). This story only comes to show how prevalent long-distance relationships are among students, particularly coffee shop goers.

The construction of intimacy

In the first part of the analysis I will explore the different ways in which intimacy is constructed at a distance, how couples get through being geographically far but remain emotionally close. In the second section I will examine how long-distance intimacy is verbalised and what role does social media play in that process.

First and foremost, while talking about feeling close to their partner at a distance, my informants described having ongoing text conversations. Most say they talk to their partner “24/7”, meaning they stay in touch over the course of the day, send updates about their daily routine and plans, send each other pictures and memes. The continuous conversation often starts and ends ritualistically, with saying “goodnight” and “good morning”. A lack of “ending” to the conversation can cause frustration. Interestingly, some people noted that the context of the conversation was less important for them than the fact they “check-in” with each other every few hours. The lack of communication can cause anxiety or stress, especially in the beginning of a relationship:

“I remember in the beginning, when he didn't reply to me for a long time, I felt ... if someone doesn't reply to you for four hours, he must have left you. It's over, he's probably found someone else, she's probably already pregnant with his baby in these four hours that's passed (laughs)”«Я помню, когда эти отношения только начинались, он когда мне долго не писал, у меня начиналось вот это... если человек не пишет тебе четыре часа, он, наверное, тебя уже бросил. Уже все, уже давно, он наверное уже с другой, она, наверное, уже от него беременна за эти четыре часа (смеется)»

(Sonya, 25, have been long-distance with her boyfriend for 6 months)

They also call each other quite regularly, a lot of informants say they make the time to call at least once a day, even if it is for 15 minutes. Some call less frequently, once in a couple days or once a week. This is consistent with Licoppe's two modes of connected presence: conversational and connected. The intimacy is constructed through the combination of constant communication over text (check-ins that create a shared social context) and regular calls. Of course, the means of communication have become more diverse since Licoppe introduced the concept of connected presence. Many of the interviewees use voice messages as well as video messages in Telegram alongside texts. They also note the importance of visuals and sending each other pictures as much as possible. They send each other selfies, pictures of what is happening around them, NSFW“not suitable for work” - sexual or erotic content pictures or pictures of stuffed animals they share custody over.

“-I want to say that photos are very important. I don't know how non-long-distance relationships work. I know that people send [pictures] from time to time. But in this case it's ... about once a day I want your photo. I want to see you, I need it.

-Why do you need it?

-To feel the person. Sometimes it is very strange ... I ask him to take a picture of his hands” «-На самом деле я хотела сказать, что фоточки -- это очень важно. Не знаю, как работают отношения не на расстоянии. Знаю, что периодически люди присылают. Но здесь это так... где-то раз в день я хочу твою фотографию. Я хочу тебя увидеть, мне это нужно.

-А зачем нужно?

-Ощутить человека. Периодически это совсем странно... Прошу сфотографировать его руки.»

(Ulyana, 19, have been long-distance with her boyfriend for two years)

For Ulyana intimacy is constructed and felt through seeing her partner, feeling his presence through images. Here photos are used as a communication tool, a part of the conversation that constructes connected presence on par with texts. Other informants also talked about the importance of video calls, often expressing annoyance when the internet connection was not good enough for them to video call or if their partner did not like it for some reason.

Yet, keeping up the connected presence by regular communication is not the only way of construction intimacy at a distance. In Vera's case the intimacy that she and her partner share is constructed through categories of negotiation, time management, planning, coordination and effort. She is often annoyed with her boyfriend for not being organised enough to plan their trips well in advance and in detail, that he does not take their pre-arranged times of skype calls seriously enough.

“For me, if we say "about 8 o'clock", it means "at 8". I finish dinner, I don't start, I don't know, doing laundry, at 8 o'clock I'm at the phone. And he ... for him “around 8” means anywhere between 7:30 and 8:30 (laughs)” «Для меня, если мы говорим "давай примерно часов в 8 созвонимся", то это значит "часов в 8". Я заканчиваю ужинать, не начинаю там, не знаю, вещи стирать, в 8 часов я у телефона. А он... в 8 это плюс-минус полчаса в обе стороны (смеется)»

(Vera, 22, have been long-distance with her boyfriend for a year, they are currently both living in France)

The temporality along with mobility and organisation is what make up the unique long-distant intimacy that they share. In many cases it is all about time: managing time, counting down time, synchronising time and doing things together even if you're technically living in different time zones. For example, most of my informants say, that they miss doing things together while they're long-distance, so they often try to imitate the co-presence with ritualistically doing things at the same time. It can be watching films or TV shows together (counting down from 3 to make sure they press play at the same time), cooking a meal at the same time and then doing a “skype dinner date”, falling asleep together on facetime or even smoking together:

“We text each other: "smoke with me?". And there's a feeling that you're doing something together. Sometimes we call, sometimes we send each other pictures. But when winter began approaching, we realized that we would be better off running together (laughs)” «Мы пишем друг другу: " покуришь со мной?". И чувствуешь, что что-то делаешь вместе. Иногда созваниваешься, иногда отправляешь друг другу фотки. Но ближе к зиме поняли, что лучше бы мы бегали вместе (смеется)»

(Ulyana, 19, have been long-distance with her boyfriend for two years)

Here a feeling of closeness is created by co-presence, by creating a shared context of meanings and compensating for missed rituals (Miller, 2016). But the intimacy is also created by temporal synchronicity: even if the couple is in different time zones, doing different things, a shared ritual for a moment brings them together in the same social time (Lewis,Weigert, 1981).

Lewis and Weigert talk about social time and temporal embeddedness, how deeply our sense and understanding of time is embedded in the social context. There is no objective time, we live based on calendar cycles or life cycles that are culture specific and depend on synchronicity (every individual in society has the same understanding of time and sense of the future which allows for social order) (Lewis,Weigert, 1981). It is interesting how for long-distance couples time seems to move differently: each lives in a timeline of their own and they also have a shared timeline with rituals, communications, and responsibilities. One of my informants said that she felt they had a “third life” with her boyfriend, while they were long-distance, one life each and another digitally mediated shared one. Another informant said that he felt he lived “3 years in 6 months”, because he had to live through his everyday life as well as his girlfriend's life and have an intense communication with her 24/7. Long-distance couples create this synchronicity without being in the same place, which can be immensely helpful, but can create problems with other social interactions. For example, you can be too immersed in your relationship and fail to find new friends and adapt in a new environment, socialise to the extent you would have liked to.

There is also a discreteness to long-distance relationships that does not exist in geographically close relationships: the timeline of the relationship is built around meetings (deeply important and memorable) in-between long periods of waiting and missing each other. My informants often divide the relationship into stages or periods based on the next or previous meeting (“After Riga”, “Before Dublin”). They always talk about the meetings as something magical, a long-awaited holiday and describe it as helping them to move to a next level of phase in the relationship. There temporality of a long-distance relationship can also be seen as a cycle: meeting-separation-meeting-separation. The Instagram posts also reflect the cycle: from posting about the meeting to posting about saying goodbye to #tbhThrowback Thursday - a practice of posting “throwback” pictures from the past posts from the meeting to post about anticipation of meeting again soon and back to posts about the meeting. The cycle does not include posts of all types every time, but it is still legible. The cycle ends with either a breakup or a reunion, which sometimes is followed up by a “conclusion” post about the long-distance experience. Control over the temporality is really important, almost all my informants expressed anxiety over any temporal uncertainty: they feel uncomfortable when they do not know when they are going to see each other next or when the long-distance period is going to end. Many compared their relationship to “termless” long-distance relationships, where the couple is either not planning to reunite or they do not know even approximately when that is going to happen. My informants note how difficult and even unbearable it probably is:

“It is very important that long-distance relationships have a deadline. No matter what it is: months, a year, two years, three years. Both must understand when it will end. And when it's indefinite, it's much more difficult …”“Очень важно, чтобы у отношений на расстоянии был какой-то дедлайн. Не важно, месяц, год, два года, три года. Оба должны понимать, когда это закончится. А когда это неопределенный срок, это гораздо сложнее...”

(Anna, 21, long-distance for close to 4 years)

The indefinite relationships are feared and sometimes even judged as being hopeless and inevitably ending. Thus, the relationship exists in two parallel timeframes: planned long-term (sometimes 4 or 5 years ahead, when the couple can potentially reunite) and discrete short-term cycles (next meeting). This high calculability is supported and practised in many areas. Firstly, in Instagram posts numbers are always present: the number of days left until the next meeting (or until the reunion), the number of kilometres or miles currently dividing the couple, number of years or months that they were or are long-distance, the number of meetups or plane flights. Celebrating anniversaries becomes more important both online (anniversary posts) and in interviews. Apart from yearly anniversaries, some long-distance couples celebrate every month on the date they started dating and some celebrate the day they met offline for the first time (if they originally met online). Secondly, the money and time invested into the relationship is also calculated. During the interviews my informants often talked about what is “worth” spending on, the costs and benefits of getting an extra weekend with their partner (but falling behind on work or studying) or overall the cost of being together long-distance over the benefits of being with the person you truly love:

“Long-distance relationships are a test of the strength [of the relationship], of how much you are willing to sacrifice sex life and some kind of human warmth for the sake of the person with whom you are really interested in talking to.”“Отношения на расстоянии - проверка на прочность того, насколько ты готов пожертвовать сексуальной жизнью и каким-то человеческим теплом ради того человека, с которым тебе реально интересно разговаривать”

(Andrei,has been in a series of LDRs)

Andrei, just as some of my other informants, frame the long-distance relationship as a sort of rational trade-off: you sacrifice certain features to gain certain benefits. This way of framing the situation rationally, in an economic logic of cost vs benefits seems as a way of making sense of the relationship. This is similar to the way Abolafia describes the local rationality of New York traders that talk about their choices as a perfect example of true economic rationality, the closest you can get to free markets, at the same time ads having their choices be embedded into the trading culture and rituals (Abolafia, 1998). It can be argued that individuals who make sense of their long-distance relationship through this rationalisation and economisation of their choices also present a local rationality.

“…We are geographically very far apart, thousands of kilometres. But generally, to fly to New York is not that much more difficult than to fly to Europe. Tickets are not that much more expensive, so you measure the distance in time, money and so on, it is not so far.” «…Мы географически очень далеко, тысячи километров. Хотя, в общем, долететь до Нью Йорка не то, чтобы сильно сложнее, чем долететь до Европы. Билеты не то, чтобы очень дорогие, если мерить расстояние во времени, деньгах и прочем, это не так далеко»

(Vlad, 22, have been long-distance with his girlfriend for close to a year)

A long-distance relationship can be “measured” not just in the physical distance that separates the partners, but also in time and money you have to spend to spend times with your partner. It is an interesting approach, it seems that the relationship's viability is rationally calculated through a few different measures. However, the calculability and rationalisation of long-distance relationships is also intertwined with the academic context that surrounds the young people I interviewed.

My informants all live in a specific context of studying and academia, either permanently (planning on doing an academic career) or temporarily. So it will not come as a surprise that the way the long-distance relationship start for them was in one way or another connected to being in education: one of the partners moved to do a graduate degree to another country, they went to school together in a small city and then moved to different places for university, they met at an international academic conference or a summer school, etc. Hence, the experience of learning is tied closely with the relationship and the ways in which the partners feel close to each other. Moving to a different city or a country comes with adaptation to a new social and academic environment, thus a lot of closeness and intimacy is built on emotional support. In a brand-new space where you know almost nobody your partner becomes your support system, your home away from home. But likewise, the person “left behind” requires emotional support, since a lot of the time it is not just a romantic partner that they are losing.

“Vlad is not only my boyfriend, but also my best friend, the closest [person]. When you lose this support, a person with whom you can discuss anything, it is difficult. Now in Moscow I have few contacts with people with whom I can interact at some deep level. Another friend of mine is very much immersed in work, we rarely see each other. It turns out that I do not have some kind of support that could help in the first days [after coming back from seeing Sasha]”“Ваня - не только мой парень, но еще и мой лучший друг, самый близкий. Когда ты теряешь эту поддержку, человека, с которым ты можешь что угодно обсудить, это сложно. Сейчас у меня в Москве мало контактов с людьми, с которыми я взаимодействую на каком-то глубоком уровне. Еще один мой друг очень сильно погружен в работу, мы с ним редко видимся. Получается, что у меня нет какой-то поддержки, которая могла бы помочь в первые дни”