I think its unfair for people to give false hope to someone who may get very emotionally involved just so they can say I support you on this. That's irresponsible and not good for the person. Those of us who know the reality of a LDR and any reasonably educated person can figure it out the risks, know the odds are slim, the distance works against you like swimming upstream. That doesn't mean we don't want it to work out for them, but worse than telling the truth that they might not like is purposely giving them false hope, that's just cruel.