i'm in a long distance relationship right now... since august 2013 i've been in new york and my boyfriend was in washington dc (where we are both from) but around january/february 2014 he actually moved to alaska. he's planning on staying there until august of this year. honestly i have been really lonely and it has been very difficult since we were basically attached at the hip before i left for college in new york but i'm actually surprised at how well it's going despite everything.

we mostly use skype but during the day when i'm at school and/or he is at work we text or keep in touch through facebook. we pretty much have an ongoing conversation all the time -- we will send each other a message when we wake up and check in throughout the day until we can skype (or when one of us goes to bed, haha)

it helps a lot to be getting updates on what he's doing and vice versa pretty much all day because it feels like we are sharing the experiences and neither of us is getting anxious thinking about what could be happening.

we sometimes do what purplehaze's friend suggested -- leaving the video chat on while we watch tv, surf the internet, etc. and it can be nice but of course it's not the same as doing those things in person with your partner so it ends up feeling a bit stilted after a while in my opinion. it is definitely a great thing to do once in a while though.

another thing that can be comforting, particularly if it's not convenient to video chat, is to take a quick picture of yourself and send it to the other person via text/IM/etc. and of course phone calls whenever there's a free moment are nice too.