Does the instability of academia make romantic relationships impossible?
What interesting timing for me to come across this now as I was having a conversation with my best friend recently about dating as I bounce around the world in my post-PhD chapter. You seem to have a similar lifestyle as I did in terms of moving around for school, but a very different perspective on this.
For me, what I’ve come to realize is that when I have been in cities for three or four years, for my master’s (two years in school, two years after) or my PhD (three years), I have not meet anyone that I feel like would have been my partner. That the length of time I was in one place didn’t correlate to long term relationships. There were connections, sure, but the discernment and the dialogue and the decisions that come with an intentional coupling? Not present.
Meaning long distance has not been on the table for me, no. It doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be (although there’s a lot of healing to be done there due to scars of loves past) but it does mean that the connections have not felt deep enough or emotionally connected enough to put that conversation on the table. And for me personally, it wouldn’t be my first choice ever.
So certainly, there has been loneliness. It is lonely to going on dates and not meet people that I feel I really connected to, of course.
You’re not alone in that - if I may be so bold as to assume you were looking for company in the feeling of loneliness to not having a life parter.
I think the PhD in particular though brought me to a very specific feeling of loneliness. Where there wasn’t anyone in my day-to-day PhD life that knew me before I moved there and started this giant project; there were entire years, a whole lifetime actually, to share with the new people I met, during this PhD time. Sharing all those pieces of myself at the same time I was in the vulnerability of figuring out how to find my voice as a researcher and my original contributions to the field was full of many emotions. I often wished there was someone to witness the trajectory alongside me. That there wasn’t anyone to curl into on the days where I was so frustrated and discouraged was lonely. Just as there wasn’t someone to talk to over dinner in excitement about finding a paper that brings my whole thesis together. That was lonely, too.
But I think that is much different than the loneliness you might be alluding to about starting over in a new place, reestablishing yourself, finding your feet in a new city.
For me, with my moves, it was not as though moving across the country or the world was hindering a committed relationship. A ‘what if’ relationship, maybe; those can be dreamed up in an instant after a good first date or even a dating app conversation. But when I looked at the actual evidence around me, there was none to prove that moving was ruining the start or the continuation of a relationship. Only that moving meant challenging a story. A story that was given to me by society.
The story we often tell ourselves about staying is that staying is the ingredient to finding a partner. It is the key to the fantasy of the picket fence house and a long term relationship and all that, and I relate to how deeply that can bury under our skin.
But what really ‘counts’ as giving a place a good enough go when it comes to dating? What is the cut off point for risking that fantasy? What is ‘stable’ enough to sustain a partnership?
And does staying in a place for ten years, and only going on four dates, make staying worth it?
If you move every five years with your job, but you find that moving gives you more energy to go on dates so you’re going on one date every week for the first four months you’re there, does that make your chances better for a life partner?
Is having one zip code really all that when it comes to dating prospects? Especially if you end up cycling through dating profiles across the years? Does staying connected to a university you dislike make you a better partner because you’re not packing up but you’re miserable every dinner conversation? What is the trade off, really?
Certainly one appears more stable and so therefore society has a more accessible story for you to tell yourself about how someone might be able to love you. Is it really true though?
I’ll say to you what I hope you already know is true, based on your comment about connecting with a certain type of person: you are able to be loved and connected with and desired and cared about, whether you stay or go. You are worthy of that, moves or not. Chasing jobs or not.
I’m not sure if that is part of the story you tell yourself that helps you ‘shut off’ toward relationships, but read it again if it is. Your curiosity for the world, your wonder to experience new places, your excitement towards existing where you haven’t yet before is likely going to be a connecting force when it comes to dating.
Your choice to follow a career path that requires more moving than the picket fence dream comes with does not have to mean you are un-partnerable.
What it does mean is there will likely have to be a more intentional, curated, thoughtful dating experience for you here on out - with all this awareness.
And this is where we have to look at what you’re calling being ‘shut off from relationships’.
I am taking a guess at what that might mean for you above, but the questions I pose below are to help you dig into what narratives and factors might be at play.
Let’s first start with trying to figure out what you want out of a partner. Is it important that you’re able to pick where you live based on your job? Is it important that your partner works in person, or at all? Is it important for you to be able to move where they want at some point in the future? Is it important how their aspirations play out - would it bother you if they solo travel during your semesters? Would it be exciting to bring them to an academic conference to experience a new place together or would you resent them for coming with you? Would you feel guilty for someone to be following you for your job? Would them following you automatically make them seem less ambitious to you? These questions are important to spend time considering and answering for yourself.
Another exercise would be to explore what level of commitment you want and if there are any relationship structures that might be better suited for you where your needs could be met by multiple people? Could you do long distance with a primary partner and have other needs met by other people? If you could have your dream romantic situation - what does that look like? Work backwards from that, checking in with your priorities and decide what is the most important parts of a romantic connection to you right now.
Taken together, these might mean some changes in your dating patterns (rather than changes in your moving pattern). Could you be more upfront on a dating app about your intention to move continuously? Could you attend a social event for a digital nomad community to meet people also interested in moving frequently? Could you join a professional organization in your field that allows you to meet other professionals who might have similar moving schedules?
I would suspect that you are less shut down from an actual relationship, because you took the time to write this out to begin with, and more shut down towards the experience of being hurt by someone not understanding your desire to follow your career through different cities or by connecting with someone who is more of a roots down person.
And I think the latter can be mitigated by more intentional conversations and more conscious opportunities for meeting potential partners who might have a compatible or similar lifestyles of moving around.
Most importantly though, if you wrote this with someone in mind, I think these questions are better posed to them rather than me.
If though, you are in a similar situation as me, where it is more of a fear of ‘time running out’ or that you are ‘making a choice to be alone’ by moving so much, really spend time thinking, feeling, and considering how your life with a relationship could look against what story you might have been told as the ‘only’ way (aka living in one place for many many many years).
And what the reality has been in terms of what relationally has so far been impacted by your choice to move around for academia - how many actual relationships have been ended, how many connections have felt strong enough to have conversations around these topics, how many dates cancelled because you feel defeated knowing you’re about to move, etc. Ground this in real evidence. And if there isn’t that much, because feeling shut off has kept you from dating, it’s time for some data collection!
Spend some time dating with this information out in the open, see what people’s responses are and how you feel sharing as well as how their responses make you feel. Without being reckless with people’s feelings (including your own), this is a time for practice and play and exploration on how connecting with others romantically while holding the knowledge of enjoying moving for work is while dating.
Be honest (never brutal, always kind) and feel it out along the way!
Til next Sunday,
Dr. Sydney Conroy
Browse her academic tools | Subscribe for the next post straight to your inbox