（字幕付き）遠距離恋愛・long - Distance relationships

For this video what we can do is talk about long distance relationships. Recently I was reading some statistics about long distance relationships in the United States, and I was interested in the fact that they were rising. I was also interested in the fact that that the article said that no other countries besides the United States had done studies on long distance relationships so there were no statistics and so I was kind of suspicious that it might be an old article, so I thought why not try finding some information in Japanese? So I looked up some information in Japanese on long-distance relationships and I thought it might be interesting to kind of compare our ideas about long distance relationship both in Japan and in the United States. Okay. In Japan, there is word, "enkyorirenai", is that what you're talking about? Yep, well that's something I'll ask ya. So, like, the first question I want ask you is, what is a long distance relationship? I wanna know what your definition is. Oh, I see. It's a relationship between a boyfriend and girlfriend who live far away from each other. Okay. Now what's interesting about that is that in the United States a long distance relationship long distance relationship is not just boyfriends and girlfriends. It includes both married and unmarried couples. So for an English speaker, what Japanese call "tanshinfunin" is considered a long distance relationship. So, I wanna know what your opinion is on long distance relationships. So what do you think about them? Personally I don't think much about long distance relationships. Some people seem to manage it successfully, but for me it would be very difficult to maintain the relationship. Many people think that the reason, one of the main reasons is just loneliness, but for me it's not because I would feel lonely but because I would want to feel a real person nearby. I have a different perspective because my sister, one of my sisters got married to a guy she met on the internet. And so, I think that if I really want to be with someone that I could do a long distance relationship because my sister and I are are fairly similar. In my case, I think long distance relationships are okay, and I could do them. Soiune, seijitsuna hito dakarane. Seijitsuna hito wa tabun dekirunda toomou yo. Do you think long distance relationships are rare in Japan? I wouldn't go so far as to say they are rare but compared to america it's more rare to make friends or boyfriend or girlfriend through the internet in Japan. What do you think? Well, maybe. Japanese seem to be less willing to share personal information over the Internet like Facebook or whatever. Like, they don't show their pictures, things like that, I've noticed. So making real friends and being real friends with someone over long distances would be very difficult for Japanese, I think. Next question: Do you think that cheating can happen easily in long distance relationships? I do think that they can happen easily. It's easy to be tempted when you are far away from your partner. But I've heard that cheating actually isn't any more common in long distance relationships. Really? Yeah. Hmm... So what do you think? I'm not sure about your answer but if you're not 100 percent satisfied with the relationship with your girlfriend you might lose your control all and fall pray to temptation, right? Not you, general. And your partner is far away it would be easier to do than it's under normal conditions. Next question: If you were in a long distance relationship, what would you do to deal with your loneliness? If it was me, and I've actually had an experience once in the past where I had a relationship but it didn't work out. And she was like you, she needed to be close to someone. So, if I tried again I think I would try to focus on getting to be with my girlfriend or wife. Of course I would try to talk to her and try to do something together, but you know over the Internet, but ultimately I would focus my attention on just being, just finding a way to get back to her. Oh, you say focus on getting to be with your girlfriend or wife? It means you would try to continue thinking about her? Right, I would continue to think of how I will be able to be close to her again. Like, if I'm far away, how will I get to be with her? What does it take for me to be close to her? And I would focus on doing that, and I would focus on her. Interesting. As for me would try not to think about him, and do something interesting with friends or something like that. I'm not the kinda person who tries it to beg or anything. What do you mean by beg? "kobi wo uru", in Japanese we say, "kobi wo uru" It's like, you always, always think of someone, ask them desperately to send you emails, or ask them where they were. Oh, okay okay. It's like "sticking to someone". I'm not the type of person to do that. So, last question. Oh, last question? Yeah, last question. So in the US, from your perspective, physical contact seems to be an important part for lovers, so why are so many people in long distance relationships in the US? Right, you mentioned that hugging and kissing, whatever, is important, so why are so many people in the US in long distance relationships? And I think it's because they're easier to do, and it's easier to travel to meet each other. So we have communication technology like Google and Skype. We can drive, or we can take a plane, or in Japan you can take a train, and it's easy to meet people, so even if you live long distances you can go once a week or once a month to meet each other, right? And, I also think that my generation is more comfortable with long distance relationships because we're so used to making friends over the Internet already. We're used to meeting strangers, talking to them, having similar interests, and building a typical friendly relationship or talk about things that we're interested in. And we do the same things, like play video games, whatever, right? It's easy to go from just a friend to something more when you're so used to that. You need to be rich. It's time-consuming, and also, you need money to travel to meet her, right? Yeah and physical contact is still important to a lot of people, but there are there are other people that are satisfied with less physical contact as long as they can have some strong emotional connection with someone right? As long as it's temporary it's not gonna be forever, right? You expect that at some point you'll be close to each other. But, for a short time you can endure the long distance. Yeah. Some people can't, but... Yeah, I may have some stereotypical ideas about Americans, so I need to get to know more about Americans. Yeah, I mean, it's true that you know, we hug and kiss more than Japanese tend to do, at least from everything that I've heard. I don't have any personal experience, but from everything I've heard it's true that Japanese tend hug and kiss less.