Being a world away has her questioning

Q. I met someone nine months ago when living in Africa and am trying to continue the relationship even though I'm in the U.S. and he's still there.

We've been apart for about six months now. The problem is that he doesn't try to contact me as much as I would like. He says it's expensive to call, but I counter that he could text or e-mail from work at least once a week.

He'll do it for a while when I put up a fuss, but then stop.

Basically, I'm frustrated that I feel I'm putting more into the relationship than he is. My friends say men aren't very communicative, and I know that he isn't. And since we are not physically together, if he doesn't make an effort to talk, I figure what's the point in this relationship?

Since I've brought this up with him a few times with no results, should I just give up now and tell myself he really isn't too into me, or is there something I can do to really show him how much this bothers me?

Frustrated in Maryland

A. You mean, shave your head, write it in blood, stage a musical number?

There's a two-word, one-expletive answer to this: "three (stinkin') months."

However, you ask a question rhetorically that I'd like to see you (and many others who write in) answer. What is the point of this relationship?

Will you share a location eventually? Is there a firm date for that?

If not, are you actively trying to figure that out? Together? Or is this arrangement enough to satisfy you both, provided you work out the kinks?

Capital-L Love may make the world go round by lending purpose, inspiration, hope and selflessness to a species rather inclined to lying around on the couch. But Love's engine is love in the lower case, the day-to-day companionship, the intimacy, sex and communal laundry-folding, the countless small rewards for countless small sacrifices.

Without it, Love loses its connection to reality, and becomes wistful memory, wishful thought or, worst case, a delusion.

People in Love can do without love for very long stretches of time.

Couples do better if they're deprived of each other by forced separation -- as with deployments, detentions, expired visas -- than if the day-to-day closeness just dries up. But either way, the strain of doing without is notorious, and relationships often succumb to that strain even when they're built on years of shared happiness.

You knew him for three months, of ... probably not even love ... let's say three months of warm feelings, and you've asked it to carry you through double that time. That he's been in touch at all means he probably does care. But it's hard to ask anyone to value your companionship without your companionship, indefinitely, not unless you have either a concrete commitment, or substantial history, or genuine promise thereof.

Which teases out my next question for you: not whether he's into you, but, why are you into him? I think people drag around these phantom relationships because they remain attached to the idea, long after the person is gone. But ideas won't ask how your day went, or, apparently, send even one weekly e-mail from work.

© 2008, The Washington Post Co.