By The Numbers: Long Distance Edition

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve run into two old friends who have managed to finding lasting love in a bicoastal relationship. As I listened to their stories, I couldn’t help thinking about the role that geography has played in my own romantic fate.

I’ve written often about my California-based long distance love Mark (a.k.a Sparky). But there have been many other times that I’ve felt the impact of geography -- an occupational hazard, no doubt, of having moved away from New York about half a dozen times. Here are some of the more memorable zip code-related benchmarks in my love life -- By The Numbers:

Number of major romances that began in one state two weeks before I moved to another: 1
Number of unexpected flings abroad (with the potential for more) that occurred within days of returning to the US: 3
Number of Toronto high school crushes who didn’t make a move on me until after I moved back to New York: 1
Number of New York boyfriends who resided about an hour away: 2
Number of New York-based beaus that I met on a cruise to the Caribbean: 1

My shipboard romance with Yonkers native Jimmy had both of us appreciating the intervention of serendipity. It turned out we were both on Match.com at the time. Jimmy and I agreed we would never have found each other online because neither of us were willing to explore people in one another's zip codes.

That our paths even crossed was a reminder that sometimes, for as much as it can be a foe in affairs of the heart, geography has the magic touch.