King George IV and The Surprising Stats on Long-Distance Relationships

King George IV was fatter than his profile picture. Aka, the oil-painted portrait George had commissioned to send his wife to be Caroline Brunswick. With the help of his statesman and writers, George also made himself out to be charming, sophisticated, and a snappy dresser. Because if you're going to write a dating profile in the 1800s, why not get your court involved? But when Caroline met George in London, she knew she'd been duped. George had a reputation for being a drinker and a dandy - that much was public knowledge. But in person, George was bloated, spoiled, and would openly ogle other women. George was, in his own words, rather too fond of women and wine. 

George didn't care to impress Carolyn either. In his letters, he never mentioned that he was already married in secret before it was annulled, which Carolyn would find out about later. And when Carolyn arrived to meet him, George hugged her once, turned his back on her and disappeared into his apartments. While he was fleeing from her, he shouted, “I am not well! Pray! Give me a glass of brandy.” Oh, did I forget to mention that prince George was broke and needed Carolyn's money and reputation to get back on his feet? 

There are newspaper cartoons of him from the 1800s drunk and acting spoiled in public. George was such a disgrace and so disappointed for Carolyn to meet that even Jane Austen, the author of Pride and Prejudice, took sides. Jane wrote about Caroline, “I shall support her as long as I can because she is a woman and because I hate her husband.”

Jane Austen, the master who could spot vanity and foolishness in men, thought Carolyn had been duped long-distance. When Jane Austen takes your side, you know you're in for a rocky relationship. 

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Long-distance relationships are a crapshoot. Dating websites want you to think that there's a special someone out there for you. But if you're lucky, you'll get a Prince George - someone who posts photos that are ten years old, 20 pounds thinner, and a shot at that miracle angle only photographers can get. Then again, if you're unlucky, maybe your most recent photo will be seen on the Evening News. Well, that's exactly what we want to discuss today in a dangerous world full of kidnappers, catfishers, and people who refuse to tip their servers. We want to know what the actual chances are of finding long-distance love. And we'll start by busting a few long-distance myths. 

Myth 1: Long-distance relationships are rare. Maybe a friend of yours left for an out-of-time fling once, but they must be an outlier. 

Joe: When we were looking into this episode, it all really began while talking about the stats of long-distance relationships. Todd and I started rattling what's expected versus statistics, and it was all surprising. But what was more surprising was the idea that catfishing and profile picture touch-ups are actually super old. 

Todd: How old did you think catfishing was? I thought that was a 20-year-old thing when online dating popped up. 

Joe: That's actually the first time I heard about it – the early 2000s. I was like, well that must be the invention of catfishing because that's the technology, right? Apparently, King George was basically doing it. 

Todd: Filtering and face turning has actually been around since the 1700s, at least. 

The Roman Emperor, Charles the 5th, had a real powerful lineage and a very distinctive jaw. It almost looks like someone with a pituitary gland problem. I mean, it looks like it could weigh as much as your head. Through the years, he was painted as he was, but it later started showing him with it not there at all. They cover it with a beard, some had different angles, and others he's tucking his chin in.

Joe: I've seen people on Facebook do the same trick with their face, where they change angles. Would you say that honesty and presentation are worth more than being able to catfish your way into a relationship?

Todd: Yeah, I think displaying trustworthiness, especially early in a relationship, is paramount.

Joe: I am currently coming up on our first year being in a long-distance relationship. And that's actually why I have all these stats on the top of my head because I like to destroy fun and rolling people's notions of odds. It came from a conversation where we talked about the odds of our relationship working out. And I was like, oh, I'll just look up the stats.

Todd: Very romantic.

We're going to start addressing the myths that we listed off. Most of them are about how serious long-distance relationships are and how common they are. So, let's tackle the serious part real quick about how serious people are when dating long-distance. According to stats, 8 out of 10 people will say it's very serious. Now, 1 out of 10 people surveyed said they would fly to Tulsa to hook up and then fly back. And then the rest, which would be another 1 out of 10, said they don't know how to quantify the relationship when long-distance. The average time for these series of relationships before becoming strained is about four and a half months. So, the guys and gals that fly away and get disconnected, they may have wanted to wait four and a half months before they actually flew out to meet that person and stay there. There was all that new excitement and it kind of washed off fast. 

By the way, all our stats for today come from the Atlantic and Pew research, and we also got some stats from Wanda Roux, which I understand is a sex toy company, and they survey their users. So, they're not a sponsor, but we will be happy to link their data article where they got their information. With that being said, who tends to get into long-distance relationships? Right now, about 4M people are living apart from their spouses. Now, that is less than I thought. I thought most long-distance relationships would probably be spouses that are separated by work temporarily. 

If more people were living apart that were married, how long would they be able to carry that on? In other terms, this is about 2% of the population in long-distance relationships – 7.5M in total, with 4M of them being married. But even more shocking, 90% of the general public have been in or will be in a long-distance relationship at some point. I don't know if you know this, but before online dating, there were other ways to meet people - classified ads. So, you put your stats in a little classified ad for three weeks. I don't think anyone, if anyone, has ever hooked up based on one of those ads. I would be very shocked.

Myth 2: The long-distance relationships that work out are even rarer. If we find someone online, chances are they'll be a total King George in real life, except fewer pantaloons and more credit card debt. 

There was something that came from an Atlantic article that breaks down who is actually gets involved in long-distance relationships. This one kind of surprised me. It’s either the super poor people or people who are wealthy. In a tribal sense, they feel the need to share resources with somebody. Now, what is long-distance by definition? Four-fifths of American adults live a couple of hours or less from their parents. So first off, we're saying that distance is relative. If you can’t make it far away from your parents, then you are already sort of narrowing out who's going to last in a long-distance relationship. 

This article says that education and income are the two biggest predictors of people who actually move far from home. If you're too poor to move away from your geographical region, that's a reason. But also, if you don't have a higher education, you're less likely to take that risk. Of those 7.5M people currently in a long-distance relationship, they say that a particular type of couple stays in these long-distance relationships and it's the dual-income, well-educated, professionally minded youngsters. Couples were more likely to accommodate one person's job, meaning you would find somebody long distance and then whoever made the most money would stay where they are and the other person would come to them. So, these are more of the long-distance relationships that exist because both people are developing their careers in two different places and they're just designing a life that will eventually come together at a set point.

Now the real question is, what are the chances of it working out? About 60%. New York Post reported it at 58%. But rounding up, 60% is how many people end up working out in a long-distance relationship. That's a coin flip. This is kind of funny because marriage is also coin flipped. It’s 50/50. Divorce rates are about half. So, if you take that into account, 60% is actually not that bad, and 75% of people involved in a long-distance relationship eventually get engaged. 

Myth 3: If a long-distance relationship ends in marriage, it's only because it was cheap or convenient. Maybe the couple was just a bus ride away, or maybe it's just a get hooked up out of college scenario. 

Success is different for different people. Some of them put it at marriage, and some of them put it as together for a couple of years. But again, 75% of people in long-distance relationships pop the question, and only 60% of long-distance relationships make it. So that's a whole mess of people who popped the question and then the relationship falls apart over Skype. So here, we will also talk about what makes a long-distance relationship end and how they sort of start falling apart. We will also talk about what makes them work and how to be successful. Obviously, if you want to make a long-distance relationship work, you do not show that much judgment, and you don't show up dying in the gutter drunk every time you talk to somebody. This comes from a Queen's University research article, focusing on the attempts and outcomes of long-distance relationships. This was almost entirely an infographic page, and I highly recommend it. Now, we talked about the misconception early on, which is people got together because it was cheaper, convenient and that couples drift apart because they don't think it's going to work. So, everything I thought about long-distance relationships was basically wrong. Let's first talk about the average distance. We mentioned that 4 out of 5 people never make it more than an hour away from their parents. If they move out when they're adults, the average distance of a long-distance relationship is 200 to 300 miles. So not super long.

There will be three categories for this because when they survey people, some people are still in a long-distance relationship, some are no longer in it, and some have broken up and come back together. 

Funny enough, they have the same stats as far as how many people have been in a long-distance relationship, which is 91%. Now, 22% of those say they reunited and are no longer doing it long distance, which means 22% came together and stayed together. Next, 50% say they ended the relationship, and the rest are currently still dating. It is important to note that definitions of success vary, which we talked about earlier. One might regard most relationships as failures if you are in a romantic comedy movie. When we get to our first category, what makes that work? What makes a long-distance relationship successful? It has many factors. They need to be practical on all fronts, attraction and lust get involved, money too, of course. In fact, the people who came together and stayed together spent twice as much on travel each month than those who said their relationships ended. If you factor in if the majority of these people are educated and career-minded, that makes a little more sense. I think the money is almost like a statement of how much you're willing to invest in the relationship before you even get off the ground. You are that committed to start with. 

Now, here's a, here's a fun one. How are people hooking up long-distance? They are naturally going to see each other and have sex, but when they're apart, do you think that people who are in a successful long-distance relationship? Do you think they send more photos to each other more or do more phone sex? Based on the surveys, those who had a successful relationship did send photos more frequently than those whose relationships ended as well. And so those who had verbal phone sex more frequently came back together as a couple. Couple that with jokes, creative people, and thoughtful natures; it all plays a large role in it. It is all about showing that person love and putting time and thought into it. If you are with a creative person, you're getting a homemade Valentine's card made from construction paper and rose petals leading up to the bed instead of the Walmart card that they picked up on the way. 

What about arguments? Having conflict is certainly uncomfortable, but it can lead to stronger bonds. I thought that frequent arguments would basically mean an instant breakup. I figured if people had disagreements regularly, it meant they would not make it, especially long-distance. But that is not the case. The article said, “Our study suggests that those who successfully made it through long-distance relationships reconciled arguments sooner than those whose relationships failed or are currently still going long distance.” So, it's not that they argue less; it was how quickly they reconcile. If you let an argument hang in the air for more than a day, that’s when it can get detrimental. 

As a final note, here are some things that can kill a long-distance relationship: cheating and not progressing, which is actually the number one reason long-distance relationships break apart. The next is growing apart, and followed by lack of sex, but don't those two go together. But how many men versus women do you think lack of sex was an issue for? Based on stats, men care about lack of sex about 20% more than women do. If that is the leading reason, that is why men usually would be the ones to break it off. 

The next one down is differences in social life, which is kind of like growing apparent. Another is the financial strain of traveling and another is not willing to make the sacrifice to travel at all. I was fully convinced that cheating and dating other people were going to be number one. I did not think progressing a relationship would be number one. But in this article, they mention that infidelity is the number one concern of couples and the farther and longer the physical separation is, the more this bothers people.  

Joe: Just for fun, who do you think cheats more in a long-distance relationship?

Todd: …Men?

Joe: Yes, men are more likely to be like King George in long-distance relationships. Nearly a quarter of men in relationships that broke up admitted that they had been unfaithful. In comparison, only 6% of men said that they had been unfaithful, yet their long-distance relationship succeeded. So, if you want to take about a deal-breaker, cheat if you're a man and that will basically end things. Now, when we talk about men are more likely to cheat during a long-distance relationship, King George seemed to be all about that. How did that reflect on Caroline? When she eventually moved in and how did her life pan out with this wild frat boy for a husband?

Todd: There are different takes on this, but Carolyn, being in a royal family, ended up living in different houses. She ended up in some very unhealthy relationships and was rumored to have her own relationships on the side. A lot of this was just political. 

Joe: Is it weird that I actually am not against that? If you've got George as a husband, I mean, why not?

Todd: Well, it's rumored that she did, and being a slated celebrity and in a royal family...let's face it, you're not normal. 

Joe: Yeah, it's true. The standards aren't there. 

Todd: Yeah, you can do anything whenever you want and that just leads to a lot of mental illness. So, she was groomed for this. She was sheltered to do this, and she did the best job that she could with such an uncooperative husband.

Joe: A drunk that slept through their wedding and only had sex three times with her. 

Todd: You would think that marrying a king is that fantasy that every little girl would have, but it's not what it's cut out to be.

Final Thoughts

To re-engineer a better us, we might have to treat our approach to relationships the same way we would treat a serious career. If we're educated, motivated, and we put a lot of value on ourselves, we don't just turn in a job application at the closest five gas stations from where we live. Likewise, if we're looking for a partner who meets our specific life qualifications, we shouldn't rely on whoever Tinder throws at us because they're within driving distance. We should be willing to branch out in the same way we would consider going abroad for a career. If we know what we want and how we’d like our lives to look, broadening our search sounds less desperate and more practical. 

Thanks to dating algorithms and online chat rooms, you're more likely to find someone who shares your hyper-specific interests and values easier than ever before. Your odds of success from a distance are actually pretty good as far as relationships go. But there are a few catches; You have to be patient, you have to be willing to follow a plan to see each other regularly and make a daily effort to show each other affection. Unless you want this to be the most expensive booty call ever, you must be willing to discuss progressing the relationship about five months in, if our stats are accurate.