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Have you been lucky enough to have that moment in your life when the most amazing and unexpected thing happens, when out of no where you meet someone and in that instant you know they are "the one?" Your eyes meet, your head starts swimming, your heart starts racing, you have to remind yourself to breathe, you can't remember your name...Then your inner dialog starts. She is flirting with me, right? I have to see her again. Get her phone number. Wait did she just ask me out for coffee? God, she's beautiful. Do I like coffee? I don't know, I can't remember. She wants my number. What's my phone number?! Is it 49, no wait it's 74...
And that's that. In the blink of an eye your world has been turned upside down, and you know it will never be the same again. Yet somehow, in spite of your instantly love struck self, you manage to pull off enough conversation to exchange numbers and set up a date. You have a fantastic time together. You talk for hours. It's like you've known each other forever. You stay up into the early morning talking on the phone. You start spending all of your time together. You can't get enough of each other. You sacrifice sleep for lots and lots of sex. You've never felt like this before. You walk around in a love crazed haze, a constant state of giddiness. You think this is it. She's the one you want to be with, forever.
It is at this point, a few months into the new relationship, during the we're - so - in - love - we - can't - get - enough - of - each - other - we're - going - to - be - together - forever - we're - so - awesome - the - perfect - couple - she - has - no - faults - rose - colored - glasses phase, in which some lesbians get the urge to merge and decide it's U-Haul time. And when the intention to U-Haul is announced, all of the U-Hauling couples' friends start laying odds on how long it will be before they split up. That is not to say that some U-Haul couples don't make it, but the odds are not very good. We've all seen it happen. The passion that sparked in a flash and burned so intensely, seems to burn out just as quickly when faced with the ins and outs of day to life, and discovering your perfect girl is a slob, or an OCD neat freak, or just isn't all you thought she was, or really you don't have that much in common. Perhaps you've been there, done that, wouldn't do it again. Or, maybe you've been there, done that, still blissfully coupled 10 or 20 years later.
Since I had a difficult time finding good data on the longevity of U-Haul relationships, you could also read that as "out of practice at researching," I decided to do a little informal study. I posted a relationship survey on my blog, gaymo, and asked for responses in the comments section or via email. The findings were very interesting. Approximately 30% of respondents were in the early years, up to 3 years together, of long term relationship. Of those, half moved in together in fewer than 5 months of dating. Approximately 10% of the respondents were in the 3-10 year range, and only 1 out of the 3 dated longer than a year before marrying or moving in together. Approximately 60% of respondents were in relationships lasting more than 10 years, and of those all but one couple dated for one year or more. The one couple who did not date for a year, dated for 10 months before moving in together, and they married at month 11. Also, I happen to know this couple, and I know that they had been friends for 9 or 10 years before they dated, so it would seem they started off ahead of the game.
As for where I fit into my survey, my partner and I dated for more than 3 years before we merged and moved in together. We've now been together for 15 years, and I'm
