Romance and Intimacy as a sojourner

I daresay that everybody harbours this great desire to travel and explore the world although with the naivety of its downsides. One common reality that people may want to ignore or put on the back banner is that a sojourner will never get enough time to establish a stable and working romantic relationship.

Whether the sojourn is due to work deployment, study, research, or whatever reasons it may be, there is this challenge that one never gets enough time to fully establish a strong connection with would-be romantic partners.  

Psychology tells us that people Instinctively get more romantic feelings and attachments to people around them compared to those far away. This reality is unlike the situation that sojourners find themselves in as they are constantly on the move.

The love life of a sojourner

With the world becoming more and more connected with easy travel and connectivity, sojourners are all over. Think about this, an African student with a girlfriend at home travels to study in Europe, gets a job in America, and then transferred to an overseas subsidiary in China. For heaven’s sake, when does this person settle to experience a blissful and stable relationship?

While traveling for whatever reasons can be therapeutic, informative, and experiential, the sojourner gets sensual feelings stretched extremely. Unless the partner in a relationship also accepts to join in such a life, which is not always the case, the sojourner remains a lonely soul wondering in the world.

Today, there are so many sojourners everywhere who are on a tour of work, study, research, the establishment of start-ups, and many more. While how the love life of a constant traveler may vary from an individual to the next, it comes with so much emotional burden.

How sojourners live their love lives

 Being a constant traveler means that you may not want to get into a long-term relationship with anyone. In most cases, sojourners do not want to venture into any long-term plans with their partners because after all, the next minute they may be off to another destination.

Another thing is that a sojourner will always shy away from starting a family. While it is the desire of every normal human being to have what they may call their own family, it is not such an easy fling for constant travelers. Starting a family will mean getting children and the demand of always being there for them which is a burden that a sojourner may not wish to offset.

Anyone on constant travel will always put a premium on their “now”, the current, there, and then. Because tomorrow is uncertain, it becomes very difficult to make any assurances about it. In most cases, being a sojourner means that one has already resolved at the back of their mind that their romantic life cannot be guaranteed into the future.

Having a Family as a constant traveller

As Kenny Rodgers mentioned in his famous song “Coward of the County”,  there is always someone for everyone and so is getting to have a family. It is a real struggle for sojourners to establish families with children in it while still being able to move around.

Any sojourner has to basically decide that they will stand the emotional burden of being away from the children and partner on several occasions. But again, the success of this strategy will largely depend on whether the other person as well agrees to such an arrangement. I doubt that a woman or man will readily accept to be repeatedly away from the lover.

A lucky sojourner who gets a lover that is ready to travel alongside them whenever duty or responsibility calls will typically maintain a lean family. In such a case, getting children may not be as much a necessity because they would be a burden. You can imagine having to frequently relocate to a new destination with three, four, five children…one kid is already too much.

Luxury for sojourners

It is common for outsiders to envy the lives of sojourners. There could be this business magnate, a mogul somewhere who have cut out himself as leader in a venture. He has to travel up and down inspecting the business. To the outsider looking inward, this man or woman lives large and enjoys life.

A typical sojourner has amassed some reasonable wealth. Being a traveller is not something that one decides to take so whimsically. In most cases, the separation from where someone calls home must be necessitated only by something greater. So money may not be so much a problem.

On the flip side, being physically and emotionally present for the family or a relationship is too much a luxury for a traveller. In case one is lucky enough to start a family, the size of the family too matters a lot. Two children are already way too much.

While one may be envious about the lives that sojourners live, it also befits to consider the emotional sacrifices that they have to make for it. These are people who go way out of their comfort zones to get more that life has to offer while in one way or the other denying themselves the warmth of living a settled life with a spouse or family.