SHE called late one night last October.

She called a lot in those days. Back then she was my girlfiend, had been for about a year. That night, she had just gotten into a sorority and she wanted me--please! please! please!--to come to her fall formal, all the way out in the Midwest.

I told her it was a big trip, that I'd have to see how much it cost and I'd have to think about it.

I called her back five minutes later.

Next day I went to Keezer's and bought a tux. I called the Friendly Skies and raided my brand-new Baybank account.

I was a first-year at Harvard, and I was in love.

I'M NOT bitter.

I want to say that right now. Sure, it was a long-distance relationship, and like all long-distance relationships, it was from hell.

But I'm over my ex, and I have a wholly rational perspective on the whole genre of long-distance relationships: I hate them--passionately and thoroughly--but I am not bitter.

I am simply determined never to get involved with anyone who lives outside my zip code for the rest of my life.

It's not because I hate talking on the phone, although I do. I also hate paying huge phone bills, hate hearing my roommates yell at me to get off the phone and hate thinking about time zone differences. I even hate the Midwest.

But none of these reasons captures the true horror of long-distance love. I hate distant relationships because of the way they enslave lovestruck collegiates. No freedom is allowed for those unlucky ones joined by the fiber optic umbilical cord.

A LONG-DISTANCE relationship is like a receding hairline; no matter how hard you try, you can't get it off of your mind. You can't just go out alone to Pinocchio's and know that you'll see him or her soon enough at Justice or Ec 10. Nor can you just block your partner out of your mind when studying for a test or writing a paper, assured that you'll meet over baked fish pizzola in just a few hours.

The distance is suffocating. You can't get away from the relationship, which means that you can't get away from Ma Bell.

It's you, your partner and that phone. When you're not thinking about your mate, you feel guilty that your mind is elsehere. When you are thinking about your mate, you wonder whether your significant other's mind is elsewhere.