The Most Romantic Long-Distance Advice We’ve Heard Has Nothing to Do With Your Phone

Long-distance is already a psychological experiment. Now imagine trying to keep the spark alive while knowing someone could literally be monitoring your calls. No flirty FaceTime. No unhinged voice memo. No “I miss you, but like…in a hot way.”

That was the situation a caller named Ava brought to The Endless Honeymoon Podcast this week. Her boyfriend is gone for nine months on a medical mission where communications “can basically be monitored,” which means even harmless spicy talk suddenly feels government-adjacent.

So how do you keep the romance alive when you’re 5,000 miles apart, fully yearning, and mildly paranoid? With comedian Ivy Wolk in the studio, hosts Natasha Leggero and Moshe Kasher offer an answer that feels very 1800s-coded, but kind of perfect for 2026.

The Most Romantic Long-Distance Advice We’ve Heard Has Nothing to Do With Your Phone

Make letters the main event

If the calls have to stay PG, stop trying to force spice where it can’t live. Instead, make the letter the thing—the anticipation, the ritual, the little hit of dopamine waiting in the mailbox.

“I would start to look forward to those letters,” Kasher admits. “I would be like, ‘Oh, there’s a letter coming.’” Because when your regular calls are “above board,” the handwritten stuff suddenly feels charged, even if it’s not explicit.

And if you’re going to do it, commit to the bit:

• “You need to get some printed stationery. Get some perfume.” Leggero says. Kasher agrees: “Oh yea, perfume. Lipstick kisses.”
• For that extra personal touch, Kasher says keep it “handwritten. Don’t type.” Because someone’s actual handwriting on paper hits in a way no screen ever will.
• Consistency is hot. Knowing there’s a letter en route every Thursday? That’s soft-launching devotion. Think: romance with a reminder notification.

Flirt like it’s 1952

Ava’s biggest block wasn’t distance. It was feeling weird about someone else potentially reading what she wrote. Which…fair. 

“Maybe you could make like a horny thing out of being vague,” Wolk suggests. “Get really into alluding or beating around the bush. Subliminally sort of horny vibes.” Her creative inspo is genuinely brilliant: watch Hays Code era movies from the 1930s-50s when filmmakers had to communicate desire without showing a single thing. Steal that energy. Here’s how:

• Reference a specific memory but stop short. “I keep thinking about that night in the kitchen” and nothing else. They know what happened in the kitchen. The censor does not. So let that do the work.
• Describe what you’re wearing or doing right now in a way that’s technically innocent but absolutely isn’t. “Just got out of the shower, writing this on the bed, wish you were here to help me decide what to put on…” Ma’am that is a Hallmark card to the government and a thirst trap to your man simultaneously.
• Use a rating system only you two understand. “Today was a 9 out of 10 kind of missing you day” where both of you know what the scale actually means. Build the language together. Nobody else needs to crack the code.

“How horny can you be while still being comfortable with somebody else reading it? There’s something about that,” Kasher points out. 

Stay in each other’s orbit

Nine months is a long time to run on “I miss you” alone. 

“The bottom line is you guys have been dating for 2 years,” Leggero says. “You’re going to be almost a year away from each other…And so it’s like it needs to keep growing.” Her advice was to send anything and everything that keeps the other person inside your actual daily life: “When I see a card, I’d paint a picture. I don’t know. I would just make it a little fun.” 

Not everything has to be romantic. Some of it can just be weird. Or funny. Or also boring in a way that feels intimate.

• Send a photo with zero context and make them guess the story. A weird sign you walked past, a meal you made, your view at 10 p.m. It’s small but it says “you were on my mind right now.”
• Mail something that isn’t a letter. A playlist written out by hand, a silly drawing, a magazine page that reminded you of them, a piece of gum they like. Anything that says “I saw this and thought of you” without saying it.

And then Leggero adds the necessary gut-check: “Send five letters and then see if he writes back at all.” Because orbit only works if you’re both pulling gravity. Effort is still a two-way street—even across time zones.

Listen to the full episode on The Endless Honeymoon Podcast, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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