Like "Love or Opportunity," I moved to Chicago 3 years ago and left behind a wonderful man who had great potential as a long term relationship. At first it was hard to stay in contact and it hurt to be away from him. Eventually, we realized the longing was too hard and that severing our ties was the best option, given that I wasn't moving back and he wasn't moving here. I sometimes think about him and about what "could have been," but I'm extremely happy in the city. I have a great job with tons of room for advancement and an even better long-term relationship that fulfills me in a way that the boy back home never could have... all this in addition to the many wonders a city like Chicago holds for its inhabitants.

I'd strongly suggest staying in the city and giving it an earnest attempt: two years seems appropriate. Though they're hard to find, the world holds many wonderful men. Wonderful cities like Chicago aren't as plentiful.

Oh, Cary. I usually agree with you, more or less, but on this one I think you are wrong. And I say that because I have been in this particular ill-fitting pair of shoes.

Other than this boy, it doesn't sound like there's anything but family ties connecting the letter-writer to Hometown USA, and if her mother comes to the Windy City, even those will be snapped -- so it makes more sense for her to stay in Chicago. If she's going back to visit her beau 2 or 3 times a month, she's doing better than most long-distance relationships, and it might actually survive until he can leave, too. And if it doesn't, she's not stuck in the hometown she hates, struggling to find a way to break free of it all over again. After all, decent jobs -- and wonderful men -- are probably more plentiful in Chicago than they are back home.

I might (but probably wouldn't) have a different opinion if the letter-writer had a firm commitment with the boy back home, but it doesn't sound like she does. It sounds like all she's got is the hope that if she goes back, a relationship with him will bathe this place she hates in a slightly more tolerable glow. But that's depending way too much on the relationship to make up for everything else she can't stand. It's the rare romance strong enough to survive that level of expectation.

Isn't it funny that when we're young it's so hard to recognize all the choices that lay before us? Why does this poor girl believe that her only 2 options are to move back to her small town or have her mother move in with her, thus cutting her ties to the town and this young man?

LW, why not take a roommate? If the city is really not agreeing with you, why not join the Peace Corps -- see the world for a year, get some perspective and then decide what you want to do? Why not apply for a student loan and go to school?

Truly, I would caution against limiting your options if the only thing drawing you back to your hometown is a man you've essentially just met. City life takes some adjusting, six months is not that long out on your own, and everyone stumbles and doubts themselves in the beginning. It's a long life, and you'll never really know whether this man is right for you if you don't take the time to figure out what opportunities the future might hold and decide what is really important to you.

I did this, or something like this. I moved away from San Francisco to an uninteresting suburb of a rather uninteresting city, to be with my family. Unlike the LW, I had no choice - my mother was sick and I am an only child.

I don't think a city is "just a name", and I don't think that one can "maintain a connection to the things one loves" from anywhere at all. I feel like a part of me has been amputated, I miss SF so much. I take "mental walks" through the city, and recall it street by street; I stare at the photographs I took when I lived there, and annoy my friends until they take more and send them to me. If I love watching the sun set into the ocean, how can I "maintain a connection to that" from a landlocked suburb? If I love walking along a street and hearing a dozen different languages spoken around me, how can I "maintain a connection to that" from a suburb where no one ever walks at all, let alone speak to anyone else? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Places are not interchangeable. Places have souls. Cities have personalities. They change, of course; but the essential "personality" remains the same.

All that said, I do think that the LW should go back to the suburbs long enough to get to know the "boy back home". Chicago won't go anywhere; and it seems like the boy also wants to leave the suburbs. So it would make sense to get to know the boy, and make plans to move to Chicago together. But I do think that if the LW is a "city person" and feels comfortable in Chicago, that she should live there. The pain of exile should not be taken lightly.

This is one of those situations where I think gender is really important. In general (emphasis on "in general") young men default to career and new adventures, and young women to relationships and those things that are already known to them. Stretching your comfort zone just a bit means doing the other thing.

For a 20-something woman, that means giving yourself more time to develop more self-confidence about your ability to survive in the city is something you can afford now (what Cary says about those difficulties is true), but probably would not be able to do later on, if you established a more permanent relationship with the boy back home. (If it were me, I probably would not have wanted my mother to come live with me. However, if my daughter faced a similar choice, she would likely have me come stay with her until she feel better situated.)

Also, you didn't mention exactly why he cannot drive a car, but possibly, this condition might also make greater demands upon you than is customary for someone in her 20's. Don't let taking care of the boy back home be what keeps you from learning to take care of yourself in all the very best ways that you can. It is still true, even in 2006, that a woman is more more likely than a man to give up some of her potential in order to maintain a relationship, or get married, or have a baby, instead of testing her ability to achieve something in the world.

Whether you can have it all, or have to choose what's most important, is still under debate. However, I think most people would agree that the order in which you choose things can either minimize or maximize the range of choices left to you. It would be easier to leave Chicago and return to the relationship and a suburban life if your present situation does not work out, than it would be to establish a suburban life and then try to transplant it to Chicago.

Like wheat and corn... spouses, kids, mortgages, dogs, etc. will all take what they need.