MTV reality show features student and her long-distance relationship

Marianna Hewitt, freshman journalism major, stars in “I Miss U” on mtvU with her boyfriend, Tiffin University student Jackson Davis.

Credit: Ben Breier

Long-distance relationships are like that Monopoly game at McDonald’s: Many will enter, few will win. But that doesn’t keep people from trying anyway, hoping they will be one of the lucky ones.

In the fall, many college students face the cold reality of being separated from their sweetheart for months on end. A new reality show on mtvU, called “I Miss U,” tracks three college couples as they cope with their long – distance relationships and compete against each other to win a trip to Europe.

One of those couples is Kent State freshman journalism major, Marianna Hewitt, and her boyfriend Jackson Davis, a student at Tiffin University.

In June, Hewitt saw a casting call for long-distance couples on MTV’s Web site and entered.

“They called back and they just kept asking us questions,” said Hewitt.

According to her blog, Hewitt and Davis started dating in May 2004 after they met in their hometown of Westerville, Ohio. Out of the three couples, they are the only college freshmen.

“It was really hard because when Jackson and I were home we’d be together all the time, almost inseparable,” Hewitt said. “And then all of a sudden, we were thrown into the environment of new people, and he’s not there for me and I’m not there for him.”

The couples can only communicate with each other using Yahoo! tools like Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger with Voice and Yahoo! 360 – a new program similar to MySpace.

Every week they compete in challenges for prizes. Hewitt and Davis won last week’s challenge in which they each had to write a poem that contained the words zesty, krunk, Tijuana, shazam and darkness.

“The words were so random that we had to use,” Hewitt said, “but it wasn’t too bad, and Jackson’s was really, really good.”

The grand prize-winning couple will be decided through online voting. Viewers can log on to “I Miss U’s” Web site, imu-couple.com, to vote for their favorite couple. The voting ends at midnight tonight.

Being on national televison has made adjusting to college life difficult for Hewitt.

“I was busy with it at first because I had so much going on, just coming to Kent and meeting new people and having homework and stuff to do,” she said.

New episodes of “I Miss U” are currently running on mtvU. The season finale is Oct. 7.

Contact ALL correspondent Matthew Carroll at [email protected].