Long distance relationship - with God.

How is man supposed to live on earth? With his breathen? With other people? In constant prayer? Like a monk? In seclusion? With people, and when alone with God?

If there is a planet Earth, and we are all human beings on it, and we are near to one another, and have a community in physical presence, then surely we should communicate with one another and not go about ignoring one another. But how much do we want or need each other?
If God also placed us on Earth, let's say because he wanted us to have life and communicate with God, because he loves when we talk to him, then how much of our time should we give to people and God?

God surely isn't as physically present as the person sitting next to you. God and me can have a long distance relationship. He is somewhere, I am here. Through prayer, or what it may be, we can communicate. He may have his other special ways of letting me "feel" his presence. With modern technology, it is also possible to have a long distance relationship with a friend or someone closer than mere friends. We can talk through the telephone, we can send messages, we can even see each other on computer screens these days. Is that person on the other side, on the other line, real? Yes, I've met them before. Or if it's a penpal we're talking about, we still assume the person is real, not a robot or some other form. What's "wrong" if there is any "right" with having a long distance relationship? One that isn't really....there.

A relationship with God is also long distance in so many ways. You don't do things together. Well, actually you could in certain ways, such as doing something "for God" or "because you're living for God"...etc. I suppose you could do that with friends and spouses that you are having a long distance relationship with as well. But when does this long distance relationship with people become a fantasy. When does it become...wrong, strange, perverted, escapism, living in the past, or any other thing that seems inferior to actually being with people who are around you instead of spending more time with people who aren't.

What is a person who goes to work and then goes home and spends time with...God. I can imagine in the past, if I were a shepard, I'd tend the sheep...move them around...go back to my house...and maybe along the way I might meet a person or two I know, and get into short conversation or simply exchange greetings from a distance, maybe even from a distance of one hill to another, and at home if I were not yet married, or if I were married but somehow in my culture husband and wife don't spend all the time together, but women are constantly tending to things like food, and I'm back from work, maybe go into my room, and if I were such a person as would, I would start praying, spending time with God. In this scenario, it seems that God placed people on earth to have a relationship with God. Not exclusively, but God isn't just a minor routine.

And if in the modern world, one does that in the city, let's say not because he or she has no friends, but because this is the life he or she chose, just as we assume the shepard was not somehow condemned to that fate against an inner will of his, then what do we have? A crazy person? A normal person? What changes? Is a long distance intimate relationship, one that consumes lot of time and energy, with someone healthy? After all, there are many people around you can talk to, why are you spending your time and energy, and affection, with someone that's not really there, someone so based on memories perhaps...or a kind of...symbol? What about a long distance relationship that takes time and energy and affection, that affects the way you live, the way you think, with...God? Is that...healthy? When does it cross the line? Could it ever?