Long-distance lovers can link up New Year’s Eve

For many of us who make New Year’s resolutions, saving money, keeping a cleaner house or losing weight are at the top of the list. If you’re a man or woman in a relationship, especially one of the long-term variety, maybe you throw in a resolution about being more trusting of your significant other across the country.

But you know how resolutions go. The last night of the year – New Year’s Eve – you get it all out of your system. Maybe it’s a blowout dinner and drinks with friends on Dec. 31. On Jan. 1, you promise yourself, you’ll live like a monk.

As for the relationship issue, you can get that distrust out of your system this year, too, thanks to New Year’s Nation 2007.

This Dec. 31, New Year’s Nation 2007 will connect clubs, bars and restaurants in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Dallas and Boston for the big night. The Boston site is Umbria, a club on Franklin Street for those New Englanders who are going to be in the big city.

According to a press release, the New Year’s Nation Web site, www.newyearsnation.com, will produce a simultaneous webcast so that the folks at home can watch the parties. Folks at the parties can watch each other on TVs at the venues. Hopefully the Web site will be up and running on New Year’s Eve, because I couldn’t seem to get it to work earlier this week.

The webcast and TV links mean that if you and your significant other in another city, are attending separate New Year’s Nation parties, you can see each other or send virtual New Year’s Eve kisses.

Oh, and spy on each other, which the New Year’s Nation people actually encourage.

“Now you’ll be able to toast pals in another town, give your long-distance sweetie a virtual smooch or,” – here’s the kicker from the New Year’s Nation press release – “… or make sure she’s not giving someone else one!”

Now, a big party that involves five cities across the country with the potential for hundreds of people to link up and watch each other on multiple plasma screens at each of the venues sounds like fun to me, although I’m not sure I’d like my folks at home to watch what I’m up to on New Year’s Eve.

But having to keep an eye on a TV screen all night just to make sure a lover in Los Angeles or a sweetie in San Francisco hasn’t strayed doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. It sounds like way too much work on a New Year’s Eve.

And what about trust? Sure, New Year’s Eve is supposed to be all about the kiss, and you might be wondering just what your long-distance pal plans to do about that come midnight. But you’ve just celebrated the holidays and things should be on a high, right? And even if your boyfriend or girlfriend grabs a stranger for a midnight smooch, it’s just one kiss, one tick of the clock, with a person they’ll never see again.

What are you gonna do about it from Dallas, or New York, anyway?

Of course, the keeping-an-eye-on-your-loved-one gimmick is a way for New Year’s Nation to get bodies into the five venues. We all know if your significant other wants to stray on New Year’s Eve he or she can easily escape to a dark corner away from the TV cameras or – hello! – just leave.

Despite a kind of creepiness and lack of trust that comes with spying on your significant other, you can’t argue with a New Year’s Eve party that donates 10 percent of its net proceeds to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

Giving to charity. Now that’s a resolution we can all get behind.

Jessica Bloch can be reached at jbloch@bangordailynews.net