I Have Painted Myself into a Corner - Failing Long-Distance Relationship and Summer Vacation

In My Humble Opinion
1

Shortly before I went to Indonesia last July I met a local woman online and we immediately hit it off. We had increasingly explicit video calls over the next week and a half and arranged to meet up while I visited her hometown. Just 4 days before I flew there she ghosted me. Since Indonesia is a very conservative country when it comes to sex outside marriage, I concluded that she just wanted a bit of safe fun online, and shrugged it off.

I arrived in Indonesia, and the day before we had planned to meet, she texted me out of the blue. We met the following evening, and with some difficulty, found a hotel where unmarried couples could have some intimacy (my hotel had unambiguous signs everywhere saying that guests could not invite anyone to their rooms and that police would be called if shenanigans were suspected). We had a “brief but intense” fling while I was in her hometown and agreed to meet again the following (= 2026) summer. She ghosted me again two days later. I went back to Europe and moved on.

A month later, I woke up to a text from her, much to my surprise. We reconnected and 3 weeks later decided to try making it work long-distance until I came back.

It started out great. We exchanged dozens of affectionate texts daily, called each other for hours and started making tentative plans for a possible future together.

However, as time went by, I started feeling uneasy. I noticed that when she called me while her friends were around, she only referred to me as her “foreign husband”. She never mentioned my name or where I was from. She started leaving my texts unanswered for hours although she was online. Her live location, which she spontaneously shared (I never asked) would suddenly end hours before the scheduled time and she would sometimes completely disappear for up to a full day.

To cut a long story short, I’m now 99% convinced that the relationship is in its death throes. We only exchange a couple of dry texts daily and barely call each other.

The problem is, given the difficulties we had finding a private place last summer, I booked a room for both of us for the part of my trip where I’m back in her hometown and I’m at a loss as to what to do. I’ve outlined a few courses of action, none of which seem optimal.

1 - Keep everything as is out of principle. A promise is a promise. Besides, the relationship might still be alive by then.
2 - Keep everything as is opportunistically. She has a history of ghosting then coming back. Even if the relationship doesn’t work out, we might still have some good times together while I’m there.
3 - Keep the room but cancel her reservation now and tell her. This reopens my options when I’m there but what if she resurfaces as she’s done before? What if she shows up when I’m there and causes trouble (she knows where and when I’ll be staying)?
4 - Keep the room but cancel her reservation now and don’t tell her. Pretty much the same as 3, but sneaky. At least, it avoids a confrontation now if she ends up disappearing for good, as she will never know about it.
5 - Keep the room but cancel her reservation when you get there. The most flexible option, but it leaves me guessing until the very last moment, which is a very stressful start to a particularly expensive vacation.
6 - Cancel the whole thing, ask the travel agency to find another hotel and tell her. It’s the nuclear option, ensuring that we will never see each other again… and I’m not sure I’m quite ready for this yet.
7 - Cancel the whole thing, ask the travel agency to find another hotel and don’t tell her. There will be time to come up with a reason if she comes back, or if the relationship is still alive.

One last note.

I’m sure many may have opinions as to the wisdom of booking a hotel room almost a year in advance for two people who had only met for a couple of days. I’d rather not hear them, at least not now. Feel free to pen a new thread if you feel you must.

  • Keep everything as is out of principle.
  • Keep everything as is opportunistically.
  • Keep the room, cancel her reservation, tell her now.
  • Keep the room, cancel her reservation, don’t tell her.
  • Keep the room, but only cancel her reservation when you get there.
  • Cancel the whole thing, ask the travel agency to find another hotel for you only and tell her.
  • Cancel thCancel the whole thing, ask the travel agency to find another hotel for you only but don’t tell her.
0 voters
2

There is no “relationship.“ Move on.

3

If you booked a room for both of you, why is there a separate reservation for her? Did you make a separate reservation for a 2nd room for her?

4

I booked a double room for her and me. What I meant was 'Should I ask the travel agency to erase her name from the booking, leaving mine only".

5

Is this woman much younger than you? Would she be out of your league if she was from your own country? Do you send her money or gifts?

6

Romance scammer. IMO

7

I voted for cancel, move to different hotel, don’t tell her. If it were me, I would change my plans and not even go to that place. There are so many problems here that I don’t see what you can expect to get out of it except occasional and very expensive sex.

You’re not in any corner you can’t easily get out of. You don’t owe her anything. You owe it to yourself to take a long step back and look at the events you have described here, and what possible outcomes there might be. If the best possible outcome is a lot of texting plus annual trips where you meet and have a good time, is that worth it to you? Only you can decide.

8

Well put.

The only exception I could imagine was if the sex is really that good (or you are so hard up for sex as to deal with this.) I often hear about folk travel to SE Asia for sex. If that appeals to you, enjoy. But this person is - at best - too flakey to even consider anything more.

You are fortunate that she is so far away that it will be easy to drop her - either before or after this trip.

9

Agree w @Roderick_Femm & @Dinsdale. She’s either a flake or a con. You need neither in your life.

SE Asia is a great place for sex tourism, assuming that’s your actual interest. There’s 150M other young women in that part of the world. A decent fraction of whom are “in the biz”. This woman’s only advantage in that department is you already know her name and number.

We’ve had numerous threads about GF- / affection- starved men meeting Miss Right overseas or online followed by overseas. It almost (95+%) ends in tears. Either because they fell for a con or if the woman is sincere, it fails because somebody who sucks at forming BF/GF relationships w peers from their own culture are utterly out of their depth trying to form a stable LTR with somebody from a radically different culture. While doing all the preliminaries by text and occasional in-person meetups.

My advice: forget she exists. Go to SE Asia or not for your own sake pursuing your own interests whatever those are. If you do go, don’t go to her town. Whether she lives in a small or a big place. There are thousands of similar small towns and 30 similar big cities. Pick one. Or 10.

But most of all, quit lying to yourself about what this really is all about for you. What this is for her is now immaterial to you.

10

Move on, good sir. You deserve better.

11

I realize the limitations of communicating when you have to type everything out. But you don’t offer any explanation for why you were repeatedly ghosted and decided to forgive it. Was there some good reason? Did you forgive it simply because you wanted fun times with her, and then decided to get serious only after you two started really talking? The timeline is confusing.

From my perspective, the ghosting proved that her character was lacking from the very beginning. This is someone who does not take your feelings into consideration. Ghosting is treating the other person as a nonentity. It seems to me that she’s the sort of person who will be interested only when you are convenient or useful.

I would definitely not try to pursue this as a casual fun trip at this point. You caught feelings, and that is going to come roaring back the first time she smiles at you. Spare yourself the agony.

You deserve more; everybody does.

12

Person looking for sex overseas gets conned.
No advice (at least not the type you seek), and no sympathy.

13

I’m not sure if this is a con. The fact that she actually met you and had sex with you puts it in a rather unusual category if it is a con. But at best she’s extremely flakey and certainly does not seem interested in a LTR, and hasn’t even treated you with a modicum of respect. I say drop the whole thing. Ghost her like she ghosted you multiple times. Just treat it as a learning experience and move on.

14

Just note that you are not “ghosting” her in any way. You are merely a problem that has solved itself by going away.

15

I lived in Indonesia for 17 years and believe me, I have seen it ALL with respect to relationships between foreign men and Indonesian women. And by “all,” I mean that there are beautiful marriages between individuals who truly understand and cherish each other, with minimal problems due to cultural differences.

I’ve also seen the worst, where cynical sex-hungry men take advantage of impoverished women who are basically just trying to help their families, or cynical materialistic women take advantage of a less-than-desirable-by-the-standards-of-their home-culture guy for the prestige and financial security that relationship with a foreigner provides.

So, without knowing anything but what you have told us, I feel confident that I have enough authority to say that this “relationship” is highly suspect, and at best is satisfactorily purely self-serving on both sides.

There is clearly no honest affection here, just superficial interactions based on sex. Which, if that’s what BOTH of you want, is fine.

But be unbelievably careful. I know of multiple instances where men like you woke up ditched by the side of the road or awake after a three-day coma in their room, having been powerfully drugged and having everything stolen from them. Seriously, I would not consume any food or drink this woman had access to in any form - including going to restaurants where her brother might be your server or the cook. YOU pick, with zero advance notice, every meal you are eating. If she suggests a restaurant, cross it off your list of possibilities immediately.

I’m serious. One person - and this is not a second hand story I heard somewhere that might be true, I was acquainted with the victim - was told by the doctors he saw that he was lucky he didn’t die, he was so heavily dosed with rohypnol (or whatever drug they used, I don’t know). And that was after they had been “dating” for six months, so it was quite the long con. She gained his trust to the point where she had total access to everything in his apartment, then literally cleaned out everything. There was nothing left in his flat when he awoke.

So that’s my first comment. My second is - what the hell is the concern over changing your itinerary? This is Indonesia, FFS. Yes, if you made a reservation at the Amandari in Bali, or a 5-star Grand Hyatt in Jakarta, then yes, you could be out some cash by changing your travel plants a bit.

But you are talking about a small town, apparently. I’ve seen those signs saying married couples only, but only in small, conservative towns. Major hotels that cost real money don’t do that (or if they do, it is absolutely performative, not serious. Make a counterfeit piece of paper that looks like a foreign marriage certificate, and no one will give two shits. They won’t call the police. And if they did, all you have to do is hand them a few hundred thousand Rupiah).

None of your story makes any sense at all. Ditch the woman, ditch the town, and move on. So what if it costs you a little money in changing your travel plans. Indonesia just isn’t that expensive - the airfare getting there is far more than what you’ll spend on the ground even if you change hotel reservations at the last minute.

And for heavens’ sake, stay away from interactions with women in SE Asia (on line or in person) unless you both understand it’s a quick sexual release, you’ll either literally pay her or at least treat her to dinner, and nothing more.

Again, watch what you eat and drink when socializing with women you don’t know.

16

Is this “relationship” preventing you from forming other relationships with other people? If you are treating it as a fun bit on the side, and you have other partner(s) who don’t care, or you are continuing to pursue a real relationship (and this one won’t preclude it) then read my final paragraph, but that’s not what i am guessing from your post.

If this is something you are thinking of as a relationship, something that would prevent you from a real relationship, break it off. Personally, i wouldn’t ghost her unless i was afraid that was the only way to make it breakup stick. But I’d travel to a different city, and be pretty sure not to see her.

If, and only if you, also, are thinking of this as

then I’m not going to tell you to change your plans just because she’s not reliable. But that’s not what you sound like.

17

This sums it up nicely.

Me too but Malaysia and Korea. Not nearly as much time but enough. My company had factories there and a very strict don’t “date” co-workers in overseas facilities policy. One male American engineer broke it and he just didn’t get sent back there. His female Malaysian counterpart was treated with contempt and shunning to the point that she quit.

18

No. I’m 51, she’s in her mid-40s.

No. She’s pretty but definitely not the prettiest woman I’ve dated.

No. She’s never asked for money or gifts. Actually, she paid for the hotel room when we met.

Whatever happens I’ll still go back to her hometown as it is very significant culturally and I have booked gamelan music classes as well as tickets to a shadow puppet performance. I had already decided that before I met her. I love Indonesia, her hometown in particular (with or without her). Not going there would be missing a major point of my trip.

Indonesia, being majority Muslim and quite conservative isn’t the optimal place for sex tourism in that region.

Again, Indonesian culture has fascinated me for decades and I want to know more about it. That’s why I went there last year, and why I’m going back.

Then of course, being single, I remain open to the possiblity of meeting someone there, but it comes second.

The first time I accepted to see her after she ghosted me was quite frankly because, due to the nature of our conversations, it was clear that we were going to have sex if we met. Simple as that.

The second time, I focused on my visits and activities and only answered when I had some time.

The third time, I got back home and forgot about her.

It’s only when she reconnected out of the blue a month later that I started wondering what she wanted. I was then over 11.000 kilometres away and wouldn’t come back almost 11 months later.

That, and her social media posts where she bemoaned the fact that she didn’t have someone who could comfort and love her made me curious. Was she reaching out on the off-chance that I wanted something more substantial with her? I decided to find out by replying and 3 weeks later we started… whatever it is we’ve had since.

Well, on the night we met she said she was kidnapping me while we were in the taxi that was taking us to the hotel.

It is actually a major, very well-known town. Definitely touristy, though not Bali-levels.

But again, when I saw the signs I didn’t want to cause problems for her and I erred on the side of caution, which is why she found another place. And also why I wanted her name in the booking this time. Perhaps the signs were performative, perhaps not. It was my first time there and I wasn’t going to risk putting her in a difficult situation.

Up to now, it has. You know, I’m 51. I’ve had many relationships in my life, of all types. I figured that it was worth giving it a try, and if it didn’t work out, 10 months is not such a big deal anymore.

19

This is my much-experienced-wise-old-lady take on the situation.

You certainly haven’t “painted yourself into a corner.” Just walk away.

20

It sounds like one of 2 things to me -

  • Local woman wants to have fun online and is open to making it real for a week or two a year
  • A long con, eventually the demands will appear
  • Or some of both

It doesn’t sounds like it’s really a relationship, you’re projecting all of that onto it. There was no real future plans, that was just part of the fantasy. She may have a few different guys going at once, working the main sugar daddy and tending the second string (you) as needed, she may be observing to see how far you can be pushed.

I’d just wish her well and move on with her life. I don’t think you’re likely to end up in a bathtub of ice with your kidneys out, but there’s minimal chance of an authentic good relationship, and a non-zero chance of something going weird or dangerous. You are emotionally exposed and at some risk, so you’re not going to see it coming.

Either find yourself an authentic relationship closer to home, or go somewhere you can access a more transactional relationship where everything’s safe and above-board, whatever floats your boat.