To give you a bit of backstory, I met a girl online about seven to eight months ago. We began talking every week for about an hour, then it became twice a week for two hours, then once a day for four hours. As dumb as it was, we’d forego going out with friends just to catch up with each other on our days. Eventually, we started “dating” online. Neither of us have ever dated online before - we never needed to. We’re both relatively attractive and charming people. But the mantra we kept telling ourselves, and each other, was “You can’t always choose where your soul-mate lives.” She’s still in high school as a senior, I’m a college freshman, so we knew any relationship would just be a precursor until we could really be together, with her living in Canada and me being stuck in Georgia.
For whatever reason, though, it didn’t stop us from developing truly deep feelings for each other. I had thought I’d been in love before, but it was nothing like this. She literally dominated my thoughts. We talked on the phone all the time, I sent her cards, she sent me presents (and photos! :o ). It was turning in to a real relationship without either of us noticing it.
Then she dumped me. Hard.
She was getting too scared that she was really in love with me and it was her first instinct. She doesn’t want to get back together until she can reconcile with the idea that she’s in love with someone so far away. And knowing her, she might never come to terms with it and decide it might just be better to move on.
So here I am, a week after she dumped me, on what would be our five-monthiversary. Trivial, I know, but I can’t understand for the life of me why it still hurts. I’ve dated girls for longer and never had this sort of emotional attachment. I guess I should add to the old mantra “You can’t always choose where your soul-mate lives…and you can never choose what they think.”
Sure they do. I had one for two years and 1200 miles. We’ve been married for 6 1/2 years. It depends on how much both partners (not one) want it to work. However in this case, you did say the magic words, “high school.” People in high school are not ready for committing to deep relationships with other people hundreds or thousands of miles away. They haven’t finished developing as persons yet. This helps to explain why she freaked out and dumped you. If it was right, it would be right, and this would be going in a whole other direction. Can you see what I’m getting at?
While I understand what you’re saying at a very basic level (“not mature enough”), it just seems really hard for me to grasp that the girl I’ve been dating for the last five months would just change out of the blue like that. Now, I’ll be the first to admit I might have just had blinders on, but it’s still a pretty heavy revelation to me that I either A) didn’t know the person well enough or B) they changed overnight (or even worse, gradually without me noticing).
One problem with long-distance relationships, in my case at least, is that you’re only getting the feelings the person is trying to send to you. If she’s feeling iffy about something, it’s impossible to tell if she doesn’t want you to know.
Because love is something entirely out of our control, a blessing and a curse indeed. Two days ago my best friend’s girlfriend broke up with him because their long distance relationship was too difficult on her. It messed him up pretty bad but he’s healing. Should that put you off a long-distance relationship? Heck no!
As you’ve shown you can get so much from such a relationship but it comes at a price. Some aspects of the relationship will be harder (lack of physical contact for example.) and said hardships can make or break the relationship. You can’t control how she will feel in a day, or a month, or a year. All you can do is carry on as best as you can and all I can do is offer you best wishes for the future. Let us know if anything changes.
Did she tell you this or is this what you think she’s feeling?
She could be feeling the strain of not having someone physically be there with her. Its hard for most people (especially during a rough patch) because they need someone to be there to comfort them.
In any case, you’re still young. If it doesn’t work out now, you could always arrange to meet up with her sometime in the future and get back together.
Aw, sorry to hear this, man. I went through something a bit similar myself. I developed intense feelings for someone online and then BAM! he dropped me like a hot potato for another girl.
Even so, I don’t think that long distance relationships are necessarily doomed. It’s just that relationships in general fail more often than they work. However, I believe that if you want something bad enough, you can find a way to make it work.
