My SO and I have been in the same email group for over seven years. In that seven years, we’ve emailed back and forth every so often, but never got close. This past summer, I took a spill from my horse and seriously injured my backside (stop laughing!). I was laid up for awhile, and during that time, he started IMing me. We started talking and had marathon IM sessions, but I didn’t think anything of them - for a month or so. We kept talking and talking and talking…and for some odd reason, I realized that I would sign online and the first thing I would do is look for him. I had a crush on someone I’d never met. It took awhile, but he finally admitted to me the same thing. So we moved onto the phone - we had marathon phone sessions - hours and hours and hours several times a week. Realizing that we might have something special here, and since I was unemployed, I decided to take a risk - I bought a train ticket from NYC to go to Ohio for a long weekend. Scared out of my wits, I got off the train, met him, we said hi, and then proceeded to have an amazing weekend. We’ve been together many times since and things have just gotten better. Since then, I’ve moved back to Virginia and plan on going to grad school at my alma mater in West Virginia to get my teaching certification. It was NOT because of him, but because I realized that my future should not be trying to achieve a pipe dream that would probably never happen (screenwriting in NYC), and because I eventually want to have a family, I would like to have a career that I enjoy and that is stable. So I’ll be getting my Master’s to teach music. Our relationship has continued to grow and we plan on getting married sometime next year. So…for that person in my life who feel the need to dissent:
Would you FUCKING stop telling me that I can’t be in love with him after five months together and only a handful of trips in person? So what if you didn’t fall in love that fast? I DID. How the HELL do you know what’s in my heart? In my twenty-eight years, I have NEVER been able to let someone get close to me romantically the way I let him. I have always been scared as fuck of relationships and I’d usually end them before they could start. It’s taken everything I have to keep this one going because I KNOW IT’S WORTH IT. I am able to put aside my fear and anxiety because I know how much he means to me, and you trying to undermine that does NOT help! Do you know how much I love him? No - because you haven’t seen what he’s done for me in the rough times. You haven’t seen how he called me constantly when I went into one of my funks - you haven’t heard him say how scared he was when I stayed in that funk for several weeks - and you haven’t heard him tell me that he is in this for the long haul when I asked him if he was sure he wanted to deal with me doing this for the rest of my life. He’s sent me flowers when I’ve had a bad day, sent me presents ‘just because’, held me when I’m scared, he tells me he loves me every single day. Do you know that when I think about him sometimes, my breath catches in my throat and I have to stop a minute to regain my bearings? I know that I have NEVER been in love before because nothing has EVER felt like this. He knows more about me in these five months than anyone knows about me. He can tell when I’m lapsing into a depression simply by my voice. He knows when I’m tired, he knows when I’m happy, he knows ME. And you want to tell me that I’m not in love? You want to tell me that not enough time could POSSIBLY have passed for me to be in love? Bullshit. He makes me feel safe and warm and most important of all, he makes me HAPPY. And I want to marry him next year - and I WILL marry him next year regardless of what you think. He has asked me to marry him, although he hasn’t formally proposed, and I WANT to marry him. I love him with all my heart. But I hope that you’ll come around and realize how good he is for me - everyone else has. If you ever trusted me, you will trust me on this because I have NEVER been this happy or this sure of anything.
If you’re sixteen or seventeen, they might have a point. Teenagers do tend to fall in love quickly, violently, and briefly. On the other hand, if you’re a grown woman, then no one is a better judge of your heart or mind than yourself. Your friends and family members ought to respect your opinions and your abilities of self-determination, and only share their disapproval behind your back, like civilized folks.
Actually, I’m 28:). And nearly everyone is completely fine with this - it’s one of my best friends who’s giving me a problem. I know it’s because he loves me, and I’m glad of it, but I want him to be happy for me because he does mean the world to me. It hurts that he can’t be happy for me when I am thrilled for him (he’s dating the most wonderful guy - I have loved his boyfriend from the beginning and I completely support their relationship).
It also sounds like maybe your friend is jealous (despite the platonic nature of your relationship… jealousy is not rational) and/or afraid of losing the relationship with you. Perhaps if you edited the second paragraph of your OP, and printed it for him, it would help him understand. I understood it, and I don’t even know you.
I think the jealousy thing is part of it. I know that I’ve gotten EXTREMELY jealous when he’s had a new SO and I haven’t (we were roommates for four years, and basically had a platonic marriage). So I think he thinks someone else might take his place in my life - I’ve been through it before, so I realize that NO ONE will take my place in his life - I’ve never had an SO before since he and I have known each other, so he’s never had to deal with it before.
I think it’s also that he just worries about me a lot, and while I appreciate it, it’s unfounded in this case. And it bothers me a lot that he holds onto that worry and won’t just be happy for me. And I think the hardest thing is that he doesn’t trust me on this. We have always trusted one another on everything.
And yes, I am very much in love:). I’ve found the guy of my dreams.
Well, I thought you explained it very well, in your OP. It really might help, if you showed it to him (edited so it doesn’t hurt his feelings). You might also need to reassure him that your relationship won’t change too radically. (We’re men; we’re weak. ) That won’t be an easy conversation, but I’m sure you’ll find a way, given how much you care about this friend.
When I was forty-one I met a man through computer chatrooms. He was a widower who lived on the other side of town. I felt that my purpose was just to help him get used to talking with women again. For two months we wrote emails several times a day. We even had our first “fight” on our computers when he saw that I was talking to another man.
(The other “man” happened to be a twelve year old that I was helping with homework.)
After two months, we began to talk on the phone. Once we talked for thirteen hours! That was when I finally agreed that I would meet him in a public place. We knew each other SO WELL by then.
The only place that I knew would be open at that time of night was IHOP. I have regretted it ever since. You see, I married the man that I met that night and entirely too many anniversaries have been spent eating pancakes!
Our families and friends gave it a year. We’ve been married for seventeen.
Mirror Image, I was in love for the first time when I was thirteen. I swore then that I would remember how it felt and that I would know when I was grown whether it was really love or not.
It was. My feelings were not returned and I remember how that hurt too. But no one can say that it wasn’t real. I saw him a couple of years ago. We are both about to turn sixty, but I must say I had excellent tastes at thirteen!
Ah. Well, so long as you two have actually met, ridden the hobby horse with each other, found out what each other smells like, etc. – then I have no trouble accepting your claim that you’re in love with him.
I was afraid you were gonna say you two had never actually been in the same room together or anything.
Your rant brings up a longtime pet peeve of mine. I know plenty of folks who met and fell in love online and have had long term solid relationships.
Those who have the attitude of “it can’t be real because it’s online” or “people who are in chatrooms and online aren’t real” (what? they keep all the “fake” online people on an island somewhere, and only YOU are “real”? LOL), are being pretty shortsighted.
Falling in love sight unseen is nothing new. In fact, it’s centuries old. The only difference between online falling in love, and the falling in love that used to take place between pen pals back in the old days, is that online is “instant” communication.
Getting to know each other without the chemical and physical attractions clouding one’s judgment has a lot going for it. For one thing, people can tend to feel freer to open up to an “anonymous” person on the other side of the screen (or letter as in from the WWI and WWII pen pal days), than in looking into someone’s eyes, and all the “boys/girls” are scary stuff that that entails.
You go for it!!! Whoever your idiot friend is who keeps saying “you ‘can’t’ be in love” forget them!!! Good luck and congratulations!!!
Ava, the only things that really worry me about your post and your relationship are the statements above. I’ve had problems with anxiety and depression all my life. A lot of them men I’ve known have said to me “Yes, I can handle you being like that” only to find out later that they really COULDN’T handle it long term. And I couldn’t blame them. It is DIFFICULT to live with a depressed person. I know – my mom was depressed and unhappy too.
So what I finally had to do was figure out how to feel better. I recommend the same course to you. Someone else cannot make you happy if you’re not already basically happy in yourself. Do whatever it takes to get on a little more even keel emotionally – Prozac, talk therapy, change of diet (worked for me, surprisingly), exercise. You will BOTH be happier for it.
And be aware that usually the little gifts and flowers and things taper off as time goes by.
I’d always told myself that I wouldn’t marry someone until I’d known them at least a year. That resolve kept me out of some funky situations a few times. You can certainly be in love after a few months, but whether that feeling will last a long time is a separate issue.
Y’all don’t yell at me. This is just my experience over 50 years. YMMstillV.
Archergal, now with the same guy for almost 10 years.
