The Story of How My Long Distance Friendship Turned Romantic, by delphica
I think I can make this pretty short.
We met online. We were friends, and developed a very close friendly relationship for about two years. Both dated other people (IRL) throughout this time, although nothing too serious. We decided it would be fun to meet in person. Let’s see – we had this idea in early summer, and decided that Thanksgiving would be a good time for both of us as we already had (separate) summer vacation plans and both had a nice chunk of time off from work around Thanksgiving. Somewhere in the time between making the plans and actually meeting, our feelings for each other became romantic. I kept this to myself for a while, because I thought telling him how I felt would put too much pressure on him. What if he didn’t feel the same way, and was then stuck with spending Thanksgiving with me? But then HE told me what I had been thinking about him – yes, he used the L word. First, I got sentimental and weepy and also used the L word. Then, I said “You jerk – what if I get off the plane, and you think I’m a troll, and then you’re stuck with me?!?”
So we met in person. The first time I saw Mr. Del (yes, that’s how the story ends), I was thrilled to see my very good friend in the flesh after what seemed like a very long time. On a physical level, had we met in a bar instead of online, it wouldn’t have been so much like “Wow, look at that hot guy across the bar, I want to meet him” but more like “hey, there’s a perfectly nice looking guy sitting next to me, and he’s struck up a very witty conversation and he’s so engaging that it makes me want to get to know him better and see what happens.” If that makes sense.
Strangely enough, even if things hadn’t worked out between Mr. Del and me, I think I would have come out of the experience with some improved dating skills. In my past, I had dated a lot of guys from the “Wow, look at that hot guy across the bar, I want to meet him” scenario, and those relationships were not very great. Some of them weren’t terrible, and some even resulted in friendships that have lasted, but in terms of solid, enduring relationships, I was missing the finer points of getting to know someone and letting the physical attraction grow, as opposed to a bolt from the blue.
But things did work out with Mr. Del, and we did the long distance thing for about eight months. It wasn’t unbearable, because we started talking early on about how we were going to eliminate the long distance. We were lucky in that neither of us had children or other obligations that made relocating extremely difficult. In the end, he decided to relocate to me. I had a more secure job with better benefits, but not so great that I couldn’t have found another job had we decided I would relocate to him. In talking to other people with similar stories, I feel very fortunate that where we ended up was not a huge stress in the relationship – either of us would have been okay with relocating, and we also kicked around the idea of going somewhere completely different, so that we would share the burden of uprooting and moving (then we looked at the financials of two moves, and decided “ummm, good in theory, not so much in our bank accounts”). I guess that is my only piece of advice for long-distance dating: be upfront about it if you won’t or can’t even entertain the idea of relocating, even if you’re talking very far in the future. I have seen a lot of couples who didn’t last because each one kept thinking the other would “come around” to the idea of moving.
Okay, well that wasn’t very short. I hope you have a fun, relaxing trip and enjoy your time with your friend, regardless of how romantic it ends up!