long distance relationship

[kevin1gamer]

Alright, so here is my story. Almost everyday now I talk to this girl from Germany online. We have been doing this for a while. At first it was just normal, but now we both really like each other. I am trying to get into the foreign exchange program for my senior year (I'm a junior now). I planned to get in the foreign exchange program before I even met her online. This is actually quite ironic since she just graduated from the high school I'm going to go to when I enter the foreign exchange program, and she lives in the same city I'm going to.

I'm 17 and she is 19. She has on numerous occasions called me cute, sweet, attractive, nice, etc. I have also complimented her several times. We both have so much in common too. We love to talk to each other and I am the one who convinced her to break up with her boyfriend who kept hurting her and didn't even care about her. Please note that I am pretty sure I'm not the rebound guy. I didn't want to do anything because I thought that online dating was a bad idea, but then my best friend started doing it.

In fact, my best friend has shown me that people can indeed fall in love if they never met in person. Also, don't say something like "she is probably a 40 year old man", because she isn't (I have a friend in real life who is in the foreign exchange program and she met her when she was in Germany). She is a beautiful, intelligent young woman, and a wonderful person. Of course, when I meet her in real life once I go through the foreign exchange program, I will meet her in a public place, just to be safe. I am technically an adult under Missouri law, so it's not illegal. We won't be having any sex or anything (atleast not until we both decide that we are old enough). If I wait until I get to Germany my senior year, it might be too late, since she might think I have lost interest in her and find someone else. I'm horribly scared she will reject me, but I hope she won't. I am truly in love with her and want to be with this girl.

So I plan on asking her out, but I don't know how to go about doing so. I can't do it in person, since there is kind of an ocean and lots of land in the way, so should I just send her a message on Facebook? Or should I send her a Facebook Chat IM? What should I say to her when I ask her? I am fully committed to this girl and know the risks and disadvantages of online dating (primarily the fact that you can't physically be with the person most of the time). I will be going to Germany though in less than a year (probably around like August 2010, but possibly on January 3, 2011), and I will stay there for an entire semester. Please don't say anything like "you only have two years to get with her because of 2012", because 2012 is just a hoax and I don't believe in stupid mass hysteria hoaxes. So what should I do and how should I go about it?

 

[tblaxland]

So I plan on asking her out, but I don't know how to go about doing so. I can't do it in person, since there is kind of an ocean and lots of land in the way, so should I just send her a message on Facebook? Or should I send her a Facebook Chat IM?

Use a phone (or Skype, or whatever, so long as she can hear your voice...). Save the IMs for cute love poems after the date

 

[Arrowstar]

Use a phone (or Skype, or whatever, so long as she can hear your voice...). Save the IMs for cute love poems after the date

Agreed. As was recently concluded in another quasi-similar thread, voice communication is the best option when actual face-to-face stuff is impossible. It's also comes across as a lot more mature, and as I think someone else pointed out, a lot less afraid.

Besides, if you've been talking for awhile and you really know her, is there anything to be afraid of?

 

[Rocketman527]

Steps to making this girl totally fall for you:

Step 1: Tell female to download/install Orbiter
Step 2: Tell female to download/install Orbiter Multiplayer
Step 3: Go to Saturn with girl
Step 4: ???
Step 5: PROFIT!

 

[Arrowstar]

It's the ??? part that always confuses me.

 

[Rocketman527]

No really, my post was half comedy, half serious.

I think it'd be kinda sweet

 

[insanity]

a year is a long time to date someone without seeing them in the flesh. I've had things with girls long distance before and they never end well. Your mileage may vary, but you should really think about how long you'd have to see each other through a screen and not in the flesh.

 

[markl316]

DEFINITELY use the most "human" form of interaction available. Texts show that you're weak and afraid. Why not make a joke like "I could get there in half an hour if I had an XR2..." Just kidding, DON'T do that.

And horribly sorry to be off topic, but Rocketman527 mentioned multiplayer. I've been away from Orbiter since August, has multiplayer been released?

 

[tblaxland]

Step 1: Tell female to download/install Orbiter

FAIL at Step 1. Never tell a girl to do anything, ask

 

[Eagle]

Best of luck.

 

[Ark]

Long distance relationships never work out. The fact of the matter is, you have no idea what's going on in the other person's life outside of that little window of interaction. It makes actual trust essentially impossible, sooner or later both parties will realize the other could be doing anything or anyone, and they wouldn't have a clue.

That, and phone/IM/etc still lacks fundamental elements of human communication.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Long distance relationships never work out. The fact of the matter is, you have no idea what's going on in the other person's life outside of that little window of interaction. It makes actual trust essentially impossible, sooner or later both parties will realize the other could be doing anything or anyone, and they wouldn't have a clue.

That, and phone/IM/etc still lacks fundamental elements of human communication.

Haha. I had a whole romance over pure email (all other means of communications were too costly for us, or not yet developed at that time). That ended in a happy marriage, which is now about to run into the year 10!

Edit: we used paper mail for the most intimate sort of communication.

 

[JamesG]

Long distance relationships never work out.

Not true. I mean, yeah a purely long distance relationship without any chance of meeting or being together probably isn't going to last. But it is possible to start a relationship via long distance.

I met a girl in Toronto, CA online while looking for a place to stay while up there on work. We began chatting and we hit it off. Really only talked to her once before meeting. We got along great when I came up there and it really was a great relationship that I ruined because I was a selfish dumbass, but that is a different story and has nothing to do with the long distance.

So I would say, pursue her. Even if it doesn't lead to "the love of your life", it will give you memories that you will have for the rest of your life.


And she's hawt.

 

[tblaxland]

Not true. I mean, yeah a purely long distance relationship without any chance of meeting or being together probably isn't going to last. But it is possible to start a relationship via long distance.

Seconded. My bro-in-law has done it successfully.

Edit: we used paper mail for the most intimate sort of communication.

Ahhh...

Scented letters,
soft pink envelopes,
secret memories.

 

[garyw]

Seconded. My bro-in-law has done it successfully.


Ahhh...

Scented letters,
soft pink envelopes,
secret memories.

S.W.A.L.K.? Ahh the days before emails.... *sniff*.

Guess it's time to come clean and admit that Krys and I met online and chatted online at first but we quickly moved from online to phone to meet and well, she then got inducted into the ways of orbiter and here we are.

Seriously though, hearing the other persons voice makes all the difference, hearing the way that they respond to things adds something missing from online chat - context! You can hear if they are joking or serious about a subject and you can hear when they get excited about a subject, all very useful verbal clues as to what they like.

 

[insanity]

In all these circumstances of positive long-distance relationships, I think it is important to realize that they all seem to be made by people who have some mutual desire and means of negating the distance. I'm going to assume that they were also made by people who have had relationships in the past and so their assumptions about the distance might be based in reality.

This might sound awful, but when I was 16 or so I was 'dating' a girl from Seattle while I lived in California. We only met once in real life, and it was super weird because it was awkward without the familiar wall of the internet. The best thing I did in that relationship was sleep around, because it ended it and forced me to date girls in my zip code.

 

[John_L]

I'm heavily involved in Second Life. This story is repeated time and again and I've seen several stories on TV and the web where people have met, fell in love, and then moved (sometimes 1/2 way around the world) to be with the other. Second Life greatly magnifies this phenomena because it's not a game like WOW or a simulation like Orbiter. It's just what it is, a 3D world that's there for people to do whatever, including socialize, which is done for more than any other online MMO, and you have an avatar that walks around, does whatever, and seems to have a personality when connected with the person on the other end.

Personally, I do not want to fall in love with/have a long distance relationship with anyone in cyberspace that I'm not likely to meet in the meatspace. However, it can be difficult. Despite going into SL with the firm mindset NOT to get into that sort of relationship, I still wound up having a 'crush' on a woman about 800 miles from me (who's married), and I ultimately found out she was getting feelings for me as well. In the end, it worked out, we got over our respective crushes, and 3 years plus later are still friends. Our relationship was never anything more than friends and we never actually told each other how we were feeling, but I found out through a friend that she began having feelings for me as I did for her. Anyways, in the end, I'm glad she and I are still friends. She's my oldest and longest standing friendship in SL, and I don't want that to change. I continue to meet new people (male and female) in SL, and I've continued to stay firm about not getting 'involved' with anyone. Just friends is as far as I (personally) can go.

With that said, if both you and this girl feel the same about each other, and it appears that you do, then consider how your life might change should you two 'hook up'. Would you be willing to move to Germany? Would she be willing to move here? Would you expect her to move here over you moving there? In the end, you both might decide that you don't want to uproot yourselves from your respective places of residence, and that the relationship will not work. Also, you're both relatively young, and it's hardly the time to consider a permanent lifetime commitment. So, whatever happens, try to think ahead as much as possible, and take that into consideration.

Good Luck in any case....

 

[JamesG]

I am very hesitant about personal relationships on SL, its one thing to "role play" since thats primarily what its for, and what is safe, because that is what is projected via avatar and persona. But its too easy to get decieved and even betrayed if you get to deep. I honestly don't believe anything anyone tells me about their RL. Esp. since I am more or less happily married with children so investing emotionally in remote people is "expensive" in more ways than one. I am only there for the experiance of VR and to see what the commercial state-o-the-art is. I look forward to getting home and seeing how things have progressed (gonna need all new hardware...)

 

[jedidia]

Long distance relationships never work out.

Not entirely true. Me and my wife had a long distance relationship up untill we got married. (allthough, we could arrange to see each other every two months or so for a few days). But I'd agree that a long-distance relationship while you're still going to school is a rather hopeless situation, especially because you are not able to set a real goal for the relationship. To me and my wife it was clear from day one that we're checking each other out as marriage prospects, with pre-defined time when, if everything works out and we still like each other, we'd move together, so we could arrange our plans accordingly. We happened to marry half a year earlier than planed in the end, but that was just as fine. Having a long-distance relationship without any planning on how and when to take the long distance out of the relationship is indeed a most unpractcal arrangement.

 

[Krys]

Everything I was going to say has been said.

Long distance is possible - just make sure the 'long' part is gotten rid of as soon as you are able to.