I've been super busy lately and have had little time to even check in on the dating site, let alone message anyone or check out new profiles. However, I have received a number of messages, profile-views, and "woos", which are the cop-out way of telling someone you like them. It's like poking on facebook. Pointless except for the fact that it lets a person know you've shown some interest. If you're going to bother, go ahead and a send a real message, even if it's short. At least there's something to go off of.
Of the messages sent my way, a few have been real losers, a couple have piqued my interest, but most just sound sort of blah. Unfortunately, the one that sounds most intriguing and compatible is in Florida. Apparently he was recently in my area and decided to check out girls here to see if there were any good ones. He seems to think I fit in this category as he's sent me one message and 4 IMs in the last week. Normally, I stop considering a guy if he's more than 15 miles away. Why should I even think about someone who is 2496 miles away? I suppose we could talk online, do the long-distance pen-pal thing, but that really hasn't worked too well for me so far (I've not heard from either Zeke or Dan in more than a month, and they were only 60 miles away), and I'm not really sure I want to invest the time and energy in it. One thing is for certain though: I will write him back, at least so I can acknowledge him and show that I'm not a complete jerk for ignoring him (I have been really busy).
Have you ever started a relationship this way (i.e. communicating electronically over vast distances)?
Edit: In the five minutes since I wrote the above, Florida IMed me again. I guess I have to give him points for his persistence.
New Thoughts
3 years ago
3 comments:
Superquail (who is writing from China) says:
The firewall has returned to burning blogspot, so I am emailing you my response to your latest blog post.
I have never had much success with long-distance relationships, but I think that was because I didn't have a lot of mobility. I was stuck where I was, and the person I was interested in was stuck where he was. This is a common thing for people in high school and college to be. However, in the world of employment, there are folks who travel a lot for their business, or who work from home and therefore have a lot more flexibility about where they have to be when they do their work. In a situation like this, I think a certain amount of distance may not be as much of a problem. In fact, having the person live somewhere else so you only meet up once or twice a month is a good way to insure that things won't get too serious too fast. You can take your time, think about things, and spend a lot more time talking any sort of physical contact occurs.
But again, it depends on the person. My friend Yasemin preferred long-distance relationships because she said they allowed her enough space to develop as an individual and not become to entangled or dependent upon her boyfriend. Of course, if you live in Boston and your beloved is in New Haven it's not as big a deal as San Francisco and Florida.
Personally, I've never really seen the point of having internet relationships with people that you'll probably never meet (unless you're visiting Florida and want tips). Snail mail penpals are cool, because there isn't the pressure to respond immediately, and the whole process is slowed-down. I've had e-mail penpals, but I can only handle one at a time. It's easy to amass lots, but again, why? Spirited e-mail debates never really did it for me...
Patrick #1 and I started out as a long-distance relationship, kinda. When I was in AmeriCorps, I drove up to Seattle every weekend to get away from Morton. We sometimes went a few weeks without seeing each other. It worked for a while, but distance killed us in the end when I was abroad.
I think that long-distance relationships can sometimes work. I saw it work with my best friend and her boyfriend -- they are now living together. We graduated from high school together, and they went to different colleges. The world is a big place...
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