Long distance relationships

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I wanted to weigh in on this as I have met several men through online dating sites (CM and AMS) and except for the one who I’m currently dating, NONE of the others, good catholics tho they were and happy phone conversations aside, were who I thought. Really, this wasn’t even intentional, but when you’re writing or talking on the phone you overlay what the other person says with your expectations (until you know them well and in person anyway). This means you get a weird conglomeration of the two of you, not just the guy straight up. Not good for long-term.

The ones who offered to meet the soonest were the ones with the most promise. You have to meet. It’s quite upsetting to find out that the person you clicked with so well online isn’t the man sitting across the table. Spare yourself what you can and meet the man or break it off now. Trust me, if it’s right and worth continuing once you meet, fine. With my current bf, I knew immediately because he looked, spoke, and acted in person exactly the same way he always had online.

And, the being afraid of making a mistake is totally bogus. Sorry. I have a very high sex drive as does my bf (much to his supreme irratation as an unmarried man!) and we are both fully capable of having a decent makeout session while being quite in control. Itms not like your clothes just magically disappear 😉 keep them on and always be accepting if someone is having a turned-on day and can only handle holding hands or whatnot. But seriously, if the man can’t see you without wanting to jump on you and you are okay with that, i see that as a huge red flag.

Keep your parents involved and pray for God’s will to be clear to you both. He always answers those prayers. Best of luck and sorry for being harsh!
 
I’ll try to be fair.

My grandparents had a “long-distance relationship.” Keep in mind, not only was this pre-Facebook but also somewhat behind contemporary technology – so no private telephones and few private automobiles. Instead they corresponded by post until their parents grew fed-up and told them to get a move on.😛 (“Decent” people didn’t court each other for the sake of it.)

So is it possible to have a long-distance relationship? Certainly.

Is your situation comparable to theirs? Not really. Been love letters they visited each other as regularly as possible. And despite the distance between their parishes, the social network was small enough that their families knew each other through the grapevine.

I hate to be so blunt, but you don’t know him. And he doesn’t know you. You can only learn so much about a person’s actions through Facebook or even Skype. They enhance, but do not substitute face-to-face contact. At the very least you’ll need to spend some time in close company.

I by no means dismiss your feelings, but you should put this gentleman in context and take a more objective outlook. So heed your friends’ advice about his family. I’m not just talking about few nice get-togethers with his mum and dad. You really need to know the good, the bad, and the ugly you’ll marry into and bring your own family into before deciding if he’s marriage material. Considering the travel distance, it might be difficult for you to do this.
 
apromisemade said:
Ok, so, I’ve known this guy for about two years now. Our relationship is entirely cybernetic (via Facebook, Skype, etc.) because we live far apart but the truth is I’ve never felt for any other guy what I feel for him, and my feelings for him have not changed over time. He’s got everything a girl could hope for; strong work ethic, dedication, great sense of humour, a gentle disposition, and a powerful devotion to his faith. He’s so devoted to his religion that he’s said he’s a little scared of meeting me because he’s afraid of making a mistake (but we’re still planning to meet sometime in the near future).

Now, everyone’s telling me that I’m being childish. My friends are like; “Have you met this man before? No! Have you met his family before? No! Do you know whether or not he’s lying to you about anything? No! So what in God’s green earth makes you think you are in love with him!?!?”

So I guess my question is about your opinions on long distance relationships. Can they really lead to true love?
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I think true love could come out of such circumstances. But the not meeting can’t go one much longer…and you have to turn up (better to flatter every single advance he makes, and coax him along as well) becuase the relationship has been going on for 2 years and you’ve nver held hands or kissed. So you want to be making out the first day you meet to avoid the frend zone. YOu have both put in ample time and both know each other well so don’t think of it as, or refer to it as, and correct him if he refers to it as ‘first date’. It’s like date 35 in online talking chatting, flirting, etc over 2 yrs. You will wind up in the frend zone if he is shy and you don’t encouarge him touching you by touching his arms a lot and his thighs and knees. YOu can say I like your hair, it’s an excuse to touch it. I’m saying this b/c I think this dude is very shy and doesn’t make moves on girls, you may be the first- and don’t trust anything he has told you about that unless he said he’s a virgin and only kissed a girl playing spin the bottle.
Escalate the touching from there. You can say something like "I thought you liked me, we’ve been flirting online for like 2 YEARS, move over close to me.

This will not be too forward given you background if he doesn’t do this stuff b/c he’s too shy.
 
I think if your gonna meet someone online they shouldn’t be more than 15 min from you, unless your over 60 then they can be 2 hrs (none online).Also, Meet ASAP!!! TRust ME.
 
Wow to some above posts!

The OP has provided some more information and I am satisfied. She said they haven’t met because they don’t have money and I can understand. They are students! Students don’t have money. So if some cheeful giver out there wants to buy a ticket for them to meet asap, then I am sure they would appreciate it. Otherwise, they have to wait until they are financially capable.

Right, bad things have happened via online relationships, just as other online relationships have beared fruits. So simply dismissing this relationship because of some other relationships that have gone wrong is biased.

We all agree that she has to be careful. She has said that they don’t plan to meet alone «Consequently we made an agreeement that we would never be alone together.». We should be satisfied with that.

Since they are students, I assume they are young people. I believe it is legitimate for the guy to clearly raise issues about possible temptations.

If some man and some woman don’t feel any temptation or can very well control themselves, then fine. But don’t draw conclusions about other people. Human weakness varies from person to person. Because someone forecasts temptation doesn’t make him a bad person. Au contraire, that’s in line with what St. Francis de Sales says about forecasting temptations (De Sales 2009 ed, p. 87).

-]If the guy is “immature” and the OP is cool with it, then it’s nobodies business. Maturity is relative./-]

I think some people have been too negative about this guy without knowing anything about him. (Not uncommon on CAF’s court of first instance.)

It is possible to have feelings for someone you haven’t seen face-to-face. Feelings are not only based on being within each other’s presence. It is one thing to say that the feeling could change when they meet and it’s another thing to claim that the feeling is just a fantasy or a dream. But whatever; this “fantasy” has materialised in others. So why not the OP?
 
I have “met” several guys online who were interested in relationships. They said everything I wanted to hear (let’s face it – people can learn a lot about you through emails and chats and they can learn what to say that’ll knock your socks off!) and I thought they were pretty near perfect. One was even talking about meeting a few months after we began chatting. Thankfully, the super-cautious part of me decided to do a Google search of this man and everything I knew about him, and he turned out to be WAY different than he portrayed himself to be! To me, he was very faith-filled, so imagine my surprise when I found his profile on several different sex sites looking for partners! 😦 Not to mention, he’d told me he was in his 30s and ended up in reality being 56! When I confronted him about this new-found knowledge, he responded with a simple one-sentence reply: “I don’t think it would be prudent for us to pursue this relationship.” NO kidding!

I also fell for this guy who I was dying to meet, but he would hesitate or back out every time we planned to meet. Turns out, he was married. Yeah. :rolleyes: Needless to say, I’m enjoying being single right now, LOL!

Can true love happen from a long distance relationship? Absolutely. I have friends who are proof of that. But you have to be SO careful, and the fact that after two years you guys still have reasons not to meet right away, it concerns me. The fact that you’re both willing to wait even longer before meeting is a definite red flag. My advice is to find someone closer that you can see in real life, not from a computer monitor.
 
I married a guy who lived 1000 miles from me, who I met right here on the CAF! 👍

But, we emailed for a couple months, and then met in person. Chatted for a few more months, and met in person again (including meeting family and friends, from both sides), before we considered ourselves “in a relationship”.

We then continued on for another year, with a few in-person visits, before getting engaged. After which, I moved to his area and lived on my own for 3 months before actually getting married.

What you see in emails and Skype is not the same as you will see in real life. (If you’re both exceptionally honest, and exceptionally good communicators, it can be close - both my husband and I were shocked at how “real” the emails were - but you definitely need real, live interaction before you can be in an actual relationship. And you need to meet each other’s families and friends, to get a better picture.)

It can work out, but what you’re describing is an online friendship, which has not become a relationship yet.
 
My husband and I met on a forum not unlike this one… He was in the US and I am in Aust.

We emailed every day, spoke on the phone for hours, then after 5 months he flew out to meet me. I thought that the attraction we felt for each other may not be so strong when we met, but it was. The chemistry was there… everything he said he was, he was. There were no lies, no fabrications. We have been happily married for 2 and 1/2 years now.

A person you meet in real life and see everyday may say he is this and that and years later you could find out he was lying all along.

I guess all I’m trying to say is, no matter how you meet people, some people are honest and some are not. It does not change that fact when you are on the other side of the world, or living in the same suburb.

We were determined to meet as soon as was prudent, as we both had strong feelings for each other and did not want to live in a fantasy world, if we were not suited when face to face.

We discussed the fact that we felt love for each other, but may not be compatible once we met in real life. We also discussed that we started off as friends and even if it did not eventuate into a relationship, we would remain friends.

Thankfully, it turned out well and we are very well suited to each other.

Sometimes I think meeting someone and being able to communicate at length, without being physically present, is a great way to get to know someone, if they are an honest person…because ALL you can do is talk, or write long emails.
We learnt a lot about each other.

I do agree that you should meet asap, as if you are not compatible, you need to establish that and determine what kind of relationship it is.

If you both are looking for marriage, you could be wasting your time if it’s not meant to be.
 
Bill_7154 said:
I think if your gonna meet someone online they shouldn’t be more than 15 min from you, unless your over 60 then they can be 2 hrs (none online).Also, Meet ASAP!!! TRust ME.
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I strongly disagree with your observations especially as related to those of us over sixty based on my own personal experiences.
 
Bill_7154 said:
I think true love could come out of such circumstances. But the not meeting can’t go one much longer…and you have to turn up (better to flatter every single advance he makes, and coax him along as well) becuase the relationship has been going on for 2 years and you’ve nver held hands or kissed. So you want to be making out the first day you meet to avoid the frend zone. YOu have both put in ample time and both know each other well so don’t think of it as, or refer to it as, and correct him if he refers to it as ‘first date’. It’s like date 35 in online talking chatting, flirting, etc over 2 yrs. You will wind up in the frend zone if he is shy and you don’t encouarge him touching you by touching his arms a lot and his thighs and knees. YOu can say I like your hair, it’s an excuse to touch it. I’m saying this b/c I think this dude is very shy and doesn’t make moves on girls, you may be the first- and don’t trust anything he has told you about that unless he said he’s a virgin and only kissed a girl playing spin the bottle.
Escalate the touching from there. You can say something like "I thought you liked me, we’ve been flirting online for like 2 YEARS, move over close to me.

This will not be too forward given you background if he doesn’t do this stuff b/c he’s too shy.
Click to expand...
Very bizarre advice for remaining chaste before marriage.:eek:
 
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