Do yourself a favor: do not fall in love with someone you have never met
By all the gods and goddesses, don’t ever mistake an illusion for love, as you are bound to get a nasty scar (irrespective of what stories with unreliable narrators or romanticized ad-rich blogposts may tell you.)
REAL love doesn’t work in the realm of the unseen and the only superficially known. Love stems from the truth and authenticity. So allow me the sad privilege of telling my story; one I still struggle to talk about.
FOOTNOTE1: This ‘story’ started as a letter addressed to the fireplace. As more and more details were popping in my fallible memory like mischievous garden gnomes, I found writing it off incredibly cathartic. I decided to (temporarily) publish it to get it’s weight finally off my soul; I will delete it once I no longer need it written up.
Arrivals
I’m in love
like a white pony
sometimes it makes the bells ring
and I think to myself
“Oh my god, honey, honey…”
- Filip Topol
In lieu of wordy introductions that were never my strength: he was a 28 year old medical resident living an ocean away, I was a 22 year old medical student.
I don’t know if you have heard about the “nevermets”; the term didn’t exist at the time (back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.) It’s a romantic relationship declared between two people who have never met each other face to face. I guess, if pressed for answers by secret agents pointing guns to my forehead, I’d say we were probably closest to that (probably.)
I don’t remember how it came about; I reached out to him with some questions about the USMLEs, and we exchanged couple of emails and instant messaged over Skype for some time.
All of a sudden, one Sunday night (I remember it was a Sunday, and for some reason I still remember what I was wearing that night), we’re declaring all these infantile, fuzzy feelings for one another that in all likelihood were never real to begin with but there you have it. Somehow we’re “nevermets” all of a sudden (it feels kind of ridiculous to even write that so many years later.)
I had absolutely no expectations whatsoever when it started; in hindsight, I realize he appeared to be the living fantasy of who I wanted to be. That was truly the only reason I was interested in him, which is a bit an awful thing to say… it was not about him, it was about me after all.
He also turned out to have many of the qualities I hate the most about myself, and somewhere deep inside my soul I sensed this he’s not for me, but I kept imagining he might be after all; catching myself making the same mistake of knowingly choosing someone who I know will only break my heart in the end, yet hoping for a different ending this one time yet again.
He disclosed that the relationship with his former girlfriend didn’t end well (‘like the war of Roses’) and how badly he got hurt and the social worker in me felt instinctively compelled to provide ‘active listening, validation and support’ (let me stress that all that came from an authentic place in me.) Again, only with the wisdom of age do I realize I chose to play the ‘rescuer’ role of Karpman’s drama triangle, because of subconscious belief that I’m not lovable, and unless I have something to offer in exchange, nobody will ever love me for who I am.
He initially came across as a sensitive person who needed to heal from his past and made it seem that my emails or texts make him temporarily happy; I can send you emails or texts alright, I write reasonably well and if it cheers you up, there’s my good deed of the day. I don’t need anything in return, and I’m not asking for anything. At least I don’t think I am.
That ‘romantic’ correspondence didn’t imply to me that I would avoid engaging with another “tangible” person in my vicinity (not single not taken status I guess..?) I was absolutely sure the moment he stumbles upon someone useful close-by to meet his needs, he will obviously cease any of this “nevermetting”, and I was completely accepting of that. I was merely a disposable bandaid, and had no problem with it because I was never taught to believe I can amount to more, nor that I can expect to be more.
From my perspective, I had absolutely nothing to lose pretending to be a long-distance girlfriend that sends (nonetheless genuine) emails and texts; I expected it all to fizzle out within couple of weeks and what’s the harm in this a bit silly game until then, right?
I should have never played this game.
So we became a virtual couple I suppose; existing only in pixels and semiconductors, in words and songs exchanged, and perhaps in my own head. A mirage in technicolor with its own orchestra music.
The feeling that I have nothing to lose and it all will be over soon lead to me opening more and more, telling him my private secrets, my well-hidden dreams and buried desires; all those things I would wait a very long time to self-disclose if I met someone in real life. This created an illusion in my head that ‘he knows me’ because I told him who I am after all, when in reality I was merely verbalizing who I THINK I am.
Perhaps this is the main unhealthy part of long-distance relationships between people who have no connection in the real world — it accelerates a process that needs to take its due time and course with inherent contingencies, including simple achievements of getting to know the other person better by spending time together and observing each other. Who people are and who they tell you they are = two very different things. The same was absolutely true for him — telling me what a ‘fair and honest’ guy he is; I still remember reading those words on my monitor and my stomach clenching. I should have listened to my stomach.
He never seemed bored of my words which was unusual and frankly, very odd, as objectively speaking, none of what I was saying was inherently interesting; I didn’t write about the discourse of humanism in Kant’s versus Kierkegaard’s writing, the theory of quantum mechanics or alternative DNA end-joining process. I wrote about my cat and how my day was (seriously, who give a shit about that, not even my mother cares!), and I honestly don’t remember what he wrote about; mostly work I think. I have forgotten by now, and truthfully, I probably never cared deeply enough to remember in the first place.
Many of the messages he sent me had subtle but perceivable sexual sub-tone; a trusted person whom I showed some of the texts said: “he just wants to get you in bed and you will get badly hurt.”
I was incredulous at that thought (because — why? I’m an ocean away after all) but in hindsight, he was absolutely right.
The strategy he was using was very effective in case you happen to be a 22 year old who doesn’t know who they are, full of doubts about yourself with no real support network: building a false impression of intimacy by appearing non-judgemental, perfectly accepting and namely validating of my inner thoughts and aspirations I myself was not sure are achievable.
I never stood a chance.
Feeling close to someone who both distracts and validates me was both addictive yet mournful at the same time. I tend to keep people at arm’s length, and deep inside I knew that none of this is quite real, but at the same time I was absolutely mesmerized by the connection that radiated like a supernova in my grey existence. I used to call him ‘my sunshine’ for a genuine reason, albeit a wrong one.
I used to pray every night before going to bed, and I always named people who were near and dear to me individually in my prayers, asking God to protect them for me; I found myself including him in my prayers.
Prior to ever emailing him, I had been actively trying for weeks or even months to secure a research rotation for the summer, yet I didn’t tell him anything about that effort (it was not about him; this was my thing to do on my own.)
About a month into this “electronic romance” (I remember being genuinely surprised when I realized it has been a month and we are still at it!); I got an email from a PI at the University of Alabama that he’d have a project for me for the summer if I am interested.
I told him about the offer and honestly expected a largely indifferent reaction; as much as I enjoyed the contact with him and how “intimate” it felt, even at that time I was sane enough to know that this is a very fragile (some)thing that may be over in one second.
The “real” relationship always starts — or ends — when two people are physically together, and no matter how incredibly amazing/awful someone is over instant messages or texts, it never represents who they really are. I wonder if, in fact, he had been an “emotional affair” with respect to the person I was seeing in real life (the real relationship I was in); I don’t really know. It wasn’t a great thing, otherwise no “nevermets” would have happened, but that’s a different story.
So anyway, I causally told him about UAB expecting him to say “good for you” and surely something along the lines that he’s not ready to meet in person (we didn’t talk much about meeting in person; he did say something about possibly meeting me in Paris where I was starting as an exchange student that September, but I didn’t believe a thing about that.)
So my mandible was on the floor when he got all excited and said that if I am going to be at UAB, I might as well spend some time in a lab in New Haven where he was living at that time and maybe we could get to know each other better. He offered to ask the PIs around (they would not ignore a resident’s email, unlike mine).
I was completely speechless for good thirty seconds. I didn’t quite believe those words, and suddenly I’m wondering “maybe I’m misreading all this, (to me it still was by and large a cute and forgivable game of two people who wish to be distracted while waiting for someone/something better to pop up in their actual life), maybe he actually means what he says..?”
I said ‘sure, why not’, expecting nothing as I couldn’t get most people to even reply to my email about a summer research project. Yet couple of days later he emailed me saying he got a yes from someone in New Haven (wow!). He said that his room-mate is moving out soon, and if I want, he will not rent out the spare bedroom so I could stay there while in New Haven, and if things don’t get personal between us, I can just be a room-mate.
I was completely stunned. Prior to this, there has never been any active effort on anyone’s part to actually help me achieve something that is important to me. All those people who mention “the village behind them” when accepting accolades for their achievements make me feel sadder than a Grieg’s piano etude; I had no connections, no status, I wasn’t introduced to anybody who could help me, everything I ever achieved was a product of my defiant efforts and fighting uphill battles restlessly against the odds, and often even against active discouragement.
I had to spam all PIs in alphabetical order and hope someone would give me a chance, the vast majority of them never even bothered to respond with a polite no (pro tip: no matter how busy or important you think you are, always respond to inquiries by students who offer to do work for you for free; even with a polite decline of the offer.)
So imagine the impact this seemingly altruistic effort to help me had on me; I was like “I don’t get people like this in my life… why is he doing this?”
So finally, after weeks of defying my inner skepticism that this isn’t a real relationship, I‘m thinking ‘ok, he probably doesn’t have a clearer way of showing me that he cares and means it, I shouldn’t be mistrustful and dismissive of what he’s saying, I should embrace it, lean into it and enjoy finally being happy and cared for’ (a feeling I couldn’t remember having had before.)
He wrote me beautiful emails and sweet messages, he put some effort into arranging a research rotation for me so we could be together, why was I so reluctant to believe it, to accept it and take at a face value when someone says he likes me?
Because “ real love” just doesn’t happen this way. Let’s be real, why is he even doing this, what do I have to offer? All I know is school and cramming for exams; I have no money, no dowry, no status, no powerful connections, I’m not a path to a green card, like there is absolutely no sensible reason for him to feel this way about me.
The only possibility was sex, and I wondered if he is secretly gay and gets to say he has a long-distance girlfriend this way so people back off, or a perv. But there just didn’t exist a healthy reason for him to do any of this. Silent alarms were going off in my subconscious mind; I remember hearing those say — among other things — that “if something is too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true”.
Those alarms were right all along.
But instead of breaking it off or at least putting some brakes of sanity and safety on things, I decided to cease all contacts with other potential people and fell head over heels for him; the person thousand miles away I have never met.
I wish someone had told me to primarily look out for myself, guard my heart and not give all my trust to someone I have — well! — never met.
I misinterpreted his ‘support’ as a sign of true love because nobody has ever done anything close to that for me and I didn’t believe that anyone had ever truly loved me at that point, so I likely saw a correlation where there wasn’t any and conflated those two things. As someone who left chronically unloved and left out, again — I never stood a chance against him.
I was suddenly attached to him against my better judgment, something I should have never allowed to happen; every single time I ended up attached to someone, I stopped being my authentic myself, my focus shifted from learning who he is to how he can hurt me, which started to interfere with getting to know the other person better and thereby with my own empathy or compassion. In a way, my interaction was now strictly about emotional self-preservation and no longer about mutuality.
With my tunnel vision on how I can preserve the fantasy and avoid getting hurt, I found myself agreeing to things I would normally not agree to: the way the travel arrangements ended up working out at his suggestion (!) were that I bought a return ticket to New Jersey, then a separate one-way ticket to Birmingham the next day (the plan was he meets me at the airport in NJ and I spend the night in his apartment — how the hell I ended up agreeing to this is beyond my rational understanding). Eventually I was to come back to New Haven.
I still remember walking to the ticket agency (it was that era), thinking I will finally meet the love of my life, and come what may, it will be alright as long as he’s with me; he’s my fate and everything will be OK.
What could come between a love like this, aside, perhaps, reality?
He said he will come visit me in Birmingham while I’m at UAB; as I was walking past the mall displays, I saw a gorgeous dress that I thought would be absolutely perfect to wear when I go meet him at the airport in Alabama. In my fit of madness, I bought that beautiful dress; convinced that things are finally turning for the better.
So a week later on a Saturday, I didn’t get to hear from him all day.
I knew he sleeps in on a Saturday which meant that I usually heard from him in the early afternoon. This time I didn’t get to hear from him all day until well after 8 pm. It was so out of character I immediately knew something was up; when I confronted him, he said he went out to an exhibition with “a friend” and left his phone at home. When I admitted I was kinda worried about him (probably a euphemistic wording for pissed that he ignored me all day without a good reason), he completely dismissed me with “you can’t be worried like this all the time”. Yeah, right, that’s like, super-helpful; it’s not like I haven’t admitted to my certain anxieties.
I had a very bad feeling, and that feeling is unfortunately never wrong. It sounded like he went on a date to which he didn’t take his phone so that he’s not distracted by my texts, and the other person doesn’t ask “who’s texting you all the time”.
I am aware that people with my attachment see everything as an omen that the relationship is about to end. But the issue is, whenever I got this feeling in any previous relationship, it was never, ever wrong. I don’t believe it’s a premonition or a self-fulfilling prophecy, I genuinely believe that it’s a skill that senses subtle but objective changes in the behavior of others that just ‘don’t belong’.
I dismissed my fears that night, thinking my anxiety is getting the best of me, only to receive an email from him sent the next day that I am no longer welcome in the lab in New Haven and that it’s probably better that way.
I guess the second date went well.
The tough no-nonsense girl who takes no prisoners broke down on the spot. Me, the person who sneered at dramatic, romantic emotions, me, who couldn’t stand over-attached, clingy people, was all of a sudden crying uncontrollably about not being able to be with a person I had never ever met in my life, and equally as much about losing the opportunity of a research rotation in New Haven. Truth to be told, it was the latter I was far, far more heartbroken about, because that had been the real dream all along, and my tangible chance to build off it.
I knew it’s over.
Although he didn’t stipulate in his email that this was the end, and added some feeble line that he hoped we still would be able to spend time together and get to know each other better, I knew in my bone marrow that it was over.
For one, there are millions of other labs that he could simply forward my CV to but instead of fighting with a couple more emails (something I knew he is easily capable of) for the chance to be with me and to get to know me, he just said “sorry, you can’t be here”. And the excuse was that he spoke with the PI or something; I refuse to believe that a summer rotation for a medstudent is a topic anyone discusses on a Sunday! It just didn’t make sense; it didn’t add up. To this day, I’m convinced he was the person behind this sudden change of events.
I tried to get myself together after reading that email, cheer up and not be completely crushed, but I was pulverized. I really, really wanted to be in New Haven, and now it seemed like I will never get the chance. I was so distraught I almost crashed my car driving to classes that morning.
One time, a friend who drove me and my sister along with my then-boyfriend to Texas for a day trip had a massive fight with his girlfriend over the phone while we were in Austin. He was so upset that he asked my boyfriend to drive on the way back, which I thought was really weird. I was like ‘how can you be so emotional that you don’t think it’s safe for you to drive’. That very morning, I finally understood.
All of a sudden I realized I let him ridiculously close, built monumental houses of cards around him and lost it all literally in one email. I tried not to panic, tried to keep an even keel, but my instinct and the glaring mis-acknowledgment of the impact of this change on the concept of ‘us’ were telling me that it’s gone and never coming back.
Indeed, within a day or two not only did he “cancel” the rotation, he canceled the entire relationship: said he looked at his medical school’s website, saw a photo of his ex when he started browsing a photo gallery of some scientific conference they held (which I translate he was actively looking for her photo), and upon seeing her picture, all of a sudden all the bad emotions came back and he realized he “is not over his ex” and “not ready for a relationship.”
Is there a more pathetic excuse?
It was sad, scary, and cruel. A ‘phantom ex’ is the reason you’d rather be alone that give it a shot with me? Yeah, right, I don’t believe a word of that. I felt abandoned, unloved, unwanted, unable to understand why this ‘honest and always paying fair’ guy (HAHAHA) doesn’t have the courage to tell me he met someone else, when be both know the truth.
Instead, he started putting me down, slighting and provoking me, pushing his own truth no matter what I said. We stopped texting, Skype calling, and kept exchanging emails only and occasionally instant messaged on Skype. The dream and the game was over, I had lost and was left to my nonexistent devices to cope.
Unable to cope with the sudden distance (so typical for people who are only interested if the other party is ambiguous yet completely unbearable for anxiously attached people), I told him that even if I’m devastated by his sudden distance and coldness, I still care about him.
Worst idea ever.
He immediately started pushing back against every single word, insisting that it’s all in my head and none of it is real and never was; that I don’t know him at all, and given I never met him (huh), there’s no way I know him well enough to be certain I love him for who he is. According to him, our entire relationship is all but an illusion, and that’s all it has ever been.
He wasn’t wrong.
I knew just as much, but I was floored by this cold, court of law dissection and dismissal of my emotions; now that those were no longer serving his agenda, he was calling those a mere illusion which was incredibly hurtful. Because the emotions were absolutely real, real and vivid for me; even if he as a person perhaps wasn’t.
I guess it was going well with the person he was doubtlessly seeing now, so my existence was a severe inconvenience that had to be diverted and scrapped from his realm: a lonely soul with poor parental figures and no support system, no money, no status, green card or anything else to offer. Now that he no longer needed a source of cheers and validation, he was prepared to discard me and sacrifice all my dreams along with that. He didn’t love me, he never had and is never going to, and will treat me so miserably that I myself have no option but to break it off.
I’ve been subjected to this strategy before; hell I might have even used it myself (karma?)
There’s a beautiful poppy field close to our house. I love poppies. I laid down among the poppies on the earthy smelling ground and took a selfie (I stumbled upon the photo the other day; I look incredibly sad yet also determined in it.)
I accepted the “relationship” is indeed over while lying in the field, but I decided that I will not do him the favor of ending things; if he started all this and allowed it to get as far as me buying a fucking ticket to New Jersey, he will have to be the one to garner the courage and end it.
In hindsight, I should have taken the hint and ended it right there, cut my losses far earlier for my own good. Yet I wasn’t ready to give up the hope of “us” completely yet, although I sensed that it will never happen for us; not with someone who is perfectly prepared to ignore my needs and expectations at a whim. That’s not love.
Eventually the plan was to spend 8 weeks at UAB and that left two weeks for “vacation” given the stupid ticket I bought at his suggestion. Remember that he said he would still like to spend time with me to get to know me? So I asked him what he thought I should do with those two weeks.
“Well you can be here but you have to be prepared that I’ll be working as usual,” was the answer.
Roger that.
I have never fallen for anyone like that before, and after years of making sure I carefully chose to be involved with safe and reliable people, I end up losing my bearings for someone who not only does not reciprocate my feelings, but who I had never even fucking met. Even at that time I realized it couldn’t get any more pathetic or grotesque.
I used to mock and give tough love to friends who pined for unrequited crushes; I am a “there’s more fish in the sea” person as I absolutely don’t believe in the concept of “the one”, that’s just horseshit to me. I guess karma found me, because I was a complete mess over a guy and a relationship that existed only in my head and my electronic screens.
I do think that there is something to the concept of “the best way to get over someone is to get under someone”; it helps and that’s what I did. Subconsciously, I was simply preparing myself to detach from a connection that was now completely detrimental to both my emotional and mental health.
I was still aching and thinking of him nonstop, I cried every day pining for the “lost him” that initially made me feel so secure and safe; unable to sleep properly and focus at school, my straight A grades were now plummeting and I was skipping classes in my new-onset depression. But thanks to a tangible person, at least I wasn’t completely alone, and it was a useful distraction from all the pain I would have never chosen to feel if I knew it was coming.
I never asked for any of this. Nothing he ever said or did was worth it.
As the summer research rotation was getting closer, I thought I should not spend the night in his apartment when I arrive in New Haven; I no longer trusted him and I no longer wanted to meet — what for, there was no relationship anymore nor an interest in pursuing one and no point in meeting.
Unfortunately, one of my parental figures said I should give him a chance and meet him after all; why, I have no clue to this day. It was a catastrophically wrong and dangerous thing to do; it would have been OK if we went for a coffee a breakfast the next day, but encouraging me to spend the night in a complete stranger’s apartment that none of us knew anything about… did I mention that I have poor parental figures?
I tried to soothe myself that he’s no longer interested in me so it’s going to be just a quick, safe sleepover in the spare bedroom and then I’ll be on my way. I was still in love but also over it and involved with someone else.
I still remember the Sunday evening exactly two weeks before I was due to land in New Jersey: I was sitting on the red leather couch in our living room with my laptop on my knees when an email from him arrived. Yet another 180 turn. All of a sudden he was full of false remorse, telling me that he’s sorry for what he’s put me through (so he knew all along how hurtful his behavior is) and he’s so sorry that “it’s not easy with him” and what a darling and sweetheart I am and that he can’t wait to finally meet me.
It was so perfectly insincere and implausible after all that he had put me through, making me feel more insecure about myself than ever before; I hated every freckle on my face and every dimple in my thighs skin, my slightly asymmetrical face, imperfectly straight front teeth and a Greek nose. Reading this email, the instinct kicked in yet again: he wants to fuck me, was my initial thought. My second thought: did she break up with you?
In my heart and soul, the relationship was well over; I no longer believed that he’s “the right one” although a part of me still wished he were. I was certain it was not going to work out if we meet. Was I setting everything up for a self-fulfilling prophecy? Sure, because it’s an unconscious mind’s process to protect me from someone it already knows not to be a good person for me.
So I remained largely neutral in my responses to his all of a sudden “warm” communication, but I agreed to meet him at the airport and spend the night in his apartment.
The worst decision ever.
If I can give anyone a single advice, clearly being literally the last person that should give any advices about anything ever, I would say this: if every fiber of your being is telling your stubborn mind not to do something, listen to your instinct and don’t fucking do it.
To be continued…
