A Cautionary Tale of Long Distance Love

CHAPTER ONE: Far Away Love 101

In the online dating world, there seems to be a Murphy's Law which states:

"If it’s your soul mate, they’re going to be far away."

It makes sense then, to learn how to handle long distance relationships from the outset, so you understand exactly what you might be letting yourself in for...

A Cautionary Tale of Long Distance Love

Imagine this scenario:

You meet someone on the Internet. Before you know it you are talking face to face on a webcam and calling it true intimacy. You feel yourself falling in love. You feel like you've known each other all your life. You talk to each other morning, noon and evening. Nobody has ever paid you this much attention before... he sends you birthday cards, roses, pictures of his kids and recipes for his special chili by hotmail. This has to be your long lost soul mate.

The only problem is HE lives in Washington and you live in Florida.

After getting to know him better, you realize that he can't leave Washington because of his job and you can't leave Florida because of child custody rights. Despite this, you decide to make it work. "That's not really a problem" you reassure yourself.” God will find a way."

The next thing you know, you are spending more and more quality time with him on the computer. Yahoo, ICQ and MSN become your best friend. You look for him online and when he's not online, you start to get suspicious. Jealous. The busy icon comes on and you start to wonder - what is he doing that is so important rather than talk to me?

Suddenly you feel yourself overcome with an incredible amount of anxiety. Where's my little smile icon that means he loves me? Why is he on "invisible" status? Is he avoiding me? And even if he does appear on the webcam, you find yourself wondering "Why is he wearing the same shirt two days in a row? Did he sleep with someone else last night and not change his outfit?

Months and months pass in ignorant and fanciful bliss. You lean on each other for emotional support, confess your innermost secret desires and air all the dirty laundry. You become so close that you are practically the same person until one day...

He doesn't appear online for a week. It has happened. His grim face appears on the web cam to tell you…

"I have slept with someone."

This makes you irrationally jealous as you have remained "faithful" even though you are thousands of miles away. First come the bitter recriminations, the analyzing, the accusations and attempts to comfort each other when all is lost. And then, after hours of writing to each other, both of you come to this bitter conclusion:

You were not in a relationship at all. He can do whatever he likes. You have been "feeling" an illusion. You have become another victim of cyber intimacy.

If you don't want to be in a long distance relationship, then my suggestion is to rule out responding to any online profiles that are not in your local area. Although long distance relationships can lead to love, they can also lead to unrequited love if the two of you are thousands of miles away.

Breaking up is hard to do, but getting back into the dating game can be even harder, especially if it has been a while and you aren't psychologically prepared for it. This is why the love-lorn are the most prone to getting into a long distance relationship. The rationale is that any company from the opposite sex is better than none at all.

You might be thinking a long distance relationship is a good idea if you have recently left a bad relationship. Before you know it, long talks in a chat room with a stranger become a substitute for the true emotional intimacy that you knew from a past love.

Your first step is to heave that chip off your shoulder, get out of your bathrobe, get a make over and stop spending your nights in front of the television watching "Cheaters" and calling your friends for sympathy. If you don't feel that you are not quite done wallowing in self pity or anger, by all means continue as you were, but realize that there will come a day, sooner or later, when you will become bored with yourself and want to face the real world again.

Keep in mind that often online dating is a way of avoiding the real world and that if you do decide to pursue an emotional relationship online it might be because it feels "safer" then dealing with someone face to face who might reject you, or shame you.

Fate does not doom people to a life full of fear and betrayal. Mother Nature wants you to recover from your post-break-up doldrums so try to humor her hints to cheer up and go with the flow. One of the benefits of pursuing a relationship online is that it can help you build up your confidence in yourself. It can renew your faith in yourself and also other human beings.

Studies have shown that most people don't fear rejection. What they really fear is their own reaction to rejection. If you look at this objectively, than what your fear of online dating is really just a matter of self-control. Perhaps the best way to master this fear is to accept the fact that rejection is a normal part of dating and assure yourself that you can handle any situation that may arise without doing punitive emotional damage to yourself or others.