DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I would like to thank you for all the great tips and information that you have given over the years; it’s been extremely useful. I just wish I knew about your work sooner, because I am going through a break up situation that could have been different if I knew the things I know now after reading your guidelines.
I would like to ask for your advice on my situation. Let me sum it up for you:
Summer 2015:
I met this girl in a summer program at my college. We connected immediately and we were together for 10 days until the program ended. We both knew that this was not going to go any further because she is from a different country, but we kept in contact.
January 2016:
She met a guy and they started a relationship and I was happy for her. I decided to go my own way and try meeting other girls too, but she had left an extremely high standard that no other girl ever met, and I would get disappointed every time.
September 2018:
She’s been with her boyfriend for almost three years, but we never lost contact. When we’d text, I would made sure to let her know that I’m still attracted to her and she started to flirt back with me. I wasn’t sure what to do, because she was still in a relationship and I didn’t want to be disrespectful.
By this time, I had moved to NYC to work , while she was in still in college in her country with 3 more years to go.
October 2018:
In our conversations, she let me know that things had been going badly with her boyfriend. I was trying to be there to support her, but to be honest, I was also there to see if I had an opportunity with her.
January-February 2019:
Our conversations had became very intense and shortly after she broke up with her boyfriend. She let me know that she is interested in me and shortly after we started a LDR. I didn’t know anything about LDRs, but I thought that we could make it work.
April 2019:
We were doing well for two months, talking and texting all the time, having our ways to show our feelings, having cyber sex to make up for the lack of physical contact and much more. We planned a trip for June in which she would come to NYC and stay with me for 2 weeks. In April, her school workload had increased and we started to reduce our frequency of contact. I got scared and asked her what was going on and she said that everything is fine, it’s just the amount of work that she had to deal with.
May 2019:
Our conversations diminished quite a lot but I was patiently waiting for her semester to finish and get back to where we wer… but that never happened. She kept being distant, and one day she called me to break up with me. To summarize the call, she said that I never did anything wrong, that we would be together if we were in the same place. But she hadn’t realized how much she needed the physical contact in a relationship, and this LDR was not working for her. She also mentioned that she is still coming in June, but she’s not staying with me and that she wants to see me at least once. For the trip, we had reserved a car to pick her up at the airport, we have tickets for a show and a concert. We decided that we would not waste that money and meet up on those three occasions.
Now, it has been 4 days since we broke up, we ended in good terms, we never fought or anything, and she asked me to be friends because she would like me to keep being part of her life. I told her that it’s possible, but I would never see her just as a friend.
I found your website a few hours ago and I read the sections and I realized that our relationship was doomed from the beginning and now, I’m not looking for trying to get her back. Although, here is where I am kindly asking for your advice.
Do you think that it is correct to meet up when she comes to NYC?
If so, how should I be with her when we meet? And texts?
Do you think that it is fine to try to be friends from now on?
Thank you in advance,
Regards,
Loved and Lost
DEAR LOVED AND LOST: I think you’re going to have a hard time if you meet up, LaL. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure that keeping your plans to meet up at ALL was a good idea; it may have been a better plan for one of you to reimburse the other for their share of the tickets, cancel the car and generally just try to avoid one another while she’s in town.
The issue here is that you’ve spent the better part of three years yearning for her and four plus months in a long-distance relationship… none of it in person. That’s a long time to build up fantasies of your eventual reunion. To have the hopes of a grand, romantic encounter dashed… well, that’s going to leave a pretty serious pall over seeing her. It’d be one thing if you’d had more time to process your feelings and get used to the new relationship you two have… if you are even going to continue having one. I mean, you’re looking at the culmination of the hope of years, only to have them dashed at the last minute. I’m not gonna lie: that’s the sort of thing that can make getting together pretty damn uncomfortable.
Like, really uncomfortable.
Seeing her right now is going to be a reminder of what you had.. and don’t have any more. Is that something you’re willing to deal with if you see her? Are you going to be able to compartmentalize enough that you can see her and spend time with her without seeing the ghosts of futures past? Are you able to let go of what might have been?
But then there’s another issue: what about if things go well? I know, I know: what’s so bad about things going well and everyone having a good time? Well, the potential complication is that the point of failure in this relationship was that lack of a physical connection. And here you are in the same city for the first time in years. It could be that seeing each other could rekindle some feelings and you two may see about whether you have the chemistry in person that you had in text. Maybe the two of you will be all over each other like a pair of socks in a dryer.
That’s where things get complicated, especially if you’re not the sort of person who can easily separate sex from love. If the two of you do hook up, then you’re in the awkward position of asking: what now? Was breaking up the wrong move? After all: you’re still living in separate countries; you’re still stuck with the same, almost impossible barrier that broke you two up in the first place. Trying to get back together is going to end with the dance remix of your first break-up.
Now, maybe it’ll all be ok. After all, you had a relatively amicable break-up. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, just a case of circumstance. But it’s still pretty damn soon and the wounds are still pretty fresh.
Unfortunately, I’m not the one who can tell you whether seeing her is a good idea. You’re the one who’s going to have to weigh the potential pain against the joy of seeing your friend again. If you do go, I’d suggest keeping your expectations low; focus on just enjoying spending time with an old friend rather than what might have been or going over the break-up.
Is it ok to be friends? Well… yeah. I’m all in favor of being friends… if you can honestly be friends. If you’re going into this new friendship with hopes of getting back together with her, then all you’re doing is opening yourself up to future heartache. By the same token, if staying friends with her is like knives to your soul and getting your heart broken again, then it’s better all around if you end it.
Either way, I would suggest that you give yourself some time and distance before trying to be close. Even if you have the best and purest of intentions, you need to let those wounds heal before you can really make a friendship work.
Good luck.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com)