Distance is the key

[CuriousinConcert]

Ok, I'm having a problem that I can't seem to figure out and I was hoping someone out here could set me straight or at least give me a little advice from another point of view. So, here's the story, with a little background first.

 

We've been friends for several years now. X and I met online early in the year of 2000 and we got to talking and the usual things that come from meeting someone. It didn't start at first, but slowly I began to develop feelings for her. I could kind of tell that there was something akin to it coming from her side, but she never would come out and it say it, so we played a flirtatious game of cat and mouse for a long time. We've been extremely good friends for almost the whole time, feeling like we can express to each other the things that we've never told anyone else. Let me lay a little more background tho. She's was raised in a family that was stritly catholic, and she hasn't ever really done anything. She's never had a relationship before, has never been close to someone, and is extrmely shy when it comes to expressing her feelings for someone, to the disclusion of even mentioning it.

 

Just recently, about 4 months ago, I finally started to express my feelings for X, and to tell her how I felt. Now, we've met several times before this and hung out as friends, gone to the movies, wandered around the mall and done al the usual BS that people of my age generally do.(That age being about 20) After we discussed it a little, I finally told her that I wanted to be with her, as more than just a friend, and so the relationship began.

 

It seems like it was doomed to fail, as in amonth of it forming, she was leaving for college some 300+ miles away. Right before she left, we talked, and she decided that we should break up, because it would be "too hard" for her to see me only once in a while, and that she wanted to focus on her schoolwork. I didn't fully understand the reasoning behind this, given that I knew we would continue to talk as much as we ever had, and I was right. After X left for college, we continued to talk online and on the phone pretty much daily, as much as we ever had, and nothing seemed to have changed, except for our discussion.

 

During the tenure of our friendship, I've come down to meet her several times and I call her as much as I can(once or twice a week, since she has said that she reall likes talking to me) to talk. When we started "dating" she said that she would come up and visit and talked all of this talk, but never did. She hardly ever calls me on the phone, and has never come up. She seems to go from mood to mood, one month really wanting to talk to me, the next being extremely unresponsive, hardly talking and rarely more than courteous. None of this has discouraged the way that I feel, but I often think it should. What I am asking is, when should I draw the line and tell myself that a relationship will never happen? Should I see her one last time and profess my true feelings to her, or is that some sappy romantic ideal that something will happen? When is enough enough?

 

Ok, sorry for the massive jumble of my thoughts, and I really appreciate anyone who took the time to read this, and doubly to anyone who responds. Thank you very much.

 

"You will never love the ones who love you as much as you love the ones who don't"

[moimeme]

Long-distance relationships can succeed, but they require a lot of commitment. People do have them - partners of people in the military and other professions which require employees to spend extended periods away. I imagine that the way those relationships survive is through a concerted effort on both parts to maintain intimacy through frequent contact and through committment.

 

That people be motivated to continue such relationships rests, I suppose, on their conviction that the other person is a rare enough treasure that they really would prefer nobody else and therefore doing the work required comes from a desire to do so rather than obligation.

 

Having said that, you two had established a very tight friendship which doesn't seem to have translated to firm commitment and her lack of contact seems to reinforce that.

 

I have known people who lived their lives single having not been able to marry the person of their dreams. You could have decided that she is a rare enough prize that you're willing to put your life on hold on the chance she'll want a relationship with you. You could also decide that if you do that, you'll regret it in the end and even be resentful if she never comes back to you. Only you can really make that choice. Last option is to keep her as a friend but get your own relationship. Again, only you can determine if you could handle that or if it would be too difficult.

[innocent]

Ok..my bf and I are in a LDR and I would never break up with him to do my work because all I ever do is my work and talk to him on the phone....So that is kinda weird.....but anyway.. She might be a little confused or scared herself...thinking about if she really wants to be with you or not... and since this is her first relationship...she may be attached to you but wanting to break away, and date others, or she could be just plain scared sh*tless that she has opened up and made herself vunerable to you ( my problem when my boyfriend and I were first dating).

 

I think that you should go and just tell her how you feel, and just let it all out, make youself vunerable to her, and if she is scared of the relationship, she will see that you are just as into it as she is but afraid to admit, or you know that it is over if she doesn't want to be with you, but the ony good thing about that situation is that you will never regret not doing something about it, not telling her how you feel, and there would be no regrets and no what ifs....

 

So anyway I hope that all ends well and you all are happily ever after. So Good Luck with whatever you decide, I hope that this helps...