Online friends since 2016, I want to finally meet her, how do I go from here?

[TheEternalPessimist]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to tell you a bit about a persistent concern of mine and get some much needed advice on how to go from here. This is going to be extremely long so thanks in advance to those that will take their precious time to read this and respond.

I want to preface this by saying that during my teenage years, especially between the ages of 17 and 19, I had several online friends, some of which I met in real life several times and stayed friends with for a few years. It never really worked in the long run for various reasons but all the online friends I met online and never met in real life I am no longer in touch with them today.

So back in 2016, I downloaded this LGBT app on my phone and began using it in my free time. I’m not a member of the LGBT community myself so I wasn’t looking or expecting anything specific from that app, I was mostly bored, had just graduated from college and had a lot of free time on my hands. After a few weeks of being on there, I began chatting with this 15 year-old girl from Germany (I was living in Canada at the time) and we developed some kind of friendship over time. She told me about her life, her hobbies, her interests, her goals, how she was adopted as a baby, how she discovered she liked girls. I told her about me, my goals, what my plans for the future were. Being European myself we bonded on some common interests like our love of football (soccer) and we both happened to like and cheer for the same team.

As time went by, our friendship grew to the point where we were texting on the app once every 7 to 10 days from late 2016 to around 2019. We never spoke vocally or Skyped, all our conversations were through text messages. She did once or twice say that she would like to Skype but ultimately we never did and we never really made any plans for it (not sure why, don't remember). Because I didn’t really speak any German at the time, all our written texts were in English and she always wrote in near perfect English. It was never really one-sided because she would message me off her own free will regularly (at times perhaps even more than I would message her) so it never felt forced or one-sided. I was never attracted to her since I’ve known her and obviously knew she was a lesbian just by meeting her on the app. I would regularly tell her about the girls I was interested in and vice versa. During those first years of us chatting, she began dating this girl who was her first girlfriend and I was one of the first people she told. We had our minor disagreements at times as all friends do but we never clashed or had any major conflicts over that period of time and that’s the case still to this day. There is a 7 year difference between us as I was born in 1994 and she was born in 2001. When we first started chatting in 2016 she was 15 and I was 22, now she’s 18 going on 19 and I recently turned 26.

Starting in early 2018 I began making plans to settle in Europe and was accepted at a university in a Master’s degree program in Switzerland which was to last a year. Because I knew I had little to no chances of staying in Switzerland beyond that period of time, I began making plans to resettle to Germany because that was the only country in the EU I could find work in easily with my Canadian passport.

That summer in 2018 I told her I would be visiting some relatives that live in Germany about an hour away from her home town. As the saying goes, I thought I could essentially kill two birds with one stone and meet her for the first time in real life while on my way to visit my relatives since she was living nearby anyways. Obviously I would never force her to meet me but given that we were still talking regularly almost 2 years in the friendship AND that I was visiting her area I asked her if she would like to meet me. We had sporadically talked about meeting before but never really made any concrete plans, it was more of a ‘what if’ scenario. I told her about my plan, she declined stating that because she was 17 at the time she would have to ask her parents for permission (fair game) and she had already planned to work and go to a concert (again, fair game). She didn’t make that last part up as an excuse, she indeed was quite busy around the time and did go to a concert. What is really nice about her is that, unlike most past online and real-life friendships I've had, I never felt like she was trying to be sneaky, deceitful or conniving towards me. Thinking back, I don’t think she ever lied to me about anything, at least not that I can remember. I can’t say the same about some other friends, both guys and girls, both online and in real-life, that I’ve had over the years.

After she declined to meet up, we continued to chat just as normally and as regularly as before and then in early 2019 she got a new girlfriend and decided to delete the LGBT app we were chatting on since 2016 so she gave me her number and we began chatting on WhatsApp instead. In the spring of 2019, I was still living in Switzerland but I was going to visit my guy cousin who was doing a 6-month program at a university in Germany in a town which again happened to be close to where she lives. I knew I was going to be staying at my cousin’s for at least 4-5 days anyways so I asked her if she would like for us to meet up. She declined saying she had a very busy schedule with school. I again knew this was true and although disappointed I didn’t make a big deal out of it, after all she was still a minor and she didn’t and still doesn’t owe me anything. I didn't go to visit my cousin in Germany simply to have an excuse to try and meet her, my cousin lives abroad and we don't see each other very often as it is. 

Fast forward to late 2019, she turned 18. I finished my studies in Switzerland and I was in the process of moving to Germany around the same time as her birthday and finding work there which I ultimately did do about 6 months ago in early 2020. She texted me to say she was very pleased that I was coming to Germany to live and work. I sent her an audio message in German for her birthday and she complimented me on my good speaking skills. That end of summer in 2019 was a bit unusual because right as the school year started for her, she became much less available on WhatsApp and for the first time since we’ve known each other we went from texting once or twice every 7 to 10 days to texting once or twice every 3-4 weeks, sometimes even longer. I think the longest we ever went without chatting prior to that time was maybe 2 weeks once. The transition was quite unusual for me but it’s not like I got depressed because of it although it did bother me a bit. It’s been that way ever since with sporadic but still decent conversations once a month or so now although lately often times I would be the one to text first. If I write her a text message and she replies at least 2 to 4 weeks later, she will immediately apologize for the delay instead of acting self-righteous like some other people would. She did text me for my birthday and thanked me for always being there for her.

At the height of the coronavirus pandemic during the lockdown, I sent her an audio message to talk a little bit about what was going on my life and I told her she could send an audio message too if she wanted to. Surprisingly enough she did and I got to hear her speak in English for the first time ever. As I recall, 90% of her audio message was about school and how she was disappointed to not be able to see her girlfriend due to the lockdown. We texted a few times since but very little and only sporadically. In a way I was fine with it because I knew it was her last year of high school and the most important year before college so I didn't want to pry. Also, as I mentioned before, she always apologized when she would reply weeks later even though I never asked and never would ask her to apologize but it does show that she has common decency.

At this point, I need to find a way of telling her how I feel about this whole situation, how from my point of view things can't go on like this forever in terms of us not meeting and how scared and depressed I get at times of losing the friendship. I’ve always wondered what she really thinks of me, whether she views me now or has viewed me since the very beginning as just an online friend she texts with when she has nothing better to do (I doubt that but you never know), whether she talks about me to her adoptive parents or her friends, whether she ever thinks about the future of our friendship, whether she even ever wants to meet me in real life, whether she is uncomfortable because I don’t speak German well enough yet, whether she's uncomortable because I'm a guy etc. etc. In the 4 years we’ve been friends, she met another guy in real life from the LGBT app when she visited his town with her parents about 2 years ago. As far as I know, they are still in touch but she hasn't mentioned him in a while now and neither have I. 

I know some people reading this will say : ‘Well why don’t you just give up altogether?’ My answer to that is I am at this point too involved to simply arrogantly let go after 4 years. That's not the kind of person I am, that would not be fair to her because despite her apparently not really wanting to meet me or at least not making any real plans to meet me (not sure which one it is), I still like to think she cares about me at least a bit and that us cutting ties would affect her in some way and not just for a few days. On the other hand, if I gave up and decided to move on, I would love to see how she would react, whether she would genuinely fight for our friendship at all or whether she would move on as if those 4 years of friendship meant nothing to her. Over the years, I cut ties with the few people I met online and then in real life, it was rarely the other way around. Most of them despite being super close friends and despite hearing them tell me they would always be there for me no matter what didn't fight at all to save the friendship once things started going awry. My former best friend from France which I met online and then twice in real life comes to mind. We were friends from 2011 to 2015, I cut ties with her in early 2015.

I am obviously old enough to understand that with time certain friendships can naturally fall apart, I've got no real issues with that. I don't think us texting much less now automatically means she is drifting away from the friendship or that the friendship is necessarily falling apart but at the same time I personally believe that online friendships if you don't meet the person in real life eventually are doomed to crash and burn sooner or later. In our case, it's been almost 4 years of online friendship now so it's not like it has been short and insignificant. If we had only been talking for less than a year, I wouldn't be upset right now probably. I am absolutely not one of those people that believes you can not text someone for ages and then pick up right where you stopped as if nothing happened once you resume texting. 

This is the key issue here guys : We have been online friends for almost 4 years now, we never met AND I am not sure she even wants to ever meet me in real life although obviously I could be wrong and she could just be too shy to propose anything. I feel like she will never propose it on her own unless I bring it up again first and I hate to pester her over it, I hate to be that guy. I feel so stupid for potentially wasting any real chances of us meeting by proposing meet-ups twice before, both times when she was 17 and still a minor. If I could take that back and propose a meet-up for the first time ever NOW, I would in a heartbeat. Whether that had any real impact on her and scared her off for good I don't know and will likely never truly know. Also the language barrier makes it so that even with her very good level of English, I cannot dive deep into certain personal conversations I would like to have with her about us. I believe that certain things are always best explained in a person's native language. 

One thing to note here that might or might not be important is that she recently told me that she is planning to move to Canada for maybe a few years either in late 2020 or early 2021 instead of going straight to college to study. I feel like if we don't meet prior to her leaving, we can pretty much kiss our friendship goodbye for good but I would love to get some insight on this. Hell, I even considered showing up to the airport on the day of her flight to Canada and surprising her there although that could potentially backfire horribly maybe. I still might do it depending on how things evolve over the next few months. 

The way I see it, I think it’s pointless to continue with this friendship if she never wants us to meet and is content with just being online friends forever and texting once in a while now. I am not happy and this is not what I want in the long run. I don't think I can keep the friendship going if she has absolutely no interest in ever meeting me in real life especially now that we both live in the same country instead of on two seperate continents. With that being said, I don't think I can just wake up one day, cut ties for good and move on, I'm not that kind of person. It’s frustrating because this friendship shouldn’t be exclusively online anymore. I'm not saying we should be hanging out every other week but at least one real hangout would be nice. I need to find a nice and mature way of telling her how I feel without needlessly putting pressure on her, without making her feel guilty over a situation she didn’t create and without making it feel as if I'm trying to emotionally blackmail her by giving her an ultimatum on our friendship (aka either we meet up or we cut ties). After all, as I mentioned, these are just my personal wishes, she doesn’t owe me anything and the fact we managed to keep this going for almost 4 years now without ever meeting is in many ways quite impressive I think. Keep in mind, she never explicitly wrote that she doesn't want to meet me now or doesn't ever want to meet me BUT at the same time she also hasn't done anything concrete in order for us to finally meet since I moved to Germany about a year ago. Whether she never explicitly wrote she doesn't want to meet me because she in fact DOES want us to meet at some point and whether she never explicitly wrote she doesn't want to meet me because she didn't want to hurt my feelings that I do not know. 

 

Overall, this is such an annoying, f-ked up situation and it's a conversation I do not want to have...

 

Finally, I want to clarify one very important element here, I am absolutely not romantically attracted to her and I did not move to Germany because of her. I moved there because it was the easiest place in the EU to work and live in as a non-EU person. I live over 3 hours away from where she lives and she hasn’t been in my area of the country for several years.

 

Thanks for reading this book of an explanation and thank you very much in advance for your thoughts and comments.

 

TheEternalPessimist

[d0nnivain]

I'm really troubled by a 22 year old adult striking up a "friendship" with a teenager.  It reads as creepy.

Because she declined to meet you when she was still 17 she sounds smarter then you.  That is often a problem with these kinds of interactions at these ages.  As a kid she was on the same wave length as you, an adult.  Now that she's approaching adulthood, she has outgrown you.  By the time she finishes college she will leave you in her dust.  

The age difference was a problem due to the huge life stage difference.

You want to meet.  She doesn't.  Things always default to the one who says no.  

What you have on line is all she wants.  If that is not enough for you, you always have the choice to cut contact.   

[TheEternalPessimist]

I don't see what's so creepy about it. A 22 year old adult is not a 32 year old adult and is not a 42 year old adult either. If instead I was 30 and she was 24 when we started texting, would you have said anything? I don’t think so. I didn't ask for this friendship to happen, I didn't start texting with her expecting anything and I never said or did anything creepy to her since I've known her. I've had friends that were 4-5 years younger than me at various stages of my life, right now I even have a friend who is 7 years OLDER than me. Also, if this was in any way creepy to her (which is what matters here, with all due respect to you), she could have easily cut contact with me a while ago and I wouldn’t have been able to do much about it but yet she’s still here 4 years later. Cutting ties with someone you text with online is the easiest thing in the world, she had well over a thousand opportunities to do it if she truly wanted to by now.

As for meeting when she was a minor, I met guys and girls before who were minors when I was over 18 (met a girl in real life which I initially met online when she was 17 and I was 20, met a guy in real life which I initially met online when he was 17 and I was 21). It never really was a source of discomfort for anyone so I perhaps naively though it would be ok for her too. To me, meeting someone who’s a minor when you’re a young adult is not that big of a deal provided there isn’t a huge age difference like say a 21 year old meeting a 12 year old. 16 year olds having friends in their early 20s is definitely not unheard of. Me and her did speak about the age difference a few times and I never felt like it was an issue for her and again if she had any issues with it she could have cut contact a while back, easiest thing in the world to do online. 

I'm not really sure you can judge that she's outgrown me based on what I wrote. Yes she is incredibly smart but I have a lot more life experience than she does and probably a slightly more mature way of looking at things that comes with that experience. It’s perfectly normal because at 18 or 19, you usually can’t have the worldview and the experience of a 26 year old, the same way I can’t right now have the worldview and the experience of a 40 year old for example.

Things are not as simple as you make them out to be, you don't just wake up one day and cut contact with someone you've known for 4 years even if it's online and I refuse to do that until I know for sure there are no other solutions. I still want to believe there are other solutions otherwise I wouldn't be here writing about this is and fighting for my friendship.

 

TheEternalPessimist

Edited July 9, 2020 by TheEternalPessimist

[ShyViolet]

2 hours ago, TheEternalPessimist said:

At this point, I need to find a way of telling her how I feel about this whole situation, how from my point of view things can't go on like this forever in terms of us not meeting

It doesn't work this way.  You can't "insist" on meeting.  I think it's clear that she does not want to meet up, that she views this as an online-only friendship.  The couple of times that you asked her to meet up, she declined.  And since then she has never suggested meeting up.  You say that once you moved to Germany, her country, you started hearing from her less often.  I don't think that's a coincidence.  I think maybe every time you tried to meet up with her in person or get closer to her in real life, it made her a little uncomfortable and so she tried to take a step back.  Maybe she's just too shy to tell you that.

I also find it super weird that you say you would message her and she wouldn't reply until weeks later.  That's not like any friendship I've ever heard of.  If someone doesn't reply to your messages until weeks later, they are not very interested in talking to you.

[d0nnivain]

Eternal Pessimist

I told you in my post that it was not the 7 year age difference I had a problem with.  It was the life stage:  you were a full blown adult, old enough to be a college grad & she was in the middle of HS.  It was that part -- you having life experience that made it creepy. 

I also know what I'm talking about with her out growing you.  When I was 16 I had a crush on my coach from an extra curricular activity.  By the time I was 17 & he was 30 we were involved.  It wasn't a secret & my parents knew.  By the time I got home from my 1st semester of college he had lost all allure.  

This girl is OK with her on line relationship with you but she wants nothing else.   

 

[TheEternalPessimist]

10 minutes ago, ShyViolet said:

It doesn't work this way.  You can't "insist" on meeting.  I think it's clear that she does not want to meet up, that she views this as an online-only friendship.  The couple of times that you asked her to meet up, she declined.  And since then she has never suggested meeting up.  You say that once you moved to Germany, her country, you started hearing from her less often.  I don't think that's a coincidence.  I think maybe every time you tried to meet up with her in person or get closer to her in real life, it made her a little uncomfortable and so she tried to take a step back.  Maybe she's just too shy to tell you that.

I also find it super weird that you say you would message her and she wouldn't reply until weeks later.  That's not like any friendship I've ever heard of.  If someone doesn't reply to your messages until weeks later, they are not very interested in talking to you.

I don't want to insist on meeting, I want to simply let her know how I feel about this so we can decide together what to do next. Doesn't mean I'll necessarily go through with it but that's been my main idea lately. I asked her only twice before to meet and both times she had very good reasons not to so it's not like she was scrambling looking for any cheap excuse available not to meet (I can tell when someone does that). It's totally my fault for suggesting it though, had I waited longer and proposed it for the first time now, maybe things would be different, I don't think I'll ever know that for sure. If she truly views this as an online-only friendship even after 4 years then it feels like I failed somewhere but that's also something I have no way of knowing for sure. 

There's no direct correlation between me moving to Germany and us texting less often. I moved to Germany in October 2019 and 1-2 months before we were already texting less. It coincides way more with her beginning her last year of high school and thus becoming more busy than it does with me moving to Germany. It's not like she's been avoiding me in any way, her presence on social media overall has decreased a lot over the past year or so. 

I think her replying much later again has to do with her busy schedule with school, hanging out with her girlfriend, figuring what she will be doing next with her life. She literally told me all the things she was busy with and it's quite big, I have no reason to think she lied about anything. I'm not really bothered by her replying later than usual, she has a good attitude about it when she does reply and that's all I can ask for. Now of course if I were to "test" her by not texting her for like 2-3 months and wait to see if she would iniatiate a conversation on her own that would of course be different and it's something I'm also considering doing.

[TheEternalPessimist]

5 minutes ago, d0nnivain said:

Eternal Pessimist

I told you in my post that it was not the 7 year age difference I had a problem with.  It was the life stage:  you were a full blown adult, old enough to be a college grad & she was in the middle of HS.  It was that part -- you having life experience that made it creepy. 

I also know what I'm talking about with her out growing you.  When I was 16 I had a crush on my coach from an extra curricular activity.  By the time I was 17 & he was 30 we were involved.  It wasn't a secret & my parents knew.  By the time I got home from my 1st semester of college he had lost all allure.  

This girl is OK with her on line relationship with you but she wants nothing else.   

 

A 22 year old is not a full blown adult. Most 22 year olds are either still in college, still living with their parents (or both) or have just barely started working at their first real job. At least where I grew up and in Europe, that's the way it is.

I fail to see exactly how she has outgrown me, we each have our goals and priorities in life and it's normal that they differ. Your example is one of romance, in my case there is no romance whatsover and I am absolutely not interested in dating my riend. I simply would like for us to meet, I think it's reasonable and it's a bare minimum after nearly 4 years of texting which is a very long time for an online friendship I think. Otherwise what's the point of texting with someone for years if you are never going to meet, in a way it seems like a waste of time. 

[ShyViolet]

OP, do you have any real-life friends?  I mean, people who actually live near you who you see regularly?

This IS an online friendship.  Even if you meet in person once, you live 3 hours apart and you won't realistically be seeing each other, like almost ever.  I'm not sure what you hope to achieve with this friendship and why meeting her in person is such a huge issue for you.

[d0nnivain]

3 minutes ago, TheEternalPessimist said:

Otherwise what's the point of texting with someone for years if you are never going to meet, in a way it seems like a waste of time. 

It was a fun distraction for a teen.  Why do teens do anything?  It was a waste of time & continues to be if your goal is to move to real life.  She doesn't want that.  Not all wastes of time are bad.  Fun distractions are just that. . . fun.  

You have asked 2x to meet.  She had declined.  There is nothing else.  

[TheEternalPessimist]

Just now, ShyViolet said:

OP, do you have any real-life friends?  I mean, people who actually live near you who you see regularly?

This IS an online friendship.  Even if you meet in person once, you live 3 hours apart and you won't realistically be seeing each other, like almost ever.  I'm not sure what you hope to achieve with this friendship and why meeting her in person is such a huge issue for you.

I'm fairly new to Germany so I don't have any real-life friends yet. I'm not someone who has had a lot of friends especially in recent years because of past abuse and because I can't stand most people in general.  I'm not actively looking for any either, I might eventually hang out with some of my work collegues in a few months depending on how things go but that's about it. I'm the kind of person that likes it when someone else initiates something, for a change. Either way, hanging out with someone regularly is not a good idea now because of the ongoing pandemic.

If you had formed a close bond with someone online, if you had been there for each other for years and the possibility to finally meet existed, wouldn't you take it? It's the kind of thing one has to experience in order to understand. I came to a point where I realized simply texting someone I got to know so well over the years wasn't enough for me. I want to be able to have deeper conversations with her, take pictures together, go to events, meet her friends, get to know her on a more personal level which cannot be achieved simply through text messages. I have so many questions for her, so many things I still want to know. I don't see what's wrong with that. 

[TheEternalPessimist]

12 minutes ago, d0nnivain said:

It was a fun distraction for a teen.  Why do teens do anything?  It was a waste of time & continues to be if your goal is to move to real life.  She doesn't want that.  Not all wastes of time are bad.  Fun distractions are just that. . . fun.  

You have asked 2x to meet.  She had declined.  There is nothing else.  

Usually fun distractions don't last four years, they last half a year at most especially when you're a teenager who rarely has the same interests and hobbies for more than a couple of months, when you're still learning about the world around you and still figuring yourself out. Knowing her the way I know her, I don't think I was just a distraction for her but I have no way of knowing for sure. Honestly it's quite pathetic to me if I was just a "fun distraction", that's not a role I want to continue playing if that's the case and if that's what I was then I feel somewhat used. 

I did ask twice and she did decline twice but like I said she had very good reasons to decline both times and I still feel like had I not asked to meet than but rather now for the first time, maybe the outcome would be different and we would be planning something concrete. It's been over a year since I last asked to meet and I haven't asked her a single time to meet since she turned 18 because I didn't want to be pushy and I was hoping (am still hoping although less and less) that she will suggest something. Also I want to be clear that I never begged her to meet or passively-aggressively asked her to meet, it was more like an idea in the form of "hey would you like if we met? I can come visit, this is what my plan was, what do you think?"

Edited July 9, 2020 by TheEternalPessimist

[Acacia98]

5 minutes ago, TheEternalPessimist said:

If you had formed a close bond with someone online, if you had been there for each other for years and the possibility to finally meet existed, wouldn't you take it? It's the kind of thing one has to experience in order to understand. I came to a point where I realized simply texting someone I got to know so well over the years wasn't enough for me. I want to be able to have deeper conversations with her, take pictures together, go to events, meet her friends, get to know her on a more personal level which cannot be achieved simply through text messages. I have so many questions for her, so many things I still want to know. I don't see what's wrong with that. 

It's not that there's something wrong with wanting to meet an online friend. It's that you attach so much importance to making it happen when she clearly isn't invested in meeting at all. And, to make matters worse, instead of taking the hint and letting it go, you actually want to have a discussion about it. If keeping the relationship online is not good enough for you, that's fine. But then you should do the natural thing: stop investing so much emotion in this friendship. Put it on the back burner or let it die. It seems like you're trying to force a greater sense of togetherness than there actually is between you (from her apparent perspective, anyway).

To be completely honest with you, that level of intensity in a friendship would scare me off even if the other person and I were of the same age. I personally reserve that level of investment for romantic relationships. It feels strange when I hear people talking about friendship in these terms. 

[d0nnivain]

Your gender may be an issue for her too.  Your profile says you are male.  You met her on an LGBT site.  Did you ever consider that she doesn't want to meet you because she's not into guys?  

[TheEternalPessimist]

Just now, d0nnivain said:

Your gender may be an issue for her too.  Your profile says you are male.  You met her on an LGBT site.  Did you ever consider that she doesn't want to meet you because she's not into guys?  

That wouldn't make sense, I know she's not into guys, she knows I know she's not into guys, she knows I don't want to meet her to pursue a relationship and I'm not attracted to her either way. Also, she met another guy from the LGBT app in real life once before so I don't see how gender could be an issue. 

[TheEternalPessimist]

9 minutes ago, Acacia98 said:

It's not that there's something wrong with wanting to meet an online friend. It's that you attach so much importance to making it happen when she clearly isn't invested in meeting at all. And, to make matters worse, instead of taking the hint and letting it go, you actually want to have a discussion about it. If keeping the relationship online is not good enough for you, that's fine. But then you should do the natural thing: stop investing so much emotion in this friendship. Put it on the back burner or let it die. It seems like you're trying to force a greater sense of togetherness than there actually is between you (from her apparent perspective, anyway).

To be completely honest with you, that level of intensity in a friendship would scare me off even if the other person and I were of the same age. I personally reserve that level of investment for romantic relationships. It feels strange when I hear people talking about friendship in these terms. 

I don't think we can judge based on what I wrote that she "clearly isn't invested in meeting at all", I don't know what's on her mind and what she really genuinely thinks about our friendship. I wish I could find out but I have no idea how I could find out since there's the language barrier and we have no friends in common. There's no hint to be taken, she never clearly said no and we never really discussed it much.

It can be a little off-putting but I'm simply very invested in my friendships in general. When I get along well with a person, there isn't something I wouldn't do for that person whether it's a guy or a girl. To be fair, it sounds a lot more intense than it actually is when you really get to know me. As concerned as I am about my friendship with her, I don't have trouble sleeping because of it and I don't get super depressed over it. That's not to say it doesn't worry me. 

Edited July 9, 2020 by TheEternalPessimist

[ShyViolet]

Your level of intensity surrounding this friendship is a little much, and it's enough to scare a lot of people off.  

OP, it sounds like you are craving a meaningful friendship with someone.  This girl is not going to be that for you, at least not anything more than just online.  She's not interested in meeting up in person.  She's already given lots of clues to that.  You should make a new friend, someone who actually lives closer to you.

Edited July 9, 2020 by ShyViolet

[TheEternalPessimist]

25 minutes ago, ShyViolet said:

Your level of intensity surrounding this friendship is a little much, and it's enough to scare a lot of people off.  

OP, it sounds like you are craving a meaningful friendship with someone.  This girl is not going to be that for you, at least not anything more than just online.  She's not interested in meeting up in person.  She's already given lots of clues to that.  You should make a new friend, someone who actually lives closer to you.

Define "level of intensity". It's an online friendship, there's only so much intensity you can display in non face-to-face interactions writing text messages on a phone or computer. She's allowed to breathe and to exist outside of WhatsApp. I'm not pestering her in any way nor have I ever been confrontational with her about anything which is what makes this current situation so difficult because it might require some confrontation which I don't want and am not fully prepared for.

She hasn't given me "lots of clues", I wouldn't call declining twice to meet me over a year ago when she was still a minor "lots of clues". Apart from those two instances, we've never discussed meeting and over the past 4 years discussions about meeting in real life represent like 0,0000001% of all our text messages.

You say I should make a new friend and give up on her but friendships are not water valves that you can just turn on and off whenever you feel like it. That's why moving on and cutting all contact is ideally not something I want to settle for in the future because it's the easy option and it's not fair. I also like to think she would be negatively impacted if I took that decision. Of course, if I had any genuine way of knowing for sure that she wouldn't care if we stopped talking and would move on in a matter of days, I would immediately move on from the friendship myself and cut her from my life entirely. 

Frankly, if after so many years of chatting and getting to know one another so much she genuinely absolutely has no interest in ever meeting me in real life despite the fact that I now live in her country and am actively learning her language then I find that extremely sad and disheartening to say the least and I am prepared to tell her that if need be. 

Edited July 9, 2020 by TheEternalPessimist

[ShyViolet]

I didn't say cut off all contact.  And by "level of intensity" I'm more talking about the intensity you are displaying in the way you talk about the friendship here.  

If you're going to respond to all advice that people give you here with counter-arguments and rationalizations, then I'm not sure why you came here looking for advice.  You seem like you have your mind made up that it's the way YOU see it.

[TheEternalPessimist]

I fail to see what's intense about it, I care deeply about my friends (the people I consider my friends) and want things to work. Who doesn't want that? I don't want there to be any more frustation in this friendship. 

To be fair, as much as I appreciate all the comments, I haven't gotten a lot of actual tangible advice that I can fully apply to my situation besides being told to "move on" and being told I was creepy, too intense and such. Also and I'm not pointing to anyone in particular, the way some people responded to some specific points I've made makes it seem as though they didn't read my initial message properly or read what they wanted to read (saw what they wanted to see). 

Edited July 9, 2020 by TheEternalPessimist

[JTSW]

3 hours ago, TheEternalPessimist said:

I want to simply let her know how I feel about this so we can decide together what to do next.

If she wanted to meet you she would've done so a long time ago.

But she hasn't because she doesn't want to.

Let it go!

[SincereOnlineGuy]

1 hour ago, ShyViolet said:

Your level of intensity surrounding this friendship is a little much, and it's enough to scare a lot of people off.  

 

That summarizes this whole issue in a nutshell.

 

The subtle difference between the fact that this (perfectly straight, heterosexual male) first encountered this (stated lesbian female) on a LGBTQ app may not be problematic in itself.

 

The concerns are the factors that would have a (perfectly straight, heterosexual male) ON a LGBTQ app for any reason in the first place...

and associated signs and implications to be garnered from such concerns.

 

I began reading this thread thinking that I might have a more broad acceptance and appreciation for (online friendships) than most, and that it might lead to a more favorable sense OF the OP here.

But the intensity in the OP's initial post, and in every response after it, is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too inappropriate to be in the same room with a foreign-to-him, much younger lesbian  to whom he claims zero romantic attraction.   Even IF (the law, at some point) forced the two to come face-to-face in person, his lack of a certain sense of mannerisms potentially known to German society (which she has taken for granted all her life, and he of course will pretend to have mastered, despite having been there for mere months)...  would only further complicate matters.

 

Were this merely a jigsaw puzzle, of COURSE the only answer would be for him to drop any and all interest immediately (if not 3 years ago) and IF the girl wants any part of his continued friendship, sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee will initiate contact and define whatever she wishes that way.

Our OP seems to always need to have the last word  on every point, and that trait just keeps presenting itself over and over, both to the innocent young woman in Germany, and to us during this thread.

 

I don't even have an issue with an adult male befriending a teen female online (through genuine/authentic origins)...  but I know that girl wasn't on an LGBTQ app  to find some North American male who wasn't even near to her in age.

 

This is crazy stuff...   and its ending will not be pretty -  I can tell well in advance.

 

 

 

[SincereOnlineGuy]

55 minutes ago, TheEternalPessimist said:

 

To be fair, as much as I appreciate all the comments, I haven't gotten a lot of actual tangible advice that I can fully apply to my situation besides being told to "move on" and being told I was creepy, too intense and such. Also and I'm not pointing to anyone in particular, the way some people responded to some specific points I've made makes it seem as though they didn't read my initial message properly or read what they wanted to read (saw what they wanted to see). 

Being "fair" went out the window a LONG time ago.

You are trying to justify the unjustifiable, and you simply will not take "no" as the ONLY appropriate answer, from her, and from us.

 

You are at the same time attempting to present yourself both as somebody with approximately nothing invested  in the interaction with this young woman, and as somebody who still "wants to decide together (with her)  what to do next"...

 

At bare minimum, you are overbearing... and that simply isn't a promising vibe to send toward any distant German lesbian that one might want to meet, but not for any particular reason.

 

If there was a connection  between the two of you early in the online stages, it is more probable that traits she sensed in you, matched somewhat near to the traits that terrified the wits out of her in infancy, which inspired her toward the LGBTQ web app in the first place, than it is that eventually meeting you in IRL would have any positive impact on her life.  (neither extreme needing to have been precisely accurate to validate my use of "more probable"   in this context)

[TheEternalPessimist]

22 minutes ago, JTSW said:

If she wanted to meet you she would've done so a long time ago.

But she hasn't because she doesn't want to.

Let it go!

Did you read what I wrote or just the responses? For most of the time, we didn't even live in the same country, let alone on the same continent and also we weren't close enough for a meeting to happen up until maybe a year and a half ago or so. 

[TheEternalPessimist]

1 minute ago, SincereOnlineGuy said:

Being "fair" went out the window a LONG time ago.

You are trying to justify the unjustifiable, and you simply will not take "no" as the ONLY appropriate answer, from her, and from us.

 

You are at the same time attempting to present yourself both as somebody with approximately nothing invested  in the interaction with this young woman, and as somebody who still "wants to decide together (with her)  what to do next"...

 

At bare minimum, you are overbearing... and that simply isn't a promising vibe to send toward any distant German lesbian that one might want to meet, but not for any particular reason.

 

If there was a connection  between the two of you early in the online stages, it is more probable that traits she sensed in you, matched somewhat near to the traits that terrified the wits out of her in infancy, which inspired her toward the LGBTQ web app in the first place, than it is that eventually meeting you in IRL would have any positive impact on her life.  (neither extreme needing to have been precisely accurate to validate my use of "more probable"   in this context)

I won't take no for an answer because it's lazy and she never clearly said no herself to begin with. I think deciding or not to stay in touch with someone is always a decision you take together out of respect for the other person primarily and also because it's the responsible thing to do. What particular reason do I need to have to meet someone? What exactly are you trying to suggest here? 

If texting with someone once every few weeks about school, life, the pandemic, future plans is overbearing then we should forbid any human interaction from taking place from now on. 

I don't see what traits you are refering to, you don't know her at all or what inspired her towards an app, you come off as extremely judgemental, attempting to pinpoint situations you don't understand and attempting to speak on behalf of people you don't know at all.

[JTSW]

7 minutes ago, TheEternalPessimist said:

Did you read what I wrote or just the responses? For most of the time, we didn't even live in the same country, let alone on the same continent and also we weren't close enough for a meeting to happen up until maybe a year and a half ago or so. 

Yeah I read it all but she turned your meeting requests down.