Last summer I was in between jobs and naturally started to spend a lot more time on Facebook. There was a group that I’d been a member of for years which has suddenly been invaded by Americans. I know my precious, I wasn’t happy about it either. I tried to reengage but soon left as there were too many trolls and idiots for my patience to endure. Besides, it wasn’t really for me. I just don’t have that many ignorant statements to make about the rest of the world to compete. When you start talking about Africans and what they can learn from the west I’m out.
Before I left I made a few new friends and didn’t really think much of it but, towards the end of the year one started liking my posts more frequently and I started stalking his page. He seemed normal. He had friends and family. This is all you can hope for in this day and age. Around Xmas we started private messaging and before you knew it, boom! we were officially dating.
Now, as you know I have a 45 minute dating zone so dating someone who lived in the US and not New York was a stretch at best. I wasn’t really sure if it could work beyond Facebook but made the classic error of phoning, visiting and doing everything first. These should have been warning signs. I’ve seen enough of Catfish to know that redflags aren’t there because they look pretty. No video chatting before I got on the plane? I know. It was a huge risk.
I immediately booked a 6 day trip to the US. Might as well see if this was worth it and on first visit it would seem so. Yes, he was nearly 40 minutes late to meet me at the airport and yes, we didn’t really go out much but what new couple does and there were some signs that money wasn’t exactly flowing but, I argued, we are all coming off the back of a double dip recession. Right?
I returned to the UK floating in love. It was time to prepare for the second visit and I did promptly. He was yet to visit me but that didn’t faze me my precious. I was a girl with a plan and a man who claimed he loved me.
Let’s be clear that there were a lot of things right about this person at the beginning. They said all the things you want to here from a FuHu including that he was ready to hang up his players badge and commit. I didn’t doubt that the feelings were mutual. But as we all know men will say anything they think you want to hear at the beginning of a relationship. Just like I’ll actually make the effort of going to a salon.
The only thing one has to remember is that long distance relationships take a lot more work than normal relationships. You have to be able to make sure that the person never feels bereft because you’re not in their physical space. This is not hard to do these days with Skype and the joys of the android.
But, apparently it was too difficult for him and moving to the US was something that according to the US border control everybody wants to do. Not this chick….I’ll come back to how my American dream ……. became a nightmare.
© Chelsea Black 2014
