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Lucky in Love

By Alexandra   10/12/2008

Well, first of all. Here's my backstory:

It was mid-September of 2007. One month earlier, I was accepted into Weaver Academy, a prestigious Performing and Visual Arts school in the area. But shortly after my acceptance, I was immediately kicked out for not living in the school district. I fought the legal system long and hard, only to make it back in and realize that I wouldn't make any real friends until the end of that school year.

I turned to the only place I knew I had friends waiting for me every day after school, the internet. At the time, we all played a popular MMORPG named Fly For Fun. Long story short; I was a hopeless romantic that had never had a boyfriend before. A pathetic, depressing, failure-to-society kind of hopeless romantic. I ended up hooking my best friend up with my first Flyff crush. He offered to hook me up with his best friend, but that friend was already spoken for. My popular reputation stemming from being the co-founder of one of the biggest Flyff webcomics on the internet attracted the attention of a Game Master that I also had an infatuation for, but knew a relationship with him was completely uncalled for.

After a long string of romance failures, I started to see this one young man in particular. By the name of Vipheiyn, he was always traveling by himself. I saw him more and more as time went by, and I began to feel something or another when I would see his character. I had never talked to him before, and he was probably one of the few to be oblivious to our popular webcomic. I wanted to talk to him, but that wasn't in my character to do so. I settled with watching him from a distance for weeks.

September came and was leaving just as quickly. I had established new connections, that eventually led me back to Vipheiyn. We talked together as a group of friends on that day, and immediately clicked. I really enjoyed his company, but he was head over heels for his current girlfriend. Thus, I knew there would never be a chance for us, so I didn't bother trying.

Not too long after we had met, his girlfriend had cheated on him for his best friend. Heartbroken and confused, he came to me for comfort. Selfishly, I saw this as my one chance to be with him. I told him to move on from his ex-girlfriend and look for someone new. Nevertheless, he saw my advice as the right thing to do.

I learned that his name was Ben, but I still chose to call him Viph to keep a friendly distance. As he learned my real name was Alex, but continued to call me Lili – short for Lilithia. Things went slow for us. Although I liked him to extent, my focus was still on Sanny – the best friend of my first crush – who was now single after realizing that his ex-girlfriend was eleven, pretending to be seventeen online. But I wasn't expecting any sort of romantic connection between anyone.

On Halloween night of 2007, I was depressed. I had skipped out on going on my usual escapades and stayed home to play Flyff. Most people were out and about, so Viph and I decided to play with each other for the night. It all happened so fast, yet agonizingly slow at the same time. He told me he wanted someone new, someone he could trust. He asked me out, and I surprised myself and said yes. It was the most nerve-wrecking answer I had ever had to give in my life.

But even after I had said yes, I still longed to be with Sanny, who had hooked up with another girl around the same time I had been claimed. I talked to him in private until the sun came up, about everything I felt for him, only to find that he felt the same way. But we both felt like there was nothing we could do to ever be with one another romantically. Since that day, even our friendship has drifted. He's had three times as many partners since then, and I've only had the one. In a sense, I felt sorry for him. And although there is still a place in my heart for him, I could never imagine anyone but the boy I'm with now.

I've always been a shallow person. I was brought up by my family to look for key things in a relationship; wealth, status, and good looks. Ben, as I soon got used to calling him as we both began to drift away from Flyff, was none of these things. He had status in the online life he worked tirelessly to achieve, but nothing more. He came from a family of spendthrifts who had no grasp on handling money and found themselves in excruciating amounts of debt. His appearance was one thing that kept me at a distance for the first five months of our relationship.

I felt uncomfortable talking about him. It took me six months to tell my parents about him, and they weren't exactly approving. My best friend ended up breaking it off with that first crush of mine, and dating the Game Master I had swooned unrealistically over for so long. Everyone was happy, and I felt like I was taking the easy way out – loving the thought of merely being in love. He could feel what I was feeling, and he tried desperately to make things better.

Needless to say, it worked. His kind words of appreciation and devotion kept me together until I was finally able to realize why I could not let him go. I loved him, no matter what others said about us. He wrote me poems and songs, knowing that he couldn't buy me anything materialistic. He started exercising and looking for outlets of healthy weight loss, shopped for unique clothing styles and tried out different hair styles. He wanted to do anything he could to show me that if I didn't want to change for him, he would change for me – as long as we could be together.

As for today:

Nearly one year into our relationship and we seldom fight anymore. Every argument in the past about our character faults only made us stronger. He wouldn't ever be the dream guy I had imagined as a girl, but I finally knew that he was the closest I'd ever get to that. I still thought about the others like Sanny every once in a while, but they were merely thoughts. Not dreams or aspirations, just thoughts. Ben understood that whole-heartedly and accepted it. He became more tolerant of the anti-social girl with no offline friends behind the virtual avatar that he never realized existed until he chose to take interest in me. With that, he never got openly frustrated over our one-word, one-sided conversations that once upon a time almost drove him away three months in. To this day, he still regrets not being everything I've always wanted, but still manages to thank me for the confidence I've given him in loving himself.

We have yet to meet in person, but it's something we've both come to terms with. After all, we consider ourselves fortunate to be in the same time zone, and within five-hundred miles. We're both still very young, and have full lives ahead of us. All I know is that the simplest things make my life worthwhile. His corny jokes, and sweet "I love you"s. His silly smiles on the webcam, or deep conversation on the phone. I don't believe in fate, or that everything happens for a reason. But I do consider myself very, very lucky.

Alexandra


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