This week, I'm moving into my own apartment! I've been waiting for this for way too long! I know a lot of you are thinking "you mean, you weren't in your own apartment this whole time?" Well, no. When I moved from Nassau to come to LA, I moved with my parents, and my sister. I had no idea what I was going to do for a job, or how we were going to pay for rent. It was scary, but this has literally been one of the best years of my life.
When we finally decided on a place to live, it turned out that the best thing available for our lifestyle (and our budget) was a two bedroom apartment in a luxury community. Yes, you heard me, a two bedroom. This meant that for the next year of my life, I was going to be sharing a bedroom with my sister.
Sharing a bedroom with my sister has been quite challenging, but I want to focus on one point in particular for this blog post: dating. Obviously it was extremely hard trying to date when I knew that I had no apartment to bring anyone back to. Of course, dating is not always about bringing someone back to your apartment, but just in case the moment presented itself, I would have liked to at least have the option to.
Me, being the hopeless romantic I am, was still trying to date, but something just didn't feel right. At first, I thought it was the people in LA. I thought I just couldn't get along with the general mindset of everyone here in LA, but that quickly proved not to be true, as I have made some amazing friends while living here. Then, I thought it was the quality of people that I was finding on Tinder and Bumble, but that also proved not to be true as I have also met some amazing models to interview on both of them. No, I won't tell you which ones.
After giving up on dating and deciding to focus on my career, I've found some time to really reflect on what it is that's stopping me from finding a nice woman, and the answer is simple. It's me.
While I was matching with people on Tinder and going on endless dates with beautiful women, I was also texting multiple women I had never met in person before from places like New York, Australia, Canada, and even Germany. I even had a penpal for a brief period. I met them on Instagram, usually asking if I could interview them for my blog, and even if they declined the invitation, we would simply just keep in touch.
After deleting Tinder and Bumble, I really started to notice that I was developing feelings for these women that I have never met before, and it was strange for me.
I was showering yesterday when it all hit me. Cliché, I know, but it's true. Maybe, just maybe, I'm addicted to the idea of making a long distance relationship work.
I spend a lot of my free time watching YouTube videos, but not just any YouTube videos, videos about people's relationships. Day after day, I'm keeping up with the lives of a couple that have either met on YouTube, Instagram, or some other social media platform, and most of the time, they're making it work. This being said, maybe it's subconsciously becoming an obsession of mine to have a relationship just like that.
I tried to recall the first time I've been introduced to this idea. The idea that two people can fall for each other that have never met before. After literally hours of thinking, I boiled it down to one small period of my life, that impacted me more than I thought it ever would.
In boarding school, I had a girlfriend that was originally from Jamaica, but oddly enough, she isn't the star of this story. She had a best friend that lived in Jamaica, that I eventually added on BBM. We would talk every single day, to the point where we memorized each other's schedules. She would give me advice on how to handle certain situations with my girlfriend, and in return, I would give her advice on how to handle certain situations with her boyfriend.
This went on for a few months, and we even started finding free time to schedule a Skype date every Thursday. We both had free time in the afternoon on Thursdays, and would simply call each other for an hour or two to just catch up on everything we may have missed over text.
It's strange. I never thought for once that this was abnormal.
Life took it's course, and eventually my girlfriend and I broke up, but that didn't stop her best friend from keeping in touch with me. We still stuck to our Skype dates every Thursday, and it was honestly the closest I have ever felt to someone. We were literally so close that I would hang up from current girlfriends just to spend an hour with her.
After a few years of nonstop talking, my uncle surprised the family with an invitation to his marriage in California. Well, it might not have been a surprise to the family, but it was a surprise to me. When I told my best friend the news, she freaked out and said that she was going to visiting her grandfather in California around the same time. OMG, was this the moment where we would actually meet in person?
Fast forward to the trip, and we were actually on our way to meet each other for the first time. I took a train for about 2-3 hours to meet up at a mall that was close to her grandfather's. When we met in person, nothing felt weird at all! Conversation was just like it had been over Skype, and everything was amazing. We went to an ice cream parlor and ate ice cream, went and shopped for Victoria's Secret so she can get cute underwear for her boyfriend, and I shopped at Polo for some new shirts. It was a very simple get together, but I remember it like it was yesterday.
As the day ended, and I had to catch the last train back to my uncle's, it dawned on us that we took no photos. I whipped out my camera, and her grandfather took a photo of us. No matter how many computers die on me, I always find a way to save that photo.
As I got back to my uncle place, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, asked me how it went. No one really understood who it was I was going to see, so I had to tell them the story from the beginning for them to understand. After telling them, everyone (drunk on happiness from the wedding, and maybe wine too) kept talking about how this was "fate" and that we were meant to be together. I started to believe them.
Oddly enough, it was a Thursday when we met, so technically, we still had to honor our arrangement and call each other on Skype. This is where everything went downhill.
After the expected "IT WAS AMAZING SEEING YOU FINALLY" conversation, I started to take the conversation to a more "loving" place. I basically opened up to her and said (in a nutshell) that maybe it was fate for this whole situation to unfold, leading us to this moment. I still remember the way her smile dropped as I said it.
Allowing my family to get in my head, I totally forgot probably the most important fact of all: she had a boyfriend. Of 2 years.
I don't really recall what she said word for word, as I couldn't really hear over the sound of my heart being ripped out of my chest, but it had something to do with the fact that she couldn't see herself leaving her boyfriend for someone she only met once. Reality hit, and it sucked. Ever since then, we slowly started to drift to the point where we no longer talk, except for the occasional "Happy Birthday" or "Merry Christmas".
I still don't think I'm fully over that situation, and I don't ever think I will fully be over it, but that was definitely a moment that changed my life forever.
Ever since then, I think I'm actually obsessed with the idea of making a situation like that work out in the end. I'm constantly talking to people that live in different parts of the world, trying to regain a connection like that, but nothing seems to be working.
I find myself keeping in touch with people that are far away from me as if they lived next door, and it works in terms of friendships, but not so much when it comes to relationships. There is one in particular that I would love to call my own, but things just don't seem to be working in our favor.
I'm not sure what to call this "obsession", but it's definitely a thing, and I'm not 100% sure what to do about it, but maybe one day I'll find whatever it is I'm looking for.
This is clearly not something I expect anyone to connect with, but if you have anything you'd like to share, please leave a comment below! I'd really be interested in reading any stories you want to share!
Until next time,
Tristan