I dated someone for eight months before meeting them

In our technological era, it is easier than ever to find someone to love, as the constraints of the past have been removed due to the invention of the internet. Many people now look to dating apps to find love, and for a few people like myself, we look past the borders of our own countries to find love.

I met my boyfriend on a dating app, much the same as any other couple, yet he lives in Vermont, and I live here, in Newcastle. We Facetimed every night and bought Christmas, Valentines, and birthday presents for each other, before we even met. We talked about our days, we introduced each other to our parents, we did couple things together, played videogames together, and just experienced the early development of a relationship.

At first, this may appear as weird, which granted, it can be, but I fell in love with him, long before I met him in person, in the August of 2018, after eight months of ‘dating’. We are still going strong over two years later, and both make plans to visit each other, throughout the year.

To any sceptics, I must admit that I have found myself to be lonely from time-to-time, but that feeling goes away whenever I’m with him, as we become like any conventional couple for the time in which we are physically together.  

I advise that people only try to have a relationship like this if they feel able to commit to not being physically with their partner

I advise that people only try to have a relationship like this if they feel able to commit to not being physically with their partner whenever they want. But I have found my relationship to be rewarding and I have no regrets for anything - we even have made plans to eventually get married and have spoken about children. So, we are like any other couple in that regard, despite the geographical distance between us, we are planning for the future, and for our future together.

Times are changing, people are changing, the way we experience attraction and love has developed due to technology, so it's time our ideas about love and relationships did so too.  We are living in the age of technology, proximity to each other has very little to do with our lives anymore. Families are becoming more geographically distant, and increasingly large populations of people are migrating from one country to another. As such, we should view relationships as more of a global phenomenon as opposed to the past ideas of loves and the constraints of geography imposed by the lack of technology between communities. Relationships are complex, no matter the level of technology involved, yet if you both love each other, you will make it work.