"Insights into the Delusional Relationships Women in their Mid-thirties Explore with Men Overseas"

Hi all! When J asked for contributors I didn't think I had anything good to add...till I went on a super long overseas trip. I expected that I would meet a ton of guys over the months I was away, but it turned out who I met were either age-appropriate guys travelling with their girlfriends, or nineteen year olds.

Which brings me to the title of this post. It's in quotation marks because another friend suggested it. I can't take credit. My trip ended in London, where luckily I know a ton of people....including a photographer who I will only describe as older, touching on age-inappropriate. We had a weird thing last year, and I figured what the heck, I would get in touch with him again this year despite not having heard from him for about 8 months. The dude replied to my text in 30 seconds, leading me to believe he was a) eager to be in touch and b) still single. We agreed to meet up the following week, which was basically ASAP for him as he was travelling.

I really worried about the greeting. Would we hug? Kiss on the cheek? Something else I couldn't even imagine? Luckily I didn't have to worry because he was on the phone when we finally found each other on the train station. He mouthed "sorry, it's work"....and apparently this was what I had waited eight months for. He took me to a really nice restaurant/bar where we had a glass of wine and then he asked me if I wanted to get something to eat. Clearly he was re-enjoying my company. We ended up at a tasty little Lebanese place -- which we went to because I had told him Lebanese food was my favourite thing I had eaten while I had been away -- and when he dropped me off at the end of the night, we kissed like it was completely normal and exactly what was supposed to happen.

The next night we had made plans to go to a museum, but he texted me during the day and asked me if I wanted to come to his place for dinner. I am nosey and was also sick of eating in restaurants, so my response was an enthusiastic yes. He picked me up when he was done work and we eventually, after 2 hours in traffic, got to his place. It was gorgeous. I was all "so this is what it's like to date an actual man!" We had dinner with candles and music. It was fantastic. And of course...I had to fly back to Canada two days later.

We saw each other again, and were all mushy, and texted all the time. I totally blocked out the fact that this was exactly what happened last year, and that after a month I stopped hearing from him. You see what's coming. We continued to email, text, Skype, and so on when I got home. After a few weeks, I started asking myself wtf I was doing. I decided I had to say something. He asked me on Skype IM one day how I was doing, and I said I was doing kinda crappy about being back at home and looking for work, and also the fact he lived so far away. He got weird, as indicated by his not typing. Basically all I could get out of him was that what did I expect, we always knew we lived far away from each other? I was vaguely satisfied with myself for bringing it up, even though I didn't really get an answer.

A week went by and I didn't hear from him at all. This was a man who had previously to this been emailing me at least once a day, if not more. I was pissed, to say the least. At the end of that week, I decided I had to do something. I didn't want to just let it go like I did last year. I emailed him and told him that what he was doing was hurtful. He actually replied to this email with one of the nicest letdown emails I have ever gotten, which basically said he found me wonderful but had had bad experiences in long distance relationships before and the whole concept did not appeal to him.

So let this be a lesson to you...speak up when someone is being a douche! You might just get a super nice email in reply. And in hindsight, I am so relieved. Who really wants to do long-distance anyways?