In the middle of the pandemic, my phone pinged with an email from InterNations, an expat group I had joined after spending time in Switzerland.
My first thought was, “Oh great, here we go again, another man old enough to be my dad is contacting me.” I opened it anyway and was happy to find this wasn’t the case. However, this guy reaching out was from Switzerland, a country I swore I would never set foot in again.
On assignment as a travel journalist, I met a man while covering a story in Switzerland in 2017. What I thought would be a fun week turned into a three-year international long-distance relationship. Despite having been previously hesitant to date someone just 30 minutes from my hometown, now I would date a man who lived over 5,000 miles and an ocean away.
My first international dating experience
It sounded romantic. We would meet in Rome, London, Havana, and Paris or spend extended time in Zurich or Phoenix. Every date was an exciting adventure, but it also wasn’t real.
While we did spend time in each other’s world, it still had that vacation-like quality. We had to maximize the little time we had with each other, we couldn’t be bothered with the mundane tasks that make up a life.
For a time, I believed that despite the obstacles, it would work out. I conveniently pretended his co-dependent relationship with his ex wasn’t an issue and that he really would move to the US as he had promised once his children were older.
Sticking my head in the sand about these things led me to invest three years of my life into a situation that from the beginning, logic said would never work out.
International long-distance relationships can work, but it takes far more than attraction and love. I learned that the timing needs to be right, and you need to have an agreed-on plan from the start. You can’t date long-distance forever. If one of you isn’t willing or able to move, it will never work.
It’s also important to try to live in the real world. There are benefits to doing normal things like going grocery shopping, watching TV, and spending time with each other’s families and friends.
When my ex and I did do stuff like that in Switzerland, I often felt that I didn’t belong there. My gut knew we weren’t a match well before my heart got the memo. When the relationship ended, I vowed never to date internationally again and had no plans to return to Switzerland.
Then I met my second long-distance boyfriend
Maybe it was the lack of freedom due to the COVID lockdown at the time that was getting to me because I responded to that email I got from the man in Switzerland. In the second email, he told me he loved Arizona and had spent many months in my state. It felt like a connection since I had spent so many months in Switzerland.
We kept emailing. Eventually, we graduated to phone and video calls. Soon, five months had passed, the European travel ban lifted, and I was heading to France.
I had a decision to make: take a chance on another long-distance guy or walk away. This man seemed so much better than any of the guys I had recently dated, so I decided to roll the dice.
I told him I was Paris-bound and that if he wanted to meet in person, he should come.
We met up in a wine bar, and that connection and chemistry experienced online and during calls held up in person. We ended up spending the weekend in France’s capital and the rest of the week exploring other parts of the country. He invited me back to his home. I took a deep breath and decided to break that second vow and spent most of the summer in Switzerland.
Dena Roché
We tried real life, and it worked
During this time, I met his friends and family. He went to work while I did my freelance writing. We did laundry and stocked up on Swiss wine and cheese at the grocery store. In other words, we tried real life.
By the end of the summer, I was in love with him. I went back to Arizona, and he visited me in Phoenix the next month. As early as the relationship was, I knew I didn’t want to date aimlessly again. He was willing to move and get married to be together, and that’s exactly what we did.
We’ve been together for three years, and we’re proof positive that if the timing is right and one of you is willing to make a very big move, long-distance love can be the best souvenir you’ll ever bring home.
Got a personal essay about long-distance dating that you want to share? Get in touch with the editor: akarplus@businessinsider.com.
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