Tag / Commitment

by Gibran Cruz

In Love With The Idea Of Love

i hate loveWhen I first read what the character Rose Walker said in The Sandman (by Neil Gaiman) I couldn’t believe that it was describing exactly what I’ve always felt about love.  The truth is that I’ve always been scared of it. Maybe not scared about love… maybe what scares me is the possibility of it ending and dealing with what happens next.

Sounds funny because I went through it some time ago and the possibility of meeting someone and falling for them made me  want to remind myself that I couldn’t do it all over again.

The problem most of the time is that while there are some of us who fall in love “for real”, there are others who only fall in love with the idea of it. This happens a lot when you meet someone “online” or “long distance”. You put a lot of effort into getting to know this person only to realize that your effort is not being reciprocated. Instead, they fall in love with the idea of having someone to send a few messages, call once a few days and say how much they “love” and “miss” the other person. After a while, when the person gets tired of “playing relationship” or doesn’t get what he/she wants, they leave breaking the other person’s heart in the process. They never worked to build something real.

But can we break our own heart with ideas and false expectations? the answer is yes, we can. We fall in love with potential, with what it could be, with what if… that’s when we give them a piece of ourselves, taking a piece of our souls when they leave us. Love does take hostages. We stop being ourselves; if we are not careful we start living for someone else. That’s when and why we hate love sometimes, yet we crave it.

In spite of all risks we choose to love. Someone once told me that the heart has reasons that the mind doesn’t know. We are afraid to be hurt yes but we build our defenses with windows so we can see what’s out there and give us one more chance. Always one more. We are afraid of having to explains our relationships and reasons to others, how we met and where. Afraid of what to do if it ends cause it’s like the song 50 Ways To Say Goodbye by Train, trying to explain why the other person is not with us anymore or why it didn’t work and we end up feeling not only broken but stupid about it. In my opinion, we have the wrong mindset. We should worry about building something real with a person who has more than just ideas. In the end, knowing the difference between what you wish it was, what you think you have and what really is will save you a lot of heartache.

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by Gibran Cruz

A & J : A Love Story In The Making

Everyone who knows me knows I’m a sucker for a romantic story. So I’m sorry for the friend who complained about me writing about love… I promise I will tell you some other stories, just not this time.

This time, I will tell you about A and his friend J. I met A last summer, he was working a summer job through one of those youth government programs and was placed at my office (another government agency). Like any other teenager, A was involved with sports, friends, and social media. What really caught my attention was that the highlight of his summer was the visit of a longtime friend. For the time that he was working at my office, I heard a lot of things about J. His eyes would lit up every time he talked about her and I just wanted to know more as days passed because this was a real love story in the making.

A and J were best friends growing up together until J’s mother moved her to the U.S mainland. You would think that they would grow apart since they were not only physically apart, but both involved in normal teenager things. To my surprise when I asked A about it, he told me how they decided to keep their relationship long distance by calling each other, texting, video calling and of course, the help of social media, our ally in the battle against long distance.

I was clearly impressed by A and his commitment even when other teenagers didn’t seem to have his level of understanding and faith in a relationship like this. He is very mature in everything regarding his LDR and his future plans with his S/O. Now this here is something you don’t see every day – a guy with a plan! They have one more year of high school before they can start to close the distance and they are not taking any steps back. He is very sure j is not only her S/O but her soul mate… he was sure of this since they were younger.

I know a lot of people will think or say that they are too young. But let this be an example of dedication, effort, commitment…all key ingredients to build a lasting relationship. Let this be an example of what love can do if we learn to nurture it from a young age. Let this be an amazing love story (in the making).

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by Gibran Cruz

The Exchange

“Suddenly someone comes along and insists in changing your life, making it a little less complicated. Little by little, day by day, smiling and trusting that the best is yet to come. Rare, special, the kind of person who are worth fighting for and if I had to choose an ending, it would’ve been one like this one, because you have taught me that life isn’t about turning a page of a calendar, but understanding that every page of that calendar is unique and unrepeatable. My heart is already too small for how great you are”

Those were the words I kept reading all over the internet. It was written in Spanish and as soon as I saw it, I knew I had to try and translate it or at least convey the same feeling. I read them and couldn’t help but to think of Ahmad. He is that kind of person. The kind that walks into your life and takes you by surprise.

He was the change in my life but also the constant balance to my chaos. My partner in the war against time and distance. With him, I understood that life was more than counting days. Life is about making the days of the calendar count because every single one of them is an opportunity to build something better and be one day closer to our goals, our future. I know that meeting him was a once in a lifetime occurrence. You don’t get that lucky twice.

Today is Valentine’s Day and everyone in a LDR knows it can be challenging. We know that love is not about a single day…but days like this one reminds me that as each page of a calendar change, we keep sharing details and making memories even in the distance. After all, love is about that. Its all in the details.

Note: The first part of the post (El Intercambio) is a loose translation of something I saw on different websites while doing an internet search.

by Gibran Cruz

To The One Who Has My Love (Love Letter #4)

Giving up it’s easy. Staying after a fight to try and fix what’s wrong… that’s the real test. It seems that I always find the best words when I’m at the verge of letting my anger get the best of me. Love letters are relationship savers after all… don’t forget to let the love flow out in words.


by Gibran Cruz

Guest Post by Sean Mars: Commitment in a LDR

I was talking to “Pamela” for almost 2 years. Finally, at a beer garden overlooking the Allegheny river I finally had the chance to meet her. After the first pint I had an idea that we had differences of opinions. She exceeded all of my expectations; I felt a wave of disenchantment and disappointment coming from her. By the third pint it was clear that I expected too much and came all that way for nothing. For a moment I regretted putting myself out there. I went to bed that evening rather depressed, wondering what was wrong with me. 1000 things could’ve been wrong with me that she did not agree with, looking back. I was happy for the chance to have finally met her versus having her as a possibility that I would maybe someday, one day, get enough strength to meet in person.

A few months later she told me that she had no romantic interest in me and wished to be friends. I agreed, knowing then that now it meant a distant acquaintance.

When people talk about long-distance relationship that started on the Internet(ie. Internet LDR), it usually involves deep thought-provoking conversation, instant messaging throughout the day and the occasional cyber sexual encounter. While many people talk about meeting each other, such an occurrence might happen or not. Both parties earnestly want to see each other in real life. Stories like the one I told above doesn’t help that.

People get afraid.

Finding an Internet LDR partner can be such a gift. You can see people, they can see you, and you have a wide variety of mediums to make your relationship work. But there comes a time where we have to come out from behind our respective screens and hold the hand of the person who was touching another keyboard in another room, far away.

To do that takes a different type of commitment than to figure out time zones for possible date nights. It is the desire to be engaged, though the prospect of success might be poor. Think about it, meeting an Internet LDR partner in real life for the first time is like meeting a possible partner in real life. It doesn’t matter if you’re on a blind date, connected through a message board or dating profile. Distance becomes irrelevant. All that matters is time. For someone who is local that real life meeting commitment happens in days or weeks. An Internet LDR could be months and years.

Sooner or later one partner would want to meet the other, willing to travel great distances to seek out the possibility of a real-life relationship. The other partner might be not want to meet for a variety of reasons. Those reasons have to be dealt with.

If the point of an Internet LDR is to meet, marry and live happily ever after, then the there has to be an overall commitment to make it work. Meeting in person is just the opening of this larger cluster that is a committed relationship. It’s not about promising to meet and never following through. It’s about having this virtual relationship with the understanding that it’s temporary and will be superseded by a real-life one.

Yet people think that an engagement ring, gifts and elaborate virtual encounters make a relationship. But what are they really? Is it someone who will never hesitate to tell you that they love you? Someone who willing to stand by your side in all encounters? What about that person who’s willing to travel to ends the earth, literally? A $2000 engagement ring delivered via special courier pales next to your former virtual lover placing a $150 ring on your finger. One is a financial commitment, the other one is a commitment of many resources. The former looks great to your Facebook friends, the latter appeals to your emotional and intellectual needs. The problem with gifts is they are material and somewhat ephemeral. You wear the ring, but the ring is a symbol of commitment. If after a period of time no action has taken place, the two of you are still apart, that symbol would look like an indictment of idleness.

Yes, again, it’s possible that nothing could come from taking a chance with this person. They might go ghost on you in the last possible moment. You find out they are really catfishing, not who they claim to represent. Finally, they could reject you for a variety of reasons. But what is the alternative? While there are some merits for having an Internet relationship that is not the goal for most people. When exchanges of love happens, intimate conversations ensue, people start thinking of each other all the time, each person want to know are they going to share their lives with this other person physically in a meaningful timeframe.

If you been afraid in meeting your Internet LDR it’s time to show some bravery. Pick a date that the both of you can agree that you will get together and make arrangements. If you and your partner live on the other side of the world and the both of you are financially capable why not meet in the middle? For example, one person lives in Calgary, the other lives in Johannesburg. Why not try to meet in Paris or Madrid? It doesn’t have to be fancy(a three-star hotel in Madrid gives a unique cultural flavor missing from better hotels) or particularly long (5 days should do it), but it should happen.

When you meet and hug each other it will feel like the beginning of something new. Hopefully that feeling to be with you forever, long after details fade away in memory.

 

About the author:   Sean Mars, writer of A Google 365 Days blog is currently not in an Internet LDR. He lives in Detroit, Michigan.

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