I can’t believe it’s been almost a week since this craziness happened. My long distance relationship started back in 2017, an absolute low point in my life. I had to drop out of college and just felt very alone in life. In late summer of that year, I decided to go onto the Omegle text part of the site where people give questions and others answer them. Someone decided to put their Snapchat name in the question looking for people to talk to. So I took up that offer, and met a girl named Sarah(not her real name). She was 17 living in Texas and I was 21 living in Illinois. And so we just talked; nothing much else. We just talked and slowly but surely we became friends. I certainly wasn’t looking for a relationship with her, nor was she looking for one with me. It just became a classic case of becoming attached and liking who each other was. We didn’t admit to these feelings until early spring of 2019, but we later told each other that these feelings came about around the holidays of 2017.

One thing she mentioned early on in our friendship was her fear of being given off to someone in marriage(she’s Pakistani). Never met a person who was in that situation, but I somewhat blew it off thinking that her parents would ultimately respect her own choices and future(her mother was even somewhat apprehensive about her going to college). She and I had a fight about it back in summer of 2019, where she said she loved me but the idea of us being together ultimately wouldn’t happen. And we got into this huge argument which led to us “breaking up” for a few days, though she eventually messaged me back saying she wanted to stay with me and to make things work. I’m sure this was all a red flag, but love really does blind us. We talked and dreamt about being able to see each other in person, spending the time together, etc. Things were even good and strong during the pandemic, going all the way up to New Years Day of this year. Then things just stopped.

After New Years, she wouldn’t talk to me, not one bit. There once was a moment back in winter of 2018 where we didn’t talk for 2 months, but she did message me back and tell me she was busy with school, so I had figured it was something similar. But nothing; nothing on Valentine’s Day, nothing for March, April, early May, nothing. I had wondered if I did something wrong, if something happened to her. I just got filled with so much self doubt and cried about it endlessly. We only talked on Snapchat as she was afraid of her parents seeing her message me and having others find out about us. Can’t believe it took me this long, but on late Sunday night/early Monday morning, I decided to see if she was on Twitter. I found out she was and had also blocked me even though we’ve never interacted on there. Took to my alt account and saw pics and posts of her with another guy going back to when we first met back in 2017, with plenty of I love you’s and girlfriend posts from him. I was devastated, sick, angry. How could she do this to both of us? I knew I had to tell him.

I messaged him on Twitter early that Monday morning telling him that I think we’d both been cheated on, that I was sorry for unknowingly hurting him, and that I understood if he didn’t believe me, even with the proof I had. Went to sleep, hoping he’d at least see the message. When I woke up, I hadn’t received anything, though he did get back to me only a few minutes after I woke up. He asked me to explain and thankfully believed me. He thanked me for showing this to him and that he didn’t hold any anger towards me, that it wasn’t my fault. He would then confront her that same day and told her to talk to me about this.

For the first time since New Years Day, i finally heard from her on Snapchat. She was genuinely apologetic, to both me and the other guy. She told me that her parents had set her up with this guy a little bit after we had first met; she ignored it for a while until they got more serious about it, and when they started talking and getting to know each other better for their parents, she kept secretly talking to me and didn’t bring me up. I was essentially her escape from the reality of her future; I was the guy she had chosen to love instead of being set up with the expectation to marry. She knew it was a mistake to let things go so far between us, that she was sorry for having hurt us. It also hurt her so much to know that she had to choose what was best for her and her family, they wanted her to have a stable financial arrangement so she can go through college and be with someone of their own faith. She doesn’t regret having met me, spending the time we had together and being happy with me. She’s now left to work things out with her boyfriend, the one she was set up with.

As for me, I’m now alone. I’m jealous that she at least still has someone there for her, even if things are awkward between them and will take time to work through. Though I don’t doubt that he’s a good guy and that they do love each other. Still, I don’t hate her; I wanted to; I have every reason to. But it’s just not me to be like that. It doesn’t do me or her any good holding all this anger and regretfully looking back. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. No matter how I feel, I forgave Sarah; I’m glad I met her and wish her nothing but the best! I love her too much to ruin her life just for me. She and I have decided to remain friends, choosing to talk to each other every once in a while. I know I come off as too forgiving and a pushover, but I do think it’s genuinely for the best. And I know that things’ll be hard for me, but I have my ways to cope, and I’ve learned to live life little by little, each day as it comes. It’s worrying and painful, sure, but it’s just as thrilling and joyful!

If you’ve made it this far, congrats and thank you for taking time out of your day to read my recent experience; take care!

TLDR: Had a long distance relationship with a girl who was set up with someone else by her parents.