In Love At A Distance

Dear Dr. Neder,

I met a wonderful girl in beginning of 2002 in San Francisco on a trip from my home in Los Angeles. It felt really natural being around her. She is highly educated and graduated from the one of the best law schools in the country. She is very personable, a flirt, has high standards, good moral value, educated, mature, decisive, over-analyzing, and very courageously bold. Not to brag but the same goes for me. We both respect our Middle Eastern culture but grew up in a somewhat secular lifestyle.

We hit it off great but I had to leave after a few days. She wrote and we started the socialization process. We spent hours on the phone every night and spoke about everything and shared the same passions for nearly everything in life.

Man, I thought to myself I am not going mess this prospect up. I never had met a girl like her before. I fell in love with her almost instantly.

Three months into our process of getting to know each other and opening the way for a prospective relationship, things went sour. It happened when I asked if she wanted to me to visit her. All of a sudden she disappeared for two weeks, no phone calls and no emails.

All of a sudden she reemerged and started dropping subtle hints about her disinterest in me. About six months after I met her, I wrote a very personal email to her to which I received a phone call from her. She says her intuition told her I was not the guy for her. She said that during those two weeks she realized that there was no romantic spark with me.

I've asked a few friends about this situation. One said, "I am sure she will decide to give your relationship a chance." Another friend said, "Don't let her go if she means so much to you!"

What do I think? I think they are both right! My heart agrees and says go after her. My intellect says it's her loss if she does not allow for a prospect. I promised her that I would try to be the best friend she ever had. I care too much about her to put her in a awkward situation of having to fend off my advances.

I am going to concentrate on being her best friend without ulterior intentions. She deserves the best and I am the best friend she can have and more if she desires it. However, my feelings for her are not diminishing.

I am absolutely confused and don't know where to turn. Help!

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Hello!

My brother, while I'm sorry you're going through this, I hope you really feel it burn. I hope that this searing pain is going to be ingrained in you forever so that you never forget this lesson: you must NEVER become a woman's friend unless that is ALL you ever want with her. Period.

You've got yourself into a terrible situation because:

1) You're her friend; this means that you will NEVER be anything else to her.
2) She controls all the cards - not you.
3) This is a long-distance relationship. How often do I try to talk people out of this?
4) About a thousand more reasons why that I won't bother to go into here.

The reason why you want to "...be the best friend she ever had..." is that you're hoping to "work it from the inside". That is, you're hoping that by "being there for her" and that she'll see what a great guy you are and fall in love with you. This ONLY happens in movies - it isn't going to happen for you here. This isn't realistic.

I understand that it's difficult to see what IS real, so I'm going to help you. First, stop this madness right now! Because of the way you feel, you can never be this "friend" to her. Not only will your emotional demands be far too great on her, but she's always going to know you have these ulterior motives and will constantly be guarding herself against them. That's the way it is.

Next, you've got to cease contact with her. Until you do this (either by your own hand, or hers), you're never going to get over this. You've got to get started on healing as soon as possible. Until you do, this is just going to linger and you're going to continue to fade.

Here's something else you need to consider. I too live here in the Los Angeles area. You've found someone that you believe is your "soul mate", who happens to live in San Francisco. There are 34.5 million people that live in California; 9.6 million of which live in Los Angeles County. San Francisco County has 770 thousand people. Are you really convinced that you could never find anyone as good (or even better) than this woman when there are over 12 times as many people right in your own backyard?

Believe me, you don't have just one soul mate, in fact, you have thousands - maybe even 10's of thousands or even 100's of thousands! You've focused all your energy on a single person. While I understand why you've done this, don't delude yourself into thinking that she is the only one. While you're pining away waiting for her to call you, you're missing all the others that are passing you by!

It sounds like your friends are solidly behind you here and you should lean on them during this transition period. Let them help you get out there and work on the healing. In addition, this would be a good time to pick up and read, "Being a Man in a Woman's World" as it's going to give you new tools to help prevent this from ever happening again.

Best regards...

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Have a love, relationship, sex or man/woman question? I answer all email. You can write to me at dwneder@beingman.com for answers. For more information about my books, "Being a Man in a Woman's World" (volume I & II), and other products visit: www.beingaman.com. Check out the discussion group at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/beingaman.

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