Maya Braganza* (name changed) is an English teacher.
We have survived a long-distance relationship.
We have Skype dates and we post a ton on each other’s walls and share music (because we have dissimilar tastes so if I find something I think he’d enjoy I pass it on to him). I like it when he posts a music video in the middle of the day that he think I will love.
We email each other fights. There’s always whatsapp and the phone.
Our order for connection: WhatsApp, phone and Facebook. Our relationship would’ve been impossible without these three. Distance is a factor that doesn’t go away ever. But it helps to have a bridging tool.
Jab we met
We met on Facebook. It may sound lame but that’s the truth. We started commenting on a common friend’s status. We went back and forth so often, she got exasperated and told us to send each other a friend request. We spent a lot of time chatting on Facebook messenger and Gtalk.
Back then I lived in Mumbai and he was working in Delhi. We met some five months after we first started talking. He had come home for a family function. I don’t particularly enjoy meeting new people. I’m a bit antisocial but our first meeting was easy.
He was so cheerful, so bouncy, so full of enthusiasm that it was hard to stay awkward. He goes mental at bookstores! Yes, we met at a bookstore. We both loved books so a bookstore seemed appropriate. We had coffee and then walked about aimlessly for a few hours, content in each other’s company. You may think this was love at first sight but it wasn’t.
From friendship to love
We met a couple of times after that on subsequent trips. We went for movies and brunches and what not. Then came the day I had to shift to another city for training after getting a job. I was very sad because I quite liked him by then. I remember thinking back then that he actually liked someone else. He held my hand on the cab ride back home but didn’t say anything.
We spoke on the phone later where he told me off for thinking that he was interested in anyone else. He asked me out over the phone. It was a year and a half after we had spoken for the first time.
Long-distance relationships are tricky and I was worried we wouldn’t be able to make it. I finally said yes after two months. Immediately after that he went on holiday to a place with bad network and we didn’t speak for a week. It was like the problems of such a relationship was almost immediately evident, but we have survived. It’s been two years and counting.
To protect the identity, the person in the picture is a model and names have been changed.
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