So... the point of my post here? I was hoping to hear success stories of long-distance friends meeting after many years. It could totally happen?

Anything is possible

My current "special friend" and I met at an academic summer program/camp in high school. It was a very short program but we connected really well and kept in touch after via skype and whatnot, texting, etc

Fast forward, mind you we live in cities 6+ hours apart, went to different universities, are on somewhat different paths- we still kept in touch 5 years later, minus 1 year or so because they were in a relationship and cut me off out of respect for the other person- we reconnected and talked nearly every day for several months, finally visited each other in person and made an effort to see each other every weekend for two months, they went to military training and we're still making it work

I think when the right person comes along you just know deep in your heart, I don't know how to explain it but it's just a feeling, everything you both say or do is on the same wavelength, you never fight, you never argue, when you're together it just feels like another day together rather than like your 3rd date

i know this was about long distance friendship... considering how difficult me and said "special friend"'s circumstances are we are "friends" for the time being but all of our friends and family know about us

so yes, anything is possible

tbh reconnecting with old friends or colleagues i haven't spoken to in years is my speciality lmao mostly because i'm a nostalgic fart who kind of hates change

I have a friend who I met when I was 13 years old. I think we're about 6 years apart. She was in a long distance relationship with her boyfriend at the time and things got pretty rocky because there were third parties involved, etc. A lot of drama. But now, I'm 22 and they sorted everything out, now have a child together and recently bought a house for their little family.

Right now, I'm in a month-old relationship with someone I love. We've officially been together for only a month or so now but we've liked each other for more than a year. Unsure of whether we were ready for a long distance relationship - or a relationship in general - we decided to wait and see how things would go between us. He lives in Germany, and he came over to Paris to meet up with my on July to see Ed Sheeran live. He stayed here for about 5 days, and that was the first time I saw him in person. My parents really like him, too.

Then recently I stayed at his place for 2 weeks and got closer to his family, got to know them spent as much time as possible around them. A memorable summer for me, but in both cases, it hurt to see each other leave. We're not sure when we'll meet again, but I know we will maybe in Christmas or some time next year. A year ago, you wouldn't be able to convince me that another LDR would be worth it, but seeing how he reassured me all this time, and communicated with me as a mature individual, it could possibly work out.

It all depends on you if you're willing to put in a lot of effort because these things take a lot of time and patience. It shouldn't be forced, and you shouldn't be with someone unwilling to compromise with you when it comes down to the difficulties of an LDR even if it's a platonic or romantic one.

I also remember meeting a friend I made online from Twitter, he lived in Italy and my parents and I went to see him. We had dinner at a nice restaurant and we were all happy, but fast forward a couple weeks after our meeting, he began to isolate himself, and when he came back, he would be disappointed every time I made new friends because he felt that he was being replaced. He hurt me quite a couple times from the way he acted, and in the end I just decided to take better care of myself and leave him be because it was obvious that I didn't mean as much to him anymore.

While mine is a relationship rather than a friendship, I feel like the success of it still holds true. I met my fiance online, in a group chat. Modern day love, I guess?

and I got engaged online, met in person just this February, and now we live together! It's a very strong, healthy relationship and though I know the actual story of it would have a stigma to most people if spoken about offline, I'm very happy to have it in my life.

I'm so in love, and so happy. Who cares that distance was a factor? It didn't make us any weaker. Made us stronger.

Many of my relationships were long distance. My best friend, , is long distance -- I live in America, and she in New Zealand. We met in the same group chat I met my fiance in, in fact, and on the same day! We talk every day and have a very reliable friendship. We've been through a lot.

We've yet to meet in person, because it's such a big distance, but it doesn't make the relationship any less valuable to me. She's definitely one of the very most important people in my life. We have an unbreakable bond.

Not a friendship, but a relationship. And not me, but my sister.

Her and her now wife met online. They were online friends for years. Then one day she just decided to go for it and moved states to be with her before they'd even met. They've been together for around seven years, married for around two, I think. So, I guess you could say it worked out.

;; not long-distance but i had a subeta friend i discovered lived not even 20 min away from me and after being friends for a solid few years we finally met. went to a party together and crashed in the dude's spare room. lol

i'm planning to meet my best friend/honorary sister from subeta who lives across the country in Washington next summer.

and i had an ex-"special" friend who was asian and lived in asia (we met on a college campus b/c he was an international student). we spent literally every day of the next 3 months together before he went back to asia and i transferred universities. he came to visit the states for the holidays a year or so later and i ended up being the one to pick him up from the airport in Indianapolis (he wasn't planning on seeing me that trip and it just sorta worked out i was free). then we drove straight to Nashville for a concert and then he went back to my place (Ohio) for a few days before returning to Indianapolis to see his friend when they (our mutual friend) finally got into town b/c he lived in a different city. the original plan was that he was just going to be staying with his friend's family in Indy until they got into town. talk about a LOT of driving in a single week for someone i don't talk to anymore but i like to think that's no fault of my own. he burned the bridge without warning.

My first long distance friendship happened long ago, when i was 13 and met my best friend on the internet. We used to talk everyday, until 4am ;v; She lived in another state, so i asked my mom to travel there to meet her, when i tought i was ready. It was a long process, and since i was a kid and my mom didn't trust me a lot yet, she asked me for my friend's parents phone numbers, and i gave them to her. Everything went really chill, and we travelled just to meet this one person i met online. It was really cool, one of the best travels in my life. The feeling of finally being able to hug someone who you've been desiring to talk to and smile with for so long is relieving and feels so good <3

Then, there's my girlfriend that lives in another city. We talk everyday, and im going to travel to see her in a few months. My mother doesn't know about her yet, so it's going to be the first time i travel by myself, and with my own money. She helped me buy the tickets bc she's very supportive of all my distance friends ;w; I'm very excited and i'm sure it's gonna be rlly cool.

Long distance relationships happen and can be really fun, but you really need a lot of patience and love for the other person. Be it a friend or a partner. ;w;<3

My current roommate and I have a decade long relationship, with only these past two years or so being spent living together. We met online while he was living out of the US and traveling due to having a military spouse, and he finally came back to the states in 2017 because he was tired of moving around every few years. I offered to move in with him despite the fact that we had never met physically, because for the ~8 years we'd been friends we'd had voice and video calls like crazy and had near constant communication.

So far it's worked out just fine. We had some hiccups, obviously, because parts of us want to clash from time to time. But as friends we've learned to work around it and make things work.

hey all, thanks for keeping this thread alive 189 days after i posted it. it has been an interesting topic to think about for the last few months. let me explain, if you don't mind - - i was awfully short in my op

i actually didn't realize anyone had replied until tagged me (thank you) but by then it had been a few months and the semester started... i dunno. i just thought about it all.

i worried about boring everyone with details. i worry about that a lot, i suppose. that's why i posted here in the first place. i'm at a weird point in my adult life where i seem to have taken a completely different path than anyone i know in the flesh. i don't mind it most of the time... but it is nice to talk to people about things.

so, instead of feeling worried i am going to feel grateful that each one of you took the time to comment on this particular thread.

also, happy cake day

Thanks for the birthday wishes! Do you have any way of contacting this person? I would just be upfront with them about how you view the relationship and see where it goes from there. They might be thinking the same thing and maybe they are too scared or nervous to ask themselves! Hopefully this helps.

I met my partner online when I was around 14 or 15 years old. He lived in California and I lived in Washington, we would talk all the time and really didn't have an issue with the distance. He eventually moved up here to Washington but by that point we had lost contact with each other. After our paths crossed several times with out us knowing it was the other person we met again in a chatroom back when Yahoo had chat rooms. I had just gotten out of a relationship and was feeling pretty lonely. We met up still not knowing that we had met all those years ago. Once we realized who each other were we've been together since.

If it's the right person the distance won't seem that big of a deal. It can work being in a LDR but it takes hard work and lots of trust though.

I'm not a believer in fate but stuff like this makes me question it.

I've been online for a long time, had two "relationships" that went nowhere. I met someone who lived close to me in a chat room that I met up with and dated a few times, but I really couldn't do the long distance thing seriously.

We were not big believers in fate until this happened either :)

I met one of my good friends on the internet. We were friends for about a year before she came to visit me. We still chat on a regular basis and occasionally video call. I haven't seen her in a few years, though, but I've been meaning to save up and go see her.

Friendships can definitely work if they start with distance. I feel very fortunate to have her as a friend.

Absolutely! I made friends with a group of people on Tumblr maaaany years ago. I left the site in maybe 2012? We eventually ended up following each other on Twitter, or something... I don't actually remember how we reconnected, but it was a few years without any contact.

I lived in CA for a summer for an internship (very far from my home) and met up with a few of them (plus a random person who reconnected with me from a random social site from like 7 years before that??) there. Then, I went to Toronto to visit one of the Tumblr guys I was particularly close with plus a girl I played League with, plus my boyfriend.

The guy and I met up again in NYC (where I am) with his wife and it was a blast. Another friend was visiting NYC and I went there to meet him and his gf; they ended up coming to my boyfriend's 25th birthday party at our house that weekend, and now we're going to visit them in their city next month, followed with the whole group of us meeting up in Toronto again.

It's especially strange because we were all friends in our teen years, and we've reconnected again when some of us are married and living in cities with our SOs. It's very bizarre but amazing. I'm so happy to have them, and that they all mesh with my other friends so well.

I know this post is rather old but I wanted to share my story.

It all began in 2010 when I was 14 and a long-time user on some social network for kids kind of website which does not exist anymore. I'm from Germany and the website was in German but for some reason I thought it would be cool to write all the texts on my user profile in French. One day, I got a message from a girl which was actually written in French and that's how we started talking. Our mails were in French for some time but we went back to German eventually. She is from Switzerland, I'm from Germany. At first, her parents did not want her to talk to me on Skype while my dad was totally fine with it but she convinced them eventually. We talked on Skype at least once a week, wrote mails and letters and even started writing a very long novel together (1800 pages, guys). She also helped me through the worst time of my life and stuck by my side while I battled mental illness. When I was inpatient for my mental illness, she even phoned my dad to ask him whether she could talk to me on the phone and surprised me with a phone call.

In August 2011, we met for the first time when she drove down to Germany with her parents and we had the greatest time. We've met a couple of times since then, supported each other through tough times and even though we don't have daily contact anymore due to university and work, I'm so glad that she has been my best friend for almost ten years and I'm certain that she will be my bridesmaid when I get married in 2024 :3

most of my friends i met online, whether they are local to me or not! i meet some new people at conventions of course, but most new people i talk to i meet first online. in addition to that i think almost all of my close friends are actually foreigners/not local to me. i've met a lot of my online friends in person now, especially if they're SEA or AUS/NZ, but i've made peace with probably never meeting american/canadian/european friends in person ever :P

most of my online friends i tend to arrange to meet at conventions, because it's a good "safe" neutral ground, but meeting in the city or something where one of us lives has been a good second option for people who i won't be seeing at conventions. some who i've been friends with longer/trust more i have met at places like the airport though. has worked out well for me so far. :)

both my partners i met online, as well. the first i got to know when i was still living in NZ; we were in different cities but met at a con. (started dating four years later; it was long distance then bc i'd moved to AUS for university by then, and it's still long distance now. :( sad) the second i met when i moved back to SEA. he lives in the city i went to uni at; i happened to have a family trip to AUS a year and a half after i befriended him and asked if he wanted to meet up since i'll be in the area. we'd caught feelings by then but he wasn't keen on long distance. we ended up dating after i left haha. i've moved back to AUS now so it's no longer long distance :)! and as a bonus, i'm a little bit closer to my NZ partner as well, so visiting him should be easier too. he's planning to come over here to see me this year since i can't leave the country for a while.

Here you go a success story....well kinda

In 2014 at an anime convention I met the love of my life. He lived in Ohio. I lived in Virginia. (5 hour drive). We were friends first. For about a year. We both expressed interest in one another but were worried about distance. In 2015 we talked about it and were non officially together. We'd drive and see each other at least once a month. We were worried about the distance. We did that for a year. We parted friendly as we both had interest in people closer to us. In 2017 we were both single again and decided hey you know what were both single we both have feelings for each other, lets try again but officially. We'd see each other about once a month. We dated officially for about a year but he was going through some serious issues. He had moved back home to Kentucky (Still a 5 hour drive). And other personal things. I supported him through all of it but we both decided for my mental health and for him to part ways and go back to just friends so he could fix his stuff. Needless to say I stopped visiting him all the time. We still talked alllll the time but just weren't visiting. We were at an convention together and the spark and connection were still there. In 2018 we went back to visiting each other all the time though we never defined our relationship. I mean I guess we did. We said if this works for a while and no ones mental health is spiraling out of control we'd try again. I said sure but I was now offered a job in Hawaii. He told me to go and wouldn't hold me back. In 2018 I moved here to hawaii. He has supported me non stop. We talk on the phone every night when I get off of work. We became official shortly after I moved to hawaii. He wanted me to experience my dream. We've talked on and off about him moving here or me moving there. We talked about it alot and with his family him moving here just isn't and option. And my job is not progressing as much as I'd like it to. Needless to say... I'm moving to Kentucky in late 2020 or 2021. We're planning our engagement and disguising buying a house together when we move.

We tried not to do long distance but it can work. If there is really love you will be un able to fight it and you'll do anything to be with that person an make it work. Before this relationship I dated a highschool sweetheart who was a marine stationed very far away from me. We got engaged but it did not work. And it made me SO uneasy about long distance relationships. But it works. But only if you want it to.

never worry about bothering with details. this response is so, so late (i rarely log on anymore) but i thought i'd mention that that relationship had actually ended in a very terrible and sour way several months ago (they utterly and completely ghosted me - they are in the military and something happened and they became too "emotionally numb" to respond back.... ok. their friends and family were still talking to me the whole time, though? after two months i got in touch with them via a fake number and forced them to confront me and tell me why they ghosted me. LOL) i don't think it discounts that such a thing is possible, though