Should I tell him how I feel?

LegacyUser

So I've been chatting to this guy on and off for nearly two years. Now it hasn't been constant but recently over the last few months it has gotten more regular.

So I met him on tinder initially but has progressed to watsapp snapchat etc. We've never met due to him being away for work etc but my question is, is it possible to have feelings for someone you have never met? And should I tell him?

I'm so confused

Dial Hard

I think you need to let this one go. Nobody is too busy to meet for two entire years. Also, after that long chatting to him the idea and manifestation of him you've built up in your head likely bears no resemblance to the reality of him, and I'm not just talking physically.

Move on from this guy and the next time you get chatting to someone you like online, meet them within two weeks. These ridiculous long-term penpal arrangements are a waste of everyone's time and I've never come across one that wasn't a result of one party simply never having any intention of meeting up.

And to answer your last question, no, I don't think it's possible to have feelings for someone you've never met. You can be infatuated with someone you've never met, you can have feelings for the *idea* of someone you've never met, but I don't think it's possible to genuinely feel anything real for someone until you've met them face to face.

lalababa

Yerra just WhatsApp him for a meet up...a few pints in town and see how it goes. FFS🙄

Ash.J.Williams

Confused woman wrote: »

So I've been chatting to this guy on and off for nearly two years. Now it hasn't been constant but recently over the last few months it has gotten more regular.

So I met him on tinder initially but has progressed to watsapp snapchat etc. We've never met due to him being away for work etc but my question is, is it possible to have feelings for someone you have never met? And should I tell him?

I'm so confused

There’s ****ery afoot, nobody is that busy

leggo

I get and largely agree with Dial Hard’s post, but I’d still ask this guy out because if you don’t you’ll be left wondering and probably won’t be able to properly focus on other people. There’s a small chance he’s just shy and in the same boat as you, a larger chance (if the topic has been broached with him being away with work etc) he’s a time-waster. But either way because you’ve left it so long you’ve now likely built the natural loyalty and quasi-dependence that comes with being involved with someone that amount of time...without the payoff.

While what Dial Hard says about you having feelings for your idea/projection of someone and who they are in your life is very true, that doesn’t necessarily make it easier to detach from because you still need to grieve that idea etc if it doesn’t work out. So the feelings are both real and not real. I knew a girl I worked with who went months without meeting a guy on Tinder, they met and almost instantly both knew there wasn’t a spark, and she was DEVASTATED (despite not particularly fancying the guy IRL) because now she had to change the routine she’d gotten into and the hopes she’d built up that brought her joy. So that’s a case of feelings both being real while not having the actual real life reinforcement. And it’s the risk you take leaving it so long so definitely do meet early or not at all in the future if this doesn’t work out.

The way you learn all of this and have it re-enforce and help you move forward in life, though, is by living and experiencing it. So don’t take our word for it, we don’t know this guy and haven’t lived your exact situation. Live your life instead of hiding and wondering. You met on Tinder so it’s weirder not to ask him out after so long anyway. See how that goes and if you need anything from whatever happens there, you’ve got this thread.

LegacyUser

Hi everyone.

So I have read all your replies and some really important information has hit home for me and I thank you all for it.

I think I do have him built up in my head, I'm not living in reality. It's the idea of him I like. And whether that matches up in real life I don't know.

So just to clarify a few things on him he works in America but will moving back to ireland in a few months and we have already planned to meet up and it's definitely happening.

So until then I'm just gonna focus on real life. Like whether
we get on I don't know but I have to find out atleast.

I can then deal with the outcome whether it be good or bad.

So thanks to ye all for making me see that. I'm just infatuated with the idea of him. When we meet I will know for sure.

PerryMason2020

I don't think even Bill Gates is so busy with work that he can't meet people! People living on separate continents find a way to meet. It's far more likely that he has been in a relationship, dating others, using you as an ego boost, only looking to have chats when it suits him or any and all of the above, as opposed to him being away with work for two years and unable to meet you.

My experience with dating in general is that when someone was into me and wanted to see where it would go, there was never (ever!!) any messing or excuses or any head melting nonsense. When someone was just bored or trying to get over an ex etc, it was nothing but messing.

When it comes to online dating it's best to keep the chatting to a short time. Arrange to meet in person fairly soon, and you'll weed out some of the messers that way. They'll come up with a million reasons why they can't meet before ghosting you (only to re-appear down the line).

As to feelings, yes, it is possible to develop feelings. However, I look at those feelings one develops from speaking, but never meeting with, the person they're messaging as being more illusion than reality. Almost like a mirage rather than anything of substance.

I'd leave this one go, OP. Try and find someone who won't wait two years to want to meet. Definitely don't tell him you have feelings for him. Remember, you really have no idea who this person actually is. You don't really know him, you only know him from text messages.

Terrontress

The best Tinder / Bumble experience I’ve had has been where we matched in the afternoon and met that evening, had a little kiss before we said goodnight.

If you start to let it go even a week, you build up an idea of these people which won’t meet your expectations.

I once fell in love with a girl that I hadn’t met, and it took three weeks to meet her. She was pretty, lived nearby, also a single parent, so many things in common. I was sure it was going to be love. Whatsapp messages into the hundreds per day. It ended up as a car crash when we did meet! But I think if we had met within a short time, it might have been great. Or we would have at least maintained our dignity. I bumped into her accidentally about a year later and you could see she was a bit embarrassed, I think she had become as emotionally involved as I initially was. It sounds crazy now, but I thought she was one of the best things to have happened to me in my life, before I had even met her!

Anyway, you don’t know this guy. You have an idealised version in your head. He might spit huge greeners onto the ground, treat waiting staff badly, eat with his hands in a nice restaurant or have a ridiculous laugh or any number of things that you won’t have picked up on from whatsapp. You don’t know him.

I’d say that it has gone too far. His reality will never meet the picture you have created.

Find someone else and meet up quickly this time and get to know him properly before you get emotionally invested.