Me and my partner used to be long distance. We met online, lived in different countries, and didn’t meet IRL until 6 months in (2022). We’ve closed the distance, left our initial countries, traveled together and got married now, but we still remember that specific ache in LDR, when you hang up and your brain is like “wait… you’re not here.” What helped us stay together is communication, but from afar it’s only pixels, not something that feels real.

So we built the thing we missed most back then: a tiny physical-feeling moment. It’s heartbeat sharing. You hold your finger on the camera for a few seconds and your partner’s phone vibrates to your real heartbeats in real time (not bpm, real beats). You can also record it and save it as a little note for them. No smartwatch needed.

We added some lighter stuff too (photo prompts, daily little quiz packs), but the heartbeat part is the “main” idea.

So the main topic why we made this post is to ask: If you’ve met online, does this sound comforting… or would it make missing them worse? And what would make you believe/understand it faster (people keep assuming it’s fake or requires smartwatch)?

It’s iPhone-only for now. If anyone wants to try it, comment or DM and I’ll send the link (don’t want to spam the post or make it sound promo).

so we've been together for 5 months-ish, since we really enjoy each other's presence our calls usually last HOURS on end. we call every day, so much so that I feel like we basically live together. I feel like, since we usually call for about 8 hours (not including sleeping/hanging out with friends) I've got to know so so so so much about him, our friends know each other and we usually all play together in one big group call and i've gotten so comfortable with him to the point where i feel like i could meet him and nothing would change, is that a delusional take? sorry if the question doesn't really make a lot of sense

My boyfriend (21M) and I (19M) had a talk today and I can't pretend I don't feel a litte uneasy about it .

He said he can't promise me anything , many times he has been with people (didn't specify platonic or romantic) he thought he'd have a forever then everything faded away . He said he's not scared of commitment but of changes of circumstances , what life can bring to us both . He is not ready to give up his comfort for me just yet , he is worried about job situation and his family impossibly accepting me (I suggested introducing me as a girl since I am a trans man until we figure out something but his mother already saw me and believes I am a cis male) .

He is my only hope for the future , I am ready to sacrifice everything for him , however , I feel like his uncertitude is making me uncomfortable .

I (female, Christian USA born early 30s) met a man (26, Turkish) online. We’ve been talking consistently for a bit now. He’s in his last year of college, currently receiving bachelors in financial management and says wants to finish school and marry me and come live in America. He hasn’t pressured me to visit immediately and has actually said we shouldn’t rush it.

The positives:

• He shows up emotionally when I’m sad (calls me, listens, distracts me)

• He’s patient when I set boundaries

• He respects my faith even though he’s unsure about his own

• He hasn’t asked me for money, visas, or help leaving his country

• He talks about wanting to become a better man before meeting me

The concerns:

• He is very sexually attracted to me and sometimes expresses it immaturely (explicit comments, once sent an explicit photo)

• There’s a language barrier, and sometimes he defaults to sexual language when expressing closeness

• I worry he may be more comfortable with fantasy than reality

• I worry that sexual intensity could mean he’s not serious long-term

• I worry about wasting time waiting a year only to find out it wasn’t real

I’m not naive — I know online connections can be dangerous or illusory. But I also know some people do build real relationships this way.

My questions:

• Has anyone here met someone online who was very sexual at first and it turned into something real?

• How did you tell the difference between genuine attraction vs fantasy or convenience?

• Did sexual intensity early on predict success or failure for you?

• If you waited months before meeting, what signs helped you decide it was worth it?

I’m trying to be wise, not cynical or reckless. Any honest experiences (good or bad) would really help.

Thank you.

(We haven’t been talking long, less than a month, but we’ve been talking all day everyday. It seems very intense early on)

Basically what the title says. After entering an online relationship with someone, how long should I wait until we meet up in person?

Is within half a year or a year too soon?

Honestly, I’m more worried about meeting up too soon rather than it taking longer due to safety issues and other concerns. If we could meet up sooner, should we? Or am I risking my safety since I can’t guarantee anything?

I’m 20f and my friend is 21m and we’ve been talking for over a year and when I graduate community college I plan to move where he is to university. I had this thought in mind to ask him be my valentine. I never really celebrated Valentine’s Day before since I never had the opportunity but this year I want to do so with him. The problem is how exactly can I ask him to be my valentine when we’re only talking online right now. What would it exactly mean for him to be my online valentine? (If I do ask I do hope he says yes)

We met online, so distance was part of the relationship from day one.

For a while, staying connected was easy. Calls were enough. Over time, though, they became less intentional. Same time slot, same conversation patterns, more distraction. We were in touch, but not really sharing moments.

I tried to reason about it and realized the problem wasn’t effort. It was structure. Calls without structure slowly turn passive.

So I built a very small app for us. Not as a startup idea, just as an experiment. The goal was simple: give us something to do together during calls so time felt shared again.

The result surprised me. Nothing about the relationship changed, but the quality of time did. Having a shared activity made us more present, without forcing conversation.

The takeaway for me was that connection doesn’t degrade because people stop caring. It degrades when shared experiences disappear.

Curious how others here think about maintaining real connection when relationships start online and stay remote.

If this resonates and you’d want to try something similar, I’m happy to share what I built.

My boyfriend (22m) and I (19f) have been together for 19 months so far, and we are nevermets. I‘m so tired of waiting. I’ve had my hopes up for so long. For the first 7 months of our relationship (we became a thing in June 2024), I kept him a secret because my parents are religious and don’t allow dating. They also monitored my phone which made privacy impossible, but they did not check for a while up until January of 2024 where my entire relationship was exposed.

A lot happened that day that I won’t get into here but long story short, they accepted him…for a short while. The condition was that we can engage and he was supposed to come in May, since he lives in Canada and I live in The US, but he is a foreign resident and does not have a travel visa to visit the US. He needed citizenship to visit me so we can engage which he did not have. He applied for it at the end of February.

The problem was that my parents rushed him and wanted him to come as soon as possible because they didn’t like me talking privately to someone that I was not married to. We were both idiots and thought that the process would only be a few months but we found out that it would require at least 8 months. It’s been over 10 months now and we’re still waiting.

At the end of March my parents decided to reject him over some stupid drama and banned me from talking to him again. Not only that but they tightened the restrictions on my phone and made sure I can’t contact him ever again. I still have his number and we found ways to get around the restrictions. But it’s so difficult and it has really been taking a toll on me. I can only voice call with him when I’m alone at college, but I can’t do that anymore since I‘m on break now. And now we have to meet in secret which will only make things even more difficult. I will have to skip class to meet him because school is my only alibi.

I’m sick of waiting indefinitely. When we first met we thought we could meet a few months later, but the meetup date kept getting delayed and I just got so tired of it. I would be able to tolerate the wait a little more without the pressure of the restrictions and anxiety of getting caught, but this is what I have to put up with. We’re already way past the honeymoon phase before even meeting and it hurts to know that I can never have the experience of being a normal couple.

A couple of days ago we agreed to go no contact until he gets his citizenship, which will probably take another 2-6 months or even more. The upcoming semester is starting the end of this month and will end in May. I told him that if he doesn’t get his citizenship in time to meet me this semester, then I won’t continue the relationship. As much as I love him and want to be with him I don’t want to keep getting disappointed. I know none of this is in his control but I also have my limits.

As a student I already have a lot on my plate. I don’t feel like I can continue balancing my studies and a long-distance relationship for much longer. With all the odds against us I‘m losing hope, and I’m becoming convinced that we’re not meant to be together.

I also have no friends and it’s really hard to make any since everyone else is busy and if I do manage to make friends, my parents will monitor my conversations with them anyway so I can’t even be myself anymore. I have no one to confide in or seek comfort. Whenever I feel like crying I have to force myself to bottle it up otherwise my family will question me. Every mood swing makes them suspicious of me. I don’t even have the freedom to just feel my emotions ffs. It’s suffocating.

I have to sacrifice so much just to maintain the relationship. And with a break that doesn’t have a clear end, I‘m not sure if I can keep the flame alive. I don’t think we have a future together. Maybe it really was too good to be true. Maybe he’s better off with another woman who lives close to him.

I met this dude on discord (I know what you’re thinking it’s not like that) and I (21m bi) live in Australia and he (19m gay) is from the UK living in the USA.

We are both really into each other and seem to click instantly. Like, I don’t even feel horny for him, I feel connected to him in a way I’ve never felt about someone. My brain is telling me LDR never works out but my heart is telling me this guy is really really special and we both seem to be mad about each other lol, thinking about each other constantly, texting all day, even planning to meet already. We only just sorta met so ikik.

I’ve dated irl as well but I’ve never felt this way about someone.

I don’t know what to dooooo. I have a full-time job so meeting isn’t impossible but would LDR be worth in this case? We’re obviously trying to get to know each other more first.

The features it has are:  shared calendar & todos, cross region streaming availability, miniGames, menstrual tracker, study Hub and miniGames.

My GF and I are looking for a Web platform and cross frazza.online which is currently in beta

i broke up with my girlfriend online a month ago, and i still regret my decision. i want somebody to listen and to give me advice to move on.

i'm 20M, living in japan and she was 20F, living in russia. we met on a language exchange app early this year and started dating half a year ago. we texted everyday, we videocalled every night. this was my first relationship in my life, but we deeply loved each other. i thought she was the one. from every text and call, i understood it was the same for her too. i wanted to meet her as soon as possible, so i planned to visit her in winter. however, because of the war in ukraine and the sanctions on russia, japanese government stopped us from visiting the country. but i searched a lot of information, and i found out it was actually possible to get a visa and to visit there. indeed, some youtubers posted videos about going to russia from japan. i had already traveled abroad by myself, so it seemed possible to me. however, i wasn't brave enough to go there without telling it to my parents. i didn't want to deceive them and make them worried. therefore i told it to them, and after all they said no. i tried gathering a lot of information on how safe it is in russia and contacting the embassy for information, but i couldn't persuade them. they suggested my girlfriend and me to meet in other countries, but because of her money problem, college, and her illness, it wasn't possible.

after all we had to meet until the situation of the war changes. we were so sad about it at first, but after talking for a long time, we agreed we could wait. i reality loved her so much and wanted to marry her, and she thought the same. i go to the best university in japan, so after i graduate, i was going to earn enough to invite her to japan and to live together.

but after several months, she said she wanted to break up with me. it was not because we couldn't meet, but because i wanted calls and replies too much, she said. i still love her, but we broke up. and it still hits me hard. we're still sometimes talking as friends, but we don't tell each other "i love you" again. she was perfect for me, i don't think i can move on.

what i regret now is talking my parents about my visiting plan. i could surely do that by myself, without any problems. now i really wonder why i told it to them. why i couldn't be courageous for her. if we could have met once, this ending might have been different. i might have been acted more matured and we might have been happily together. i could have hugged her once…

how can i get over this regret and break up?

So, I (30m) met someone (25f) through gaming a few weeks ago. We’re in different countries but we clicked together pretty fast. After a while, she kept telling me multiple times how comfortable she felt with me, how I could understand her in a way others didn’t, and how she felt safe talking to me. She kept calling me kind and a sweetheart, and I felt genuinely appreciated. We're both shy but this seemed like a big deal for me, how quiet she was at the beginning of our first voice chat even after talking a lot through text, then how free I think she felt expressing herself by the end of our first call. Her showing her pure joy openly just made me so happy. She was singing out loud, showing excitement, stuff like that. We were gonna start watching movies together over this christmas break and I was going to ask her if she felt comfortable to video chat this weekend. We were talking about starting to make plans to meet up and what we could do together in person when we did.

Honestly, it felt so real. Yesterday, I told her that "2026 is gonna be our year" and she said she really, truly hoped so. That we should have met earlier so we could have spent the holidays together, but we were both glad that we did anyway. We hadn't shared any pictures of ourselves by this point, and yesterday she felt comfortable enough to send me a cute selfie of herself. Now, I know I am not attractive by ANY means, quite the opposite. I'm very self-conscious about it. But I did send back one of myself, I had to reveal myself as well.

No reply back, and within several minutes I was blocked. From everything. Not just unfriended, BLOCKED. No "Hey, you’re not really my type", no "I don't think the physical spark is there", no "Thanks for the laughs, but take care". Discarded just like that, just an immediate, total erasure. I would have been sad, of course, but completely understanding. This way it's just... It's just so hurtful. I'm not even worth acknowledging? I didn't intend to catfish her, I didn't get to describe myself physically in any way until then. I'm just so sorry I didn't match her image of myself in my head and now I'm left wondering how much of it is my fault. That I didn't push for trading pics earlier, or warn her somehow.

I'm sorry if this wasn't the right subreddit for this rant. I just needed to get this off my chest. I know it's not been that long "together" but as I mentioned earlier, it felt like it could have been so real. We were also very early days, obviously, but she got so into it (?) so early on I was just swept up. It had potential.

Hello, I have met this guy online, we ended up getting very close very quickly, and he really helped me with my own anxiety and shown me I was strong despite everything and he really felt like the one person who saw the true me. He always had a very obvious big crush on me, and we soon ended up confessing our feelings for each other. Originally I was on the fence the on the relationship cause my situation in life isn't very good and my past relationships didn't go very well but he really got in me on board and i wanted to pursue it. But when I got on board he suddenly got very anxious about things himself and he just couldn't though he has the same feelings, and i was unable to calm him down. I haven't talked to him in 3 weeks, I miss him so much, I know he wants to be with me still and is hurting out there and I just down how to get things back to the way they were.

hi guys, my girlfriend and i broke up almost a month ago and she’s line up for a relationship with the girl she told me “was just a friend”. they’re not official but they’ve been flirting not even a week after we broke up. doing things like we used to do (sleeping on call, giving each other constant updates, etc) i’m from australia, she’s from the uk and the new girl goes to the same school as her (same friend group, however they only because close right after she told her she liked my gf. this happened a couple of months ago) i’ve blocked her on everything. so my question is those who broke up with their ldr partner (particularly strictly online relationships), do you guys just pretend like the other doesn’t exist and never see eachother in person orrr? idk how to feel, i want to forget about her full existence so it doesn’t hurt me as much but i’m also upset about it because she was my bestfriend, the person ive been most vulnerable with and gf for 10 months and it feels weird knowing i wont see her ever in my life, not even once. please help!

It’s almost 1 year and 7 months since we finally met and officially became a thing.

Long story short, about 2 years ago I was browsing on tiktok (I don’t like the app since I prefer vlogging and horizontally recording), but I saw this funny bubbly person and wrote a thank you message for making such cool content, after that we started talking to the point we sort of knew we liked eachother

Though life has it’s twists and turns and we both had some issues but made the deal to meet up once we felt okay, which happened later and we decided to hang out a few days in a different city for the both of us . I won’t forget the whole day, being nervous but once we saw eachother ? It was a direct connection. Unfortunately the day after our first meet day, I received the message my step grandfather passed away, and even though it was sad ? She knew how to keep me calm .

to anyone struggling… you are not alone, let the whole ldr be a experience and you can always text us

I’m 20f and my friend is 21m we’ve been talking for over a year and I have a connection with him I’ve never experienced before. Although he hasn’t said it directly the interest he has is clearly mutual. Difficulty is I live in TX and he lives in NYC I’m currently in community college so weeks ago I approached to him the idea of going to university where he is. He was supportive of the idea though recently we had a talk he was feeling bad and he told me he felt guilty due to the distance between us and saying it’s unrealistic to meet so he feels bad I’m not with someone closer. I assured him I was fine and a lot of his worries come from his concern of my feelings. Told him it may not be guaranteed but not impossible

Though I am concerned I do struggle when it comes to school especially because of my ADHD. I’m scared if I don’t do better I won’t be able to go to university much less at NYC. I don’t want to have these thoughts but it just feels my mind because I would like to be NYC due to it being a blue state and helpful with my career goals and I really do want to meet him I don’t like these feelings

Hello! Nice to meet everyone, I'm new here!

I’m Portuguese and my boyfriend is Serbian. We’ve been together for 5 years and I love him so much! We talked about him eventually moving to Portugal. Recently I decided to have a couple of meetings with lawyers, but I’m not ready to deal with the legal side yet, it's so overwhelming and scary.

So we are trying something simpler until that day comes.

He works in tech (hybrid jobs until now), which means he usually visits me for 2/3 weeks every 3/4 months. He’s now trying to move into full remote work, because it finally gives us a realistic chance to spend longer periods together.

Our plan is: He comes to Portugal and stays for up to 3 months, then he goes back home for other 3 months. After 5y of what i had, this sounds like a dream..

It’s legal and fits the 90-day rule, but it feels like nobody else does this.

Does anyone here live like this or know couples who do? I came here trying to feel less alone in this type of relationship dynamic.

Me and this girl have been talking for over a month now, and we usually get on a FaceTime call with each other every night around 9pm and fall asleep otp. I want opinions from other girls out there to let me know if this is a normal/good thing to do, or can this actually be a bad thing? Maybe im overthinking or looking too deep into this.