My Friends Said “It’s Just a Phase.” It Wasn’t.

My Friends Said “It’s Just a Phase.” It Wasn’t.

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"You're just lonely after the breakup." "An online thing with someone in another country? It's a fantasy, a phase. You'll get over it." My friends meant well, I'm sure. Their concern was rooted in a traditional view of relationships, one where love is something you find within your own zip code. To them, my burgeoning connection with a woman named Alisa from Ukraine was an abstraction, a temporary distraction.

In the beginning, maybe I even believed them a little. My decision to join sofiadating was an attempt to do something different, to break a pattern of dating the same type of person and getting the same result. But what I found with Alisa felt different from day one. Our conversations weren't just a distraction; they were the highlight of my day. We didn't just talk about our hobbies; we discussed our values, our fears, and what we wanted out of life. The connection felt more substantial than many I’d had in person. Still, the doubts, fueled by my friends' comments, lingered. Was this real? Or was I just projecting my hopes onto a profile?

The "phase" narrative died the day Alisa sent me a care package. It was filled with small, thoughtful things: a bag of her favorite Ukrainian coffee, a hand-knitted scarf because I'd mentioned I was always cold, and a book of poetry by Taras Shevchenko with her favorite passages underlined. It was a physical, tangible manifestation of her care. It was real. It wasn’t a fantasy; it was a scarf warming my neck. That's when I knew. This wasn't a phase. My friends saw the distance as a barrier, but it had actually been a filter, removing everything but the emotional connection. I stopped trying to defend my relationship to them. I just let the quiet, steady reality of it speak for itself. It wasn't a phase; it was my future.