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In the age of cheap air travel, the internet and good old-fashioned determination, the fact that you’re worlds apart shouldn’t hinder the path of true love. Words by Dom Philips.
They say travel broadens the mind. It can also broaden the love life. And of course there’s the buzz of flinging yourself into the unknown. As Euro lovers only spend short bursts of time together, their relationships don’t have time to turn stale. “You always make the most of each other when you’re together. You’re always missing each other and it’s always kind of exciting,” says Sacha, an English girl who fell for Josef, a young German. Love can blossom, despite the distance.
PARIS AND LONDON
How they met?
Ana (26) met fellow Spaniard Oscar (30) six years ago. Both were working in Paris for the Summer. “We didn’t plan to fall in love. But we did,” she says. “And then we had to be separated.” Oscar was studying in Bordeaux; Ana had a year left of a degree course in London. “We spent the summer together and we called each other everyday afterwards, but we hadn’t agreed on anything like having a long distance relationship.”
What happened next?
For the next year they stayed in touch, meeting in places like Paris every couple of months. “You develop a way of communicating. It’s like a language of its own. Email is great. Messenger is probably the best. But it’s more about gestures. You might send pictures, or a collage, or a calendar, or a summary of your weekend together in Paris.” College over, they lived in separate flats in Paris for a year and continued to see each other. After that they moved in together and moved to London. The bad part: “You don’t have the everyday moments. And there’s the risk of meeting someone else. You’re never sure. It’s not easy.” The good part: “There is the romantic side—you’re just dying because you can’t be with that person. There’s something nice about missing somebody.”
LONDON AND ZURICH
How they met?
London-based film-maker Ralph (33) met Swiss marketing executive Carla (25) on a weekend in Hungary. “I met her in a hostel in Budapest. It was at reception, I was trying to get an early flight back and we only exchanged a few words, but I never forgot her.” The pair exchanged email addresses, but Ralph wrote her address down wrong and his emails bounced back.
What happened next?
One Saturday night, a few months later, Ralph was walking through London’s West End on his way to meet friends. As he passed through Piccadilly Circus, there was Carla, standing under the statue of Eros. The two were shocked by this unexpected encounter—and Ralph promptly swept Carla along to meet his astonished friends. For the next two weeks, while she studied English in London, they were inseparable. “This kind of chance meeting is exciting, it makes the relationship seem fated,” says Ralph. “We didn’t discuss it, but I think we felt the same way. Sometimes you don’t have to talk about things like that.” Then she went home. They met a few months later, in Barcelona, this time for the Sónar Festival. “There were differences but no issues, except that she spoke three or four languages, and I felt like a real dunce only speaking English.”
The Bad Part: “The distance can get in the way and make for a weird kind of intensity sometimes.”
The Good Part: “You get a real insight into someone else’s culture. The time you spend together, you try and make as special as you can.”
MUNICH AND LONDON
How they meet?
PR Sacha (35) met Josef (25) in the Canary Islands. She was running a yoga holiday, he was working as a crew member on the commune where they stayed. “I was there for two and a half weeks,” she says. “And it sort of blossomed.”
What happened next?
“I decided to stay in touch and went back to see him there in the Canary Islands a couple of times. He went back to Germany and came over to stay with me for three weeks and long weekends and stuff,” she says.
“There are times when the relationship feels like a fantasy ’cause the physical element is few and far between. You can go off the whole idea of the relationship ’cause you’re out of sight, out of mind, then you have a phone conversation and it’s like, 'Oh, I still like him.’ You do have to give up blocks of your time to see each other.” But eventually the relationship foundered on commitment issues. “One person would have to have given up their life if we wanted to live together seriously. It’s quite a big step to take. Or you decelerate into becoming just good friends, which is what happened with us.”
The bad part: “When you need support, when you just need a cuddle or someone to talk to, they’re not there. That’s the biggest negative.”
The good part: “If you’re a commitment-phobe it’s great. You can have a full on relationship without having to commit at all.
MADRID AND COPENHAGEN
How they met?
Madrid resident Freddy (42) and Helena (35) bonded over art and courted over the internet. English-born, Danish resident Helena, was at a design conference in Barcelona when she came across a card advertising Freddy’s art/design website. She was intrigued. “She sent me an email, saying: 'Just wondered who you are,’” Freddy says. They bonded over ideas for months, teasing each other with emails and pictures. “She’d send quotations, and talk about her love for Italian cinema, and about how she collects dresses like the ones Sophia Loren or Claudia Cardinale wear, so it had a kind of artistic sexy side to it. I wrote, 'I guess you’re very black and white,’ and she replied, 'Only if the film’s black and white.’ The first phone conversation was really exciting. When she did speak she said only a few words, and there was a huge silence. It was like, 'Wow’.”
What happened next?
Freddy booked a cheap flight to Copenhagen to meet Helena for the first time. Both found the tension unbearable. “I was on the bus coming in from the airport, and she kept texting: “AARGH! Got to see you now!” I was quite buzzed up. I’d had a break-up with someone I’d been with for five years, and hadn’t felt like meeting anyone. But this one felt… wow.
We hugged each other, which was really strange, but then something really weird happened. I was thinking, 'She doesn’t look like she does in her photos. It’s not instant. Does she like me? Will it last the weekend?’” Despite his doubts, they spent the weekend together. Helena has since been to visit Freddy in Barcelona, and the pair are now planning a Spring break sailing around Denmark to see how the relationship develops. Freddy says: “She is growing on me.”
The bad part: “You don’t really get a chance to totally understand each other’s world and life, or to see into someone’s space and know what that feels like.”
The good part: “It encourages you to talk a lot more, and be more careful about the way you articulate things. It’s like a constant courting in a way, and you send more gifts and cards. Isn’t that what the old-style poets used to do?”
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