The Long Wait Before Meeting

Imagine your friend comes to you and tells you that a man she’s never met in person is going to start paying her rent while she lives abroad and follows her dream. And imagine this friend tells you that all that this man is asking is for a phone call once or twice a week and a text conversation every couple of days. He explicitly tells her he doesn’t want risque pictures, because he wants to build an authentic connection. He’s apparently not married or dating anyone else.

Would you call her crazy? Or would you cheer her on?

The reactions that I got from my friends (yes, hello, hi, I’m the girl who was living abroad on someone else’s dime) really ran the gamut. I had someone tell me that I was literally setting myself up for some kind of indentured servitude role the moment I set foot back in the US. I had others saying that I should be asking for more money than just my rent. And there were quite a few friends who were like, “Girl, it seems too good to be true, but good for you, I guess?”

Ultimately, none of those friends really knew what happened from start to finish, so here’s the full story, and you can make your judgments at the end.

I had signed up for a study abroad program for my last semester of college in South America, and I absolutely loved it. I mean, my skin was glowing from all the fruit I was eating. I was in great shape because I was finally in a walkable city. I was going on dates with men (and getting my heart broken by said men, because that’s also part of the experience.) And most importantly, I was interning with an amazing non-profit.

The semester went by way too fast, and I couldn’t imagine leaving at the end of it. What made it even harder was the fact that the non-profit asked if I would consider staying on for another six to eight months after my internship so that I could see the project we had been working on through to the end. They couldn’t pay me much, barely enough for groceries, but they stressed how much they would appreciate having me on the team. It was a true compliment and a curse because how could I say no?

Well, bills are how I could say no. There was just no way that I could pay for a plane ride back down here and to work for almost nothing while my student loans loomed over me. Almost everyone I went to school with was already receiving offers from jobs or working with recruiters. I just couldn’t justify it.

Until I met Juan. On a dating app.

It was maybe a month and a half before I was supposed to fly back to the US for my graduation ceremony and start my “real life.” I’ll admit that I was scrolling dating apps to distract myself, not because I really wanted to find someone. I think I had a fantasy of meeting someone local who could become my sugar daddy and allow me to live out my dream. Funny how manifestation sometimes kind of works that way.

Juan and I had great chemistry and switched over to sending voice notes almost right away.

While he was born in the country, he had moved to the US as an adult and started an international business. Now he was in town for work and to visit his family, he told me, but really wanted to see me before he headed back to the US. The timing was terrible. I was traveling a lot with the nonprofit, and Juan was on a tight schedule himself. We had a date planned the night before he was supposed to leave, but a citywide strike made it impossible for us to get together.

I was bummed, but Juan seemed downright devastated. As he was on his way to the airport, he had flowers delivered to my house with a note that said, “These were for last night. I’m so sorry I couldn’t give them to you in person.”

Over the next month, Juan and I talked almost every day. I told him where I was eating, and he gave me recommendations for places I should visit. He continued to have flowers and other gifts delivered to my place. I think he liked that I was so passionate about the place where he grew up, and he was really sweet when I broke down more than once, talking about how much I wasn’t ready to leave.

When I told him about the internship, he didn’t really seem to understand.

“If you want to stay, just stay?”

“Well, okay, with what money?”

“With my money. I’ll pay for your rent.”

“Yeah, okay,” I scoffed. “What about finding a job?”

“What’s stopping you from applying while you’re there?”

It was like every doubt that I had, Juan already had a response at the ready. But, he didn’t have an answer to the biggest question I had:

“Why would you do that for someone you don’t even know?”

To that, he would just shake his head and say something like, “Because I do know you and I want you to be happy.”

When it was time for me to get on the plane and go back for my graduation, I still wasn’t ready to say goodbye. The non-profit had a going-away party for me, during which they asked me again if I would consider coming back. I told them that all I wanted in the world was to do that, but it didn’t look like a real possibility.

I went back to my college town, eyes puffy from crying on the plane ride, and got ready for my graduation. I wasn’t really even thinking about the ceremony as much as I was thinking about the interviews that I had lined up for next week.

On the day of my graduation, there was a delivery of flowers (of course) from Juan and an envelope that had been overnighted from him. I had thought about asking him to come out to visit, but he was already starting to become associated in my mind with my time in South America, and it made my feelings complicated. I was overwhelmed with emotions around college ending, so I sent him a text thanking him for the flowers, but told him I wasn’t ready to open the envelope. He said he understood, but hoped that I would open it before Monday.

“I’ll be watching the livestream,” he told me. “You should be so proud of yourself today.”

The graduation ceremony was lovely, and the afterparty really felt like a college send-off. When I finally woke up late on Sunday morning, dehydrated and hungover, I opened Juan’s envelope. Inside was a letter and a check for enough to cover 8 months of rent, plus airfare, plus a little extra. I immediately started crying as I read the letter.

In it, Juan told the story of how he had been sponsored to study in the US by a friend of his dad’s that he had never met. His own dad had passed when Juan was young, so he had no idea that this friend even existed.

“I know you wonder why someone would do this for you, even though we’ve never met. Maybe I’m not as generous as that friend of my dad’s because the truth is, I hope that we do meet. But I hope that it’s in a place where you genuinely feel happy. I hope that you’re doing what you love and not just what will make you money. Making money is for later.”

I called Juan immediately, crying, of course. I told him that I was still afraid of taking the leap. I already knew, though, that I was going back to South America. I sent a message to the nonprofit as soon as we got off the phone.

It was another five months before Juan and I ever met in person. But during that time, our connection grew deeper, and it didn’t feel like we had never met. We had even had disagreements and make-up conversations as if we were a totally normal couple.

When he was finally able to come back to South America on another work trip, I was at the airport waiting for him. We had our first in-person date at a coffee shop in the airport. After all, I wanted at least an hour of alone time before we were scheduled to go meet his whole family. And because we had talked for so long, it felt like the easiest thing in the world to reach over the table and grab his hand. The first kiss was pretty amazing, too.

Nowadays, Juan and I still have something of an unconventional setup. For six months of the year, we’re in a long-distance relationship. He has his job on the West Coast and I got a position in my field near my college. Then, for another six months of the year, we live in South America.

My friends may not have totally understood the dynamics of what I had with Juan at the beginning or even our current relationship, but they see how happy I am now. And I think secretly, they’re a little jealous that I took the riskier route to get where I am. It’s turned out to be a higher reward than I could have imagined.