The first time I met an internet friend in person was in 2017. I met him on instagram. We were both following the same Youtuber; Ralph Smart. Ralph would always post pictures of quotes about soulmates and captions like: comment if you are ready for your life to change for the better, that kind of spiritual blablabla. Anyways, I was into that very much at the time and I think it certainly helped me through difficult times in my life.
So as I commented on one of his posts I was looking through all the other comments and there was one person that caught my attention. I don’t know why exactly anymore, I think it had to do with his username in combination with his profile picture. He had a private account, so I sent him a request and soon we were both following each other and chatting every day about things we went through in life.
Just like him I just came out of a two year relationship, but we both felt like we had a very strong connection. Since I had my summer break from school and I had some money saved I decided to go and visit him. It was a big event for me because he lived all the way in……. Uruguay
I had never traveled alone on the plane before, so I was not only nervous to meet him in real life, but just thinking about the 15 hour plane flight made me anxious. Nevertheless, I decided that it would be a great life experience for me. I felt so independent traveling on my own, that made me very proud of myself.
The flight itself was very hellish. I have very long legs and I could only afford to travel economy class. The fact that I am never able to sleep on planes didn’t make it much better. The food was fine and the movies I could watch made my suffering a little more bearable.
When I finally arrived in Uruguay I was very tired and cranky from the flight. When I saw my friend I was coming to visit for the first time he reminded me of the character Rumpelstiltskin from the TV-show Once upon a time, not so good looking and very short. Everyone was very short there, I felt like a giant. Anyways, he was very excited to see me, his mom however was not so excited.
*I blocked out his face for privacy reasons, but I think you get the resemblance right?
I stayed at his place, where he lived with his parents. The house was absolutely tiny and I can still remember the bruises I got from showering in the tiny bathroom, which only made me feel more like a giant. I planned to stay only 2,5 weeks…
I ended up staying for about 2 months. We had fallen in love. Soon I realized that I didn’t want to leave without him and I booked him a ticket to the Netherlands, which had cost me all of my savings. Broke but happy we both eventually got to the Netherlands. He stayed for another 3 months. The relationship was a very stormy one. We had disagreements about many things, such as me modeling for Suicidegirls. When he got back to Uruguay we eventually stopped talking. Needless to say, we broke up. He never paid back the money I had spent on his plane tickets, but let’s consider it learning money.
Oh, summer love is a beautiful thing. Isn’t it?
Love, Brigitte
@missy @rambo
