Last March love took me to Amsterdam, The Netherlands for a couple shoot. Melanie contacted me if I had time for a couple shoot, because her boyfriend was coming in from Seattle and had a limited timeframe to meet. A long distance relationship is so romantic. Flying back and forth to see the love of your life. Is it to nerdy to say, just like Sleepless in Seattle ;).

I asked Melanie and Kyle how they met and how they make the long distance relationship work. Melanie and Kyle started their long distance relationship after Kyle messaged Melanie in early 2018. He found her on Tinder and they starting chatting. It soon blossomed into a relationship and they have been flying between Seattle and Amsterdam ever since.

“Do I know you?”

It’s probably not the best opening line you’ve ever heard. But these were in fact, the first four words Kyle said to Melanie. To which she answered: “No, I don’t think so. Do I know you?”. Kyle replied with “No.”.

Melanie: The conversation between Kyle and I could’ve very well have ended there, but something about this message was intriguing to me and I wanted to know more. It went from a few simple questions to more (small) talk. Kyle send his first message to me through Snapchat, which he added me on in the beginning of 2018. He found my Snapchat and Instagram username through my Tinder profile and he decided, after a 3 month long inner debate, to send me a message.

From the small talk it turned into more in-depth conversations and before I knew it, he gave me his number and we continued our conversation through WhatsApp. Many WhatsApp conversations later, we decided to FaceTime. The first time we did that I was incredibly nervous, but I was pleasantly surprised.

After 3 months (June 2018) of continuous WhatsApp and FaceTime conversations, I decided to visit him in Seattle. Kyle, the true gentleman he is, booked a hotel for me to make me feel comfortable. He showed me as much as a 3-day trip in Seattle would allow, and I had an absolute blast. From that point on, I was hooked. In that same year, I visited him five times, met his parents, celebrated the Fourth of July together and we celebrated New Year’s Eve in Disneyland (Anaheim, California).

A long distance relationship is no joke and is more often than not, very difficult. Kyle and I share different views on this and experience it differently. So I wanted to add both of our tips on how to “handle” a long distance relationship.

Kyle’s Tips:
Always communicate as much as possible. Communicating feelings more so than one would as if in person. Which is personally hard for me, because I’m an internal person. Always have a rough idea on when the next time to see each other. Video call as much as possible.

Melanie’s Tips;
Try to FaceTime as much as you can and try to be busy to distract yourself. The best thing would be to book another trip before you part ways again. Also, discuss when you’re closing the distance. It makes things a bit more bearable.