When Your Lover Lives in Hong Kong

What if, despite your best efforts, it all comes crashing down?

Image via Pexels

They say we cannot choose who we fall in love with, and ain’t that the truth? If we could, we would probably choose someone who perfectly matches all the personality traits we claim we prefer, not to mention, we would go for someone whose lifestyle and habits perfectly align with ours.

But what would be the fun in that?

I laugh when I learn there are people who actually create lists compiling all of the non-negotiable characteristics their person must have. Some of the items I have seen include a specific height and weight, a certain income, “loves movies,” or similar items.

Of course, it is important to have standards, but in my mind, that should apply to stuff such as: it’s not racist, doesn’t hate men/women, it’s not cruel to animals, and so on.

In short, for starters, they must not be a horrible person. After that, at least in my case, the attractive features of a person can vary greatly.

Back on the subject of lists, it has always fascinated me when someone pulls out one, because I have never been able to do it. Might as well try; I cannot come up with a list of items a person must have for me to feel attracted to them. So, in an effort to give you something to read, I will reverse-engineer the process by thinking of the characteristics (the good and the ones that made those relationships die down) my exes and my current boyfriend have in common to see if I can figure this out:

• Must have ingenuity: I love it when someone is clever and brings a think-out-of-the-box way of being to the table. Oh, and perhaps this is a good moment to tell you my first-ever fictional crush was MacGyver. It all started there…
• They are not snobbish: I cannot stand it when someone thinks they are above other people. I can understand you not liking someone or not being interested in a certain topic, but when your attitude involves looking down on others? I’m already starting to feel bored in your presence.
• They are perennially curious: They are constantly learning, asking questions, and willing to open their mind to new things.
• They are datable: not currently in a long-term relationship (I have made the mistake of allowing myself to be emotionally tangled with people who were taken and I learned not to do that ever again), not 100% busy with work so they will never have time for me to the point I have to wonder if they are still alive, and, of course, we can actually spend time together so we can get to know each other.

It’s a nice list, huh?

Except for one little detail…one I’m breaking right now. To be clear, I cannot really see my boyfriend that frequently, for the simple reason that he lives in the US and I live in Mexico.

Never see Chicago again

I started thinking about this because of a James Baldwin quote. To be precise, it was this one:

If your lover lives in Hong Kong and cannot get to Chicago, it will be necessary for you to go to Hong Kong. Perhaps you will spend your life there, and never see Chicago again. And you will, I assure you, as long as space and time divide you from anyone you love, discover a great deal about shipping routes, airlines, earthquakes, famine, disease, and war. And you will always know what time it is in Hong Kong, for you love someone who lives there. And love will simply have no choice but to go into battle with space and time and, furthermore, to win. — James Baldwin

No, my lover doesn’t live in Hong Kong, but Los Angeles is still several miles away from me, so the result remains the same.

We both travel back and forth as much as time and money allow, but still, sometimes we can go months without seeing each other. We text and talk on the phone, but obviously, it will never be the same as breathing the same air.

And, when we manage to be in the same room, our time together could pretty much be described as a vacation, in which we both have to suspend certain aspects of our lives to focus on the here and now we get to share for a few days.

Engaging in battle

And that’s the pickle, you see? To get to know someone and fully love them, there is nothing better than sharing the ins and outs of life. That’s why you often feel your bond with someone strengthen after you have faced a problem together: you got to see them in action, and they saw you. You now know more about their personality, and even their alleged flaws give you an insight into who they really are.

I read once that all long-distance relationships end, and that it can go one of two ways:

1. Distance and lack of familiarity takes its toll, and the relationship dies down.
2. The distance ends, and the relationship can now evolve to whatever the two people decide to make of it.

So, assuming one wants to avoid scenario #1, the wisdom on that social media post from above rings true.

If you want to make it work, you will have to go into battle with space, time, logistics, and the price of bus tickets. You will run a secondary program in your brain that is always looking for new opportunities to see your lover, and, ideally, make it so you don’t have to struggle with distance ever again.

In other words, it will take effort, and you will gladly do your best because this is what you both want and because you cannot wait to get to know them in their entirety and to learn just what happens when it comes time to do the laundry and decide who washes the dishes on Sundays.

But what if, despite your best efforts, it all comes crashing down?

Oh, that’s a fair question. What if, after everything you did to be together, it turns out that being in the same home isn’t as nice as you thought it was going to be?

I don’t know how to tell you this, but you will deal with it, because that’s the only grown-up thing you can do, especially because the alternative is to keep the relationship in fantasy land, where it will never grow, and, hey, you are not Peter Pan, are you?

I don’t know how things will go for my boyfriend and me. Even though our cities are not that far away, we are still in different countries and have different nationalities, so that adds learning about Mexican immigration laws to the list of things we have to do. Four years after we started seeing each other, the desire to find out what happens if we get to spend more time together remains, so at the very least, I know that curiosity runs strong in us.

It is up to us to conquer the shipping routes and tame the wars James Baldwin wrote about. The battle is still raging, and we are determined to win.

I started an experiment: I’m recording myself while writing! To witness the process, visit this link.

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