Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Met Him Via Phone Chat, Can He Be Trusted?


Dear Agatha,

I have been dating this guy for two months now though I have never seen him. We are only communicating by phone. The whole thing actually started this way. I met his brother on ••africhat•• and we started talking. He asked me to be his girlfriend, but I declined on the ground that I don’t love him.

He later gave me his brother's number to reach him since his phone had a problem. I started talking to his brother and we became good friends. In the process, we became attracted to each other. So, when he asked me to be his girlfriend, I wasn't surprised. I accepted his proposal. This led to both brothers having a disagreement but my boyfriend says he doesn't mind. He says he loves me and I know I love him too.  But my problem is how can I fall in love with someone I have not seen? How can I be sure he isn't cheating and won't cheat on me? 

It happens that guys seem to be attracted to me a lot and from what he tells me, girls also fall at his feet. I know that I can be faithful to him, but I am not sure of him. Agatha, despite the fact that I have not seen him, I really love him.  I don't know what to do.

Please help.

Onyeka.


 

Dear Onyeka,

First things first, you owe his brother certain explanations. Granted, there was nothing you could have done to stop the way you feel about his brother, whom you have never met. You must do everything within your powers to ensure both brothers get back on the friendly lane.

The younger brother has every right to feel bad because he gave you the link. If he hadn’t, you wouldn’t have met his brother through the phone.

Yes, you may have told him of your disinterest in him but how do you expect him to react to you and his brother, one you have not seen, dating? As a woman, wishing to be part of the family, your responsibility goes beyond what you feel for your boyfriend. You should be concerned about the problems between the two brothers. How you handle it would go a long way in assuring the younger brother, especially, of your importance to the family.

You must also remember these two are brothers, with history and family ties you don’t have yet with your boyfriend. The euphoria of a new and rather strange love may make him say all sorts of things but when it comes to the bare essentials, don’t be surprised he may not be so vocal against his brother.

And with the strange way you are kick-starting this relationship, you need a lot of supports from within to give you the necessary assurance of the rightness of your choice. Also, he is in a position to put a big damper on your relationship with his brother if he is that sort of persons that see nothing wrong in making up stories about other people. An injured mind is one that has to be courted, smoothed as well as nursed to full recovery.

Go, if there is any way you can get him to talk. You need to explain to him all over again why you can’t date him. He has to know that it takes a different kind of chemistry for two people to feel right about each other. At the meeting, beg him to understand and to give you and his brother the support to be happy together. Solicit his friendship. Make it appear as if you really need his blessing as well as support to make it happen with his brother. At one time or the other in our lives, we always want to be given certain level of recognition. In this instance, do it for the sake of your happiness as well as the harmony of the two brothers.

On the issue of falling in love with someone you haven’t seen physically, well, anything can happen between two people. Love doesn’t have to follow a familiar pattern for it to be established. This is where the mystery of God reigns supreme in the affairs of men. When God means for anything to happen, He does it without apologies to known laws or familiar patterns. That is why He is God. He is unquestionable and unanswerable to you and me.

If this is the way He has chosen for you to meet your ideal man, who are you or I to complain or condemn?

Everything is right and marvelous in His sight, so accept him and learn to trust him, as you would with any other man you are meeting in the conventional way.

To understand your feelings best, ask yourself why him and not the brother you have seen or all the other men throwing themselves at your feet. What makes him different from all the others to have gotten you to consider him at all?

Your reasons for falling for him lies in the mystery of your answer. Most times, love doesn’t happen on the strength of a person’s look, it takes more than that. It takes, most of the time, certain things we don’t even know, something that has no name but which keeps holding us back until it meets the person it desires the most.

His voice must have committed the right signal to that secret force inside of you to make you open up your heart to him.

When things like this happen, the best option is not to fight it but to allow it flow naturally.

But that doesn’t mean you both should not make the effort to grow the relationship beyond telephone conversation. Make arrangements to meet, no matter how complex the logistic of doing so is. Both of you must show a commitment to be serious about each other, support your love to fulfillment through deliberate planning of your options as well as merging your dreams.

There is no way you can merge and grow your dreams if you limit it to just telephone conversation. You must be able to recognise each other physically when you meet on the road. There is still no alternative for inter-personal relationship. Love is a very personal thing and cannot effectively be realised without both of you seeing what the other looks like.

All the fears about unfaithfulness, deceit can only be tackled if both of you get to meet and discuss as two people who like each other and want to make something out of the relationship.

Good luck.