How I met my partner: Writer María author of her own long distance love story

JAVI, my partner, and I met five years ago when I travelled to Spain to visit my family over the summer.

There was a small festival in our town, Ávila, with several stands where you can get food and drinks and enjoy time with friends and family in the nice weather.

One night I went out with my friends and we were having a few drinks. At the end of the night, when they were closing, we were standing next to this group of boys who looked like they were having so much fun. I saw him and I loved the vibes he gave me so I approached him and started to joke with him. We had a little conversation, but I had a boyfriend at the time. After a couple of texts and seeing each other at some festivals in different towns around Ávila, we ended up going our separate ways.

This past summer, I went back to visit my family and —call it destiny — while I was at my departure gate in Dublin, they announced that my flight had been 30 minutes delayed. Everybody was getting so angry and frustrated, but I just felt so calm.

“Weird,” I thought, but I just felt like it was just meant to happen. I also realised that my gate was number 111 which had been following me for the past few months. I am a big believer of signs. I decided to take advantage of that delay and read my book which I hadn’t had the chance to do because my life had been a bit crazy. As I opened it, I got a message from him.

“I’ll answer to him later,” I thought, but something kept telling me to reply to him and I just couldn’t focus on my book. I decided to answer him and get back to my reading. He replied five minutes later and I felt like I had to answer back, I just could not keep reading.

We started to text each other and to make some jokes about my flight being delayed. The first time we met, we also found ourselves in a situation where my flight was delayed and he was texting me to keep me entertained.

Then they announced that the flight got delayed an extra half hour, and then again —until it got to two hours of a delay. This allowed Javi and myself to have a lovely chat and to get closer to each other again, a chance I believe we wouldn’t have had if the delay didn’t come about.

Once I was at home in Spain, we kept texting each other and we met at the very same festival that we had met five years ago. It was just magical and like time never went by. I was pretty nervous because even though via texts I felt so confident and could think of funny jokes, I worried I’d get anxious and it would be awkward. However, it was not like that at all. It felt the same as through mes

sages. It was so nice to see him again and to realise that in person we both felt the same way.

I couldn’t stop laughing. He is just so funny, which was my top requirement for an ideal partner. We kept on talking until 7am, which for me was really late. It just felt like five minutes and I was glad to hear that it was the same for him.

We kept texting each other while I was in Spain and met a few times. I even went to Valladolid, the city where he works, to try and spend as much time as I could with him before my return to Ireland. It just felt too good to be true.

I’d say our first date was at that festival even though it wasn’t planned. If I have to think of something more organised it’d be at a pizzeria in our town, which is called Amalfi. It was so weird, because when I’m in my town I always feel shy and insecure because lots of people know me so I know they’ll talk and I always hated that, but this was actually the first time that I felt so good, calm, at peace, that I didn’t mind who could see me or what they’d say. I took that as a very good sign. We shared a couple of dishes.

“You must definitely try the pasta with the pear sauce, it’s simply the best,” he said to me. Then he brought me to his house to meet his dog, who I’d wanted to meet for ages. It was so lovely and it felt so nice to be there. We also went for a walk and an ice cream after that.

We had lots of chats — both through text and in person and it seemed like we had so many things in common. It was actually scary. We would even say the same things at the very same time in certain situations and we seemed to have the very same goals in life.

That’s when we both realised that maybe this was just meant to happen.

We decided to give it a go. I told him he needed to know that I was not planning on going back to Spain at all because I love my life in Ireland, the people I’m surrounded by, my job, and my routine. He accepted it but we both thought it would be worth it to try since we seemed to add only positive things to each other’s life.

It’s tough to be apart. I’m not gonna lie. There have been times when I have wished he was here so I could hug him or talk to him but we’ve managed well so far, texting every day and doing video calls so we feel close even though we are physically not. I feel he is closer than many other people who are actually here. He has more freedom than I do to pick holidays so we’ve actually managed to see each other a couple of bank holidays, which is great and it’s something to look forward to.

He came over to Ireland, which he loved, and he said he didn’t mind the rain at all. It had been something I was a bit concerned about since lots of people complain about it. It was lovely to walk around with him, showing him the places where I go, where I live.

For the Halloween bank holiday, we had a mini holiday in Mallorca.

The next time we’ll see each other will be for Christmas holidays in Ávila so we are both counting the days to hugging each other again.