I have a few friends who've had success meeting someone from a thousand miles away online. I think it may take quite a lot of visiting to build trust and intimacy, two critical factors IMHO.

Those are very good points you raised. I think, for me. The greatest challenge someone in your position would have to juggle is the "in between" times. Not dating or traveling, just being together doing nothing but living. Those times are the hardest to get in when there are distances between you two. @kenoaks was spot on IMO, and that "alignment" needs to be addressed. You really don't know until you know, by that I mean, how do you find out what is a "deal breaker" until that issue raises it's head? And that is uncovered thru time spent together.

I also met my boyfriend on this site about 18 months ago. I lived in Florida, he lived in Minnesota. I now live in MN too. You never know who is out there just waiting to make that connection with you. Circumstances, timing, openness and fate have a lot to do with it. I fell in love with him before we even met. His ability to communicate through written word was key for me. It opened the door to a possibility. I didn't even know what I was looking for at the time I changed my status from 'friends only' to 'open to dating'.

I met my now ex- on Match. It was over a distance relationship, she was 400 miles away. We bonded immediately on an emotional level, and soon after we met (not the first date), on a sexual level. We had very different natures, and came from different cultural backgrounds, but fell deeply in love, absolutely adored each other.

In the midst of all that we didn't notice at first that our values were not fully aligned. By the time we did, the compulsion to bond was overwhelming. So we jumped in together and had conflicts all the way through our marriage around essentially the same issue. My connection to love and empathy extended to wanting to maintain friendship and a supportive relationship with my first ex-wife, and but my new wife had a paradigm of no communication when a relationship ends. A value I treasured in myself, felt threatening to her. Her experience was that I could not acknowledge and meaningfully respond to her feelings of needing safety in our relationship. We did counseling off and on over the years, but this impasse eventually tore us apart. Sometimes love is really not enough.

So, I am alerted to the issue of values alignment, and also to my own issue of not holding my position above that of my partner where there is a conflict. Two good hearts were broken coming out of a distance relationship, and I feel like my only chance is to try again...feels scary emotionally at best.

That's the context for my post; if anyone understands the gravity of this, its me.

face to face is the only accurate way to gauge long-term compatibility

I developed a very close relationship with an Agnostic member who lived across the country- full 3,000* miles - when we first began chatting online through this site. We shared phone numbers after awhile, texted and talked often. He moved to the Rockies - we joked about the distance being do-able for a midway meetup. Then my life turned upside down (my whole town burned to the ground) and he opted to be my steadfast friend. He really was there for me like no one else could be. I’ll always love him for that. We did eventually meet up, three separate times. Things didn’t work out romantically, but we certainly were compatible on many levels. But chemistry can only be experienced in person. Somehow, I don’t think adding video chats to our communications would have helped us assess that basic magnetism. But I could be wrong.

Yes, we are geographically sparse. And just like an official dating site: even if you're 99% compatible with someone it doesn't mean you'll like each other.

I use this community to explore and experiment with my attitudes and assumptions. I'm hoping to learn what makes my experience with women so dismal and unsuccessful, and maybe improve things in the real world.

I wish I had some advice but you pointed out the major problem for those of us who might be willing to relocate.

There may be some interesting people but mostly they live quite a bit away. Theoretically I might be interested in relocating, but how the heck can one get to know someone while living some distance away?

I have a further problem with being an introvert so it is already a little harder to meet someone.

Good luck.

Keep travel realistic

I try to keep the travel down to an hour or so each way. I have travelled farther, net people halfway for a weekend, or visit. It’s very hard to maintain a relationship over long distances though.

If I connected with someone here that is long distance and it was mutual, I would think it worthwhile to travel on a regular basis to see my lover. Being worthwhile includes his traveling to see me also.