Hey everyone!
My name's Alison, I'm 17 years old and I have a really sweet boyfriend. I've known him for a month now and we've only been going out for a week, so we're all 'lovey dovey'; holding hands, cuddling all the time.. you know what I mean.
Unfortunately, he lives a 90 minutes train ride away from me. (We met online; I actually never really believed in finding a boyfriend online, but it just kinda happened..) But that's okay, I have plenty of time during the summer to visit him on his days off.
But here's the problem. He told me a few days ago that he's going to study in Amsterdam next year. He's probably move there too. It takes about 3 hours to get to Amsterdam by train for me. (In the Netherlands you can't drive a car until you're 18, so there's no other way for me to visit him) Even if I could find the time to travel there while I'm busy studying for my exams, I just don't have the money to go there regularly. I'm too busy at school to get a job and train tickets are pretty expensive!
So what should I do? I don't want to lose him.. Is it better to break up before I fall more deeply in love with him, or should I try to find a way to make this work? I don't know what to do.. He's 22, so what if he'll meet a lot of girls his age who are more mature and experienced than me? If I don't end this now, I know I'll probably get really hurt. But I can't bring myself to break up either, I'm just so crazy about him.
Another thing that bothers me: people seem to disapprove of our relationship. He's from Sri Lanka, but he's lived here most of his life. I have never thought of this as a problem, but the way people in the street look at us is so incomprehensible! Why is it a problem if he's got a dark skin? People look at me disapprovingly when I hold his hand, my neighbour has stopped greeting me since she saw us together, etc. Why do people make a fuss about this? Is it really just because of his skin? But that's hardly possible, you can't just judge someone because of something like that.. can you?
Oops, I've been ranting too much, haven't I? I'll cut it now. Thanks in advance for your advice!
Alison