People who made a “if we’re both still single at 30” pact with someone

Long Distance, Real Love

Monday morning, Mason called the Seattle office. He asked for one more week to make his decision. He explained he had a family situation to resolve. They agreed, which gave us seven days to figure out if we could make long-distance work or if one of us needed to make a big change.

We spent those next few days together as a real couple for the first time. There was no family watching or judging. We went to the movies and held hands without it being for show. We had dinner at restaurants where we didn’t have to perform for anyone.

It was awkward and wonderful and scary all at once. We kept laughing at how we were basically starting at the beginning after pretending to be together for months.

Wednesday, I brought Mason to meet Christina properly as my actual boyfriend, not just my fake one. She grilled him about his intentions for 20 minutes. I wanted to crawl under the table and die. But afterward, when he was in the bathroom, she pulled me aside. She said we were perfect for each other and always had been.

A week later, Mason called me while I was making dinner. He said the words that made my stomach drop straight through the floor. The Seattle company offered him the position with a start date in six weeks. He’d already accepted it because the salary was too good to pass up.

I burned the chicken while he explained how he’d negotiated to work remotely one week every month so we could see each other regularly. We spent the next three hours on the phone making lists of how to handle long distance. We discussed when we’d visit and which airline had the best deals on monthly flights.

The hardest part was deciding to tell our families the truth about everything before he left. Trying to maintain any kind of lie from across the country would be impossible.

We picked a neutral restaurant downtown. We invited both sets of parents, plus his brother Dennis and my sister, for dinner the following Saturday.

Mason held my hand under the table while we explained that yes, we were really dating now. But no, we hadn’t been dating for the past seven months like we’d told them.

My dad’s face went through about 12 different expressions. My mom just sat there completely silent, which was somehow worse than yelling would have been. Dennis actually laughed. He said he knew something was weird when we’d shown up to Thanksgiving holding hands like robots.

Mason’s mom looked like we’d personally betrayed her, which I guess we kind of had. His dad just kept asking clarifying questions about the timeline. My sister was the angriest, not about the lying, but because she’d spent months planning double dates we’d kept dodging.

The waiter kept trying to take our order while this whole mess unfolded. He finally just left water pitchers on the table and disappeared. Mason explained about the pact we’d made at 21. He explained how the fake dating started as a way to get everyone to stop the setups.

His mom interrupted to say she only wanted him to be happy. She added that the dental hygienist’s daughter wasn’t even that nice, anyway. My mom finally spoke up to say she felt manipulated. She didn’t understand why we couldn’t just tell them we didn’t want to be set up.

The conversation went in circles for another hour. Everyone was processing the deception at different speeds. When we finally ordered food, nobody really ate much except Dennis, who said drama made him hungry.

Over the next week, my mom gave me the silent treatment. This was kind of peaceful until she showed up at my apartment with coffee. She said she understood why we felt so pressured. She admitted she’d been too pushy about my love life. She promised to back off on the marriage timeline, though we both knew that would last maybe two months.

Mason’s mom took longer to come around. She kept making passive aggressive comments about trust until Dennis’s wife pulled her aside at Sunday dinner. She told her how her own parents had pushed her into her first marriage at 22. She explained how much she wished she’d had the courage to push back like we had.

After that, his mom started softening. This was especially true when she saw how Mason looked at me now that we were actually together.

The gossip situation was a complete nightmare. Judith had already told everyone at their church about our engagement that didn’t exist. We had to keep correcting the story, which led to even more confusion.

Some people thought we’d broken up and gotten back together. Others assumed we were covering up some huge fight. One of Mason’s cousins started a rumor that I was pregnant. This explained the quick engagement that again didn’t actually exist.

Every family event became an exercise in damage control. Both of us gave slightly different versions of the real story because we couldn’t keep the details straight.

Five weeks after the restaurant confession, I was sitting on Mason’s bedroom floor, surrounded by cardboard boxes and packing tape. We folded his clothes while alternating between crying about him leaving and laughing about how we’d gotten ourselves into this whole situation.

He showed me his flight confirmation for three weeks after his start date. I showed him mine for the week after that. His apartment was basically empty except for the furniture he was selling and the boxes shipping to Seattle.

The morning of his flight, I drove him to the airport at 5:00 a.m. because neither of us could sleep anyway. The check-in line was endless. We just stood there holding each other while business travelers gave us weird looks.

At security, he kissed me in front of everyone. He said he’d loved me for seven years, so a few hundred miles meant nothing. I completely lost it and ugly cried right there. TSA agents pretended not to notice, and strangers actively avoided eye contact.

The drive home was brutal. I had to pull over twice because I couldn’t see through the tears.

Two months into long distance, we developed a routine of nightly video calls. We sent each other stupid photos throughout the day. Mason sent me a care package with Seattle coffee. I sent him cookies from his favorite bakery that arrived completely crushed.

We counted days between visits like kids counting to Christmas. We had a shared calendar with all our flights highlighted in different colors.

Our families had mostly accepted our relationship. Though comments about the lying still popped up at every gathering. My mom kept mentioning how nice Seattle was this time of year. Mason’s mom started sentences with “when you move there” like it was already decided.

The truth was we were planning for me to possibly move next year if things kept working. But that conversation terrified me as much as it excited me. Some nights the distance felt impossible. Other nights we’d fall asleep on video call and wake up to dead phone batteries.

But we were making it work, really work, not fake work. And that made every mile worth it.