I think itâs naive to suggest with 7 billion people on the planet that the person youâve supposed to end up with is automatically going to be on your doorstep. Nevertheless thereâs a practicality to dating local isnât there?
I remember going on a date a few years ago and this woman lived relatively locally. I spent the day at work, we went out for dinner and I was home again the same night â a traditional date! She was friendly, we had plenty in common, she was relatively attractive and we had a nice meal together but that was it. She ticked all of the right boxes on paper but it was just nice. It wasnât a bad date as such, itâs just that it wasnât a date-date, it was a mate date. There was no chemistry, no butterflies, no spark and ultimately no second date.
As practical as finding someone that lives locally is, you need that something extra and for whatever reason I always seem to find it in people that live millions of miles away from where I live.
Iâve given some mention to my romances in this post here (Read me!), when explaining why I visited Salzburg, so you might recall that before dating Haleigh (Washington State) that my love interests were with Mella in Georgia.
Things had fizzled out with Nicole but of course, Germany wasnât far enough away to find love so I made my first trip across the pond in eight years.
Iâd only ever been to the USA on family trips to Florida (1997, 2002, 2004, & 2008) and my parents had pretty much taken the lead on those trips so it felt like this was my first time visiting the US as an âadultâ. I was traveling solo and the first piece of business was to get a valid visa. Itâs actually pretty simple, you can easily do it online and it wasnât too expensive. Visa granted â Iâm going to the USA!!
The excitement and nerves kicked in. I was going to meet Mella finally, plus some of her friends and family, but on the flipside I was going to meet Mella finally. On one hand it was exciting but on the other hand, itâs a bloody long âfirst dateâ if you can call it that. I was going to Georgia for two weeks!
Maybe. Thatâs the thing about booking a trip, you do so assuming youâll reach your destination without any issues. US border control had other ideas –Â âdonât be nervous about meeting Mella, thereâs no guarantee weâll let you in to Georgia anyway!!â
Booking your ticket and having valid documentation is only step one of entering the USA. On arrival I walked up to the next available desk and the entry process began. Passport checked, visa checked, fingerprints checked, eyes (retinal scanner) checked!
âCongratulations, youâve passed step two! Now for the questioning!â
âIâm sorry, what?â
Youâve literally matched my fingerprints! What more do you want from me? The man at the desk asked me why I was here and in the back of my head was this little voice â âhonesty is the best policyâ.
So naturally I explained I was visiting somebody. In most places you visit thatâs followed with a âhave a nice trip Sirâ but not here, not in the USA! It had set the alarm bells ringing.
âYOUâRE DOING WHAT!? NOT ON MY WATCH SON!â
Moments later heâd picked up the phone and I knew that wasnât a good sign. Shortly after an announcement was belting out of the tannoy system.
âCan someone please come and take this high-risk criminal away from desk number..â
It might have been a little more subtle than that but was effectively the message behind it, I looked up and wasnât surprised to see it was my desk. Great. Iâve failed already.
âCan you follow this woman please?â
I foolishly thought I might get some sort of greeting but no, she snubbed my entire existence. The back of her head was as close as we were acquainted with eachother. This is the famous Southern hospitality Iâve heard so much about? She dropped me off at this small waiting room where I was left to ponder my fate. Fortunately they didnât keep me waiting long and I was called up for further interrogation by some guy – another new face to try my luck with.
Round two! Fail this test and Iâm going home! A thought that had me a little torn in truth. A one way trip to London is my punishment? Donât get me wrong, it was far from ideal but this is the charade I have to bow down to?
London is my favourite city in the world, itâs home for me, and youâre wanting me to jump through hoops to get in to Georgia? Georgia!! Are you bloody mad?
âIâm already slumming it coming here mate.â

Nevertheless I figured Iâd keep my thoughts to myself. The US border probably isnât really the setting to start pointing out all of the USAâs flaws. Youâve got to understand that across the pond they believe that the USA is the biggest and the best and the land of the free and blah, blah, blah. I played nice and I tried to be as co-operative as possible. Time for a game of 20 questions!!
âWhy are you here?â âHow long are you here?â âHow did you meet?â âWhere are you staying?â âAre you visiting anywhere else in the US?â âWhen are you going home?â âHave you booked your flight?â âWhat does she do for a living?â âAre you employed?â âWhen do work expect you back?â âHow much money do you have?â and on and on and on.
Iâve visited some places and you half-wonder if theyâve even looked at the photo on your passport before passing it back to you.
âThat was a black woman in the photo by the way..â
âJust hurry up and enter the country!!â
This was the complete opposite and it does get exhausting getting interrogated to determine whether youâre worthy of entering the US. One final question â âDo you have Mellaâs phone number?â
SHIT! I donât! I hadnât anticipated this debacle and assumed I wouldnât need it. Luckily I managed to find it on Facebook, passed it over and then had my phone confiscated.
He obviously didnât want me giving Mella a heads up but it was a tad frustrating. I was sent back to my little waiting room whilst he tried to get hold of Mella.
Now personally, I donât accept phonecalls from numbers I donât know. If itâs that important theyâll leave a message, right? I’ll decline and generally give the number a quick search on Google afterwards.
âOops, that was US border control? I probably should have taken that!â
Fortunately Mella was much more sensible and did pick up, albeit unprepared for her own interrogation as this officer was keen to discover if our responses were consistent. A little time passed and my enthusiasm for Georgia was draining out of me. I mean if youâre going to send me home can we just get on with it?
Fortunately he was soon calling for my return and it was clear that, with Mellaâs help, Iâd passed the test! Iâd been granted access in to America.
I canât really remember what my reaction was. I think I was pretty apathetic by this point so I forgot to show my gratitude by doing cartwheels.
âThank you so much for letting me in to Georgia..â
With that said it was clear the non-English speaking guy at the desk to my left was being advised by his Spanish translator that he wasnât getting in to US so I suppose it could have been worse. I went and found my suitcase and soon enough I was free to stay in the US forever!!! Muahaha!
Alright, calm down Big Brother (I know youâre reading), Iâm joking! I didnât plan to stay, I was free for the next two weeks though and quickly found a friendlier face awaiting my arrival â Mella. Unsurprisingly we didnât stick around at the airport for too long and made our journey to my hotel in downtown Atlanta. I was finally in Georgia!
More on that to follow soon! Stay tuned!
Jason