I used to believe that I was cursed. Not in a dramatic way, God forbid, just a neat, three-month one: no relationship of mine ever survived past its third month. I told it like an amusing fact, the way people share their zodiac sign or blood type.
Prologue
Long before lovers came and went, the English language had already taught me how to disappear. English was my first secret; a language my sister and I borrowed from countless hours of unsupervised American television, whispered in a house that couldn’t understand us. It’s no surprise that love, years later, would arrive in the same language.
The mythology I built around my love life was that foreigners were simply better suited for me. But the truth is, it wasn’t really about the men. I longed for the version of myself that only existed when I felt free. In reality, they were just better at helping me escape.
The Laidback Australian
In 2021, I arrived in Melbourne alone, newly independent, and with far too much time on my hands. Mr. Laidback Australian was the first date I went on, and we ended up seeing each other for three months. He was a series of firsts: my first foreigner, first entanglement after living alone, and first older man. We never entered a committed relationship; my generation would call it a ‘situationship,’ though I preferred the term ‘casual dating’.
At the time, I didn’t yet know how to navigate the grey areas of intimacy. In relationships, labels gave me permission to demand, negotiate, even fight. Without one, I wasn’t sure what I was entitled to. I assumed that agreeing to something undefined meant enduring the parts of a relationship that felt unsatisfying.
We rarely fought. When we did, the tension would simply dissolve into silence, followed by a change of topic, never to be brought up again. Looking back, we were both avoidant. We quickly fell into routine and predictability, a version of intimacy that felt pleasant but curiously hollow.
Then, it ended sourly. He had met someone else who wanted exclusivity, but instead of being direct, he let the situation blur into mixed signals and half-truths. I confronted him and walked away, but not without regret. I wasn’t blindsided; I knew what this was. I had agreed to its limits, after all. What unsettled me was his evasiveness, the childishness of it. I didn’t yet know how to articulate my anger, nor its source. So, instead of calling out his immaturity, I asked questions about us, whether what we had meant anything to him. Those questions felt important at the time, but later proved irrelevant.
Years later, I realised something more unsettling: you can be over someone and still carry the shape of what they taught you. In his case, the lesson was how easy it is to mistake emotional comfort for intimacy, and how silence becomes my default language when something feels wrong.
The German Traveller
Mr. German Traveller came into my orbit when I wasn’t really looking to date. I’d spent nearly a year on a self-imposed hiatus, absorbed in work and life, genuinely uninterested in romance. But desire comes in waves. Eventually, I sought companionship again.
Our time was brief, but lovely. This time, I was unfolding with someone of the same desire, not casual nor temporary. So, I dove headfirst, spending more time together than I probably should have with someone I’d barely known.
The bliss, unsurprisingly, didn’t last. Our chemistry was real, but our lifestyles and values weren’t aligned. Then came the sudden temporary separation. Though that wasn’t what ended us, it was everything surrounding it. Leading up to it, he spoke of continuing, of light-hearted future plans, but nothing concrete. We never discussed how we’d stay connected, or what this actually meant. To me, that lack of structure felt like a lack of intention.
Eventually, we spoke about his past and his pattern of staying in situations without real emotional investment. By the time we parted, I was spiralling: reading silence as rejection, days without communication as a message he didn’t care to articulate. I attempted one last plea for reassurance. His response confirmed what my nervous system had already decided, and I removed myself from his life entirely.
Now, I know I was hasty. Dramatic, even. My nervous system was still operating on old fears I thought I’d outgrown. Part of me knew I’d been here before, time and time again, repeating the same pain and disappointment. But it took the hurt of us ending for me to finally admit that this was a pattern I still hadn’t resolved.
A photobooth strip of us in joyful smiles is still tucked away somewhere in my drawer, evidence of a version of me who once believed intensity alone was enough—and no longer does.
The Jakartan Businessman
It didn’t start abroad, if I’m being honest. My patterns have lived with me for a long time. Mr. Jakartan Businessman was what I still consider my last real relationship. It ended nearly six years ago, and as you might have guessed by now, it dissolved just around the three-month mark.
We were not a peaceful match, far from it. We got together after only three dates and had a short stint of early bliss. But then, just as abruptly, it quickly turned on its heel. On our first encounter, he told me of his commitment issues stemming from his last relationship. I remembered thinking I would walk away if that was all he could offer; I wanted something serious, more intentional. When I said as much, he shifted immediately. He agreed and went all in. It surprised me how quickly the balance tipped: I was the one in search of commitment, yet I hadn’t accounted for the weight of being chosen so completely.
Looking back, what I once read as emotional compatibility was really a shared fluency in each other’s patterns. He matched my energy in ways that felt intimate at the time. The same sensitivity, sharpness and tendency to retaliate when hurt rather than repair. He was jealous and possessive, yet attentive in ways that felt deeply personal: holding space for my past emotional baggage or anticipating my spirals before I could name them myself. But that attentiveness often coexisted with absence—long silences, emotional withdrawal, a kind of selective presence. We took turns being the caretaker and the wound.
The end… was gut-wrenching. Our communication had grown cold, resembling a relationship that had aged too quickly. I wanted to repair it, but I wasn’t equipped with the knowledge of how to stay without losing myself. To me, patience had always felt like self-erasure, and his lack of effort only reinforced that belief. So, I ended it. He tried to stop me, but by then, I had already decided: it was easier to leave than to learn how to remain.
The True Archetype: A Mirror
There were others too; Americans, Spaniards, Indians, even a French psychoanalyst. They were brief encounters that I remember fondly, but I suppose mostly for the format: intimacy with an exit strategy.
Evidently, I have a disorganised attachment style. Highly anxious, but my instinct isn’t to grip tighter or fight for reassurance. It’s to flee. At the first hint of rejection or uneven reciprocity, I’m already halfway out the door. I craved intensity and real intimacy, yet I consistently chose those emotionally unavailable. It’s a neat paradox, wanting depth but being drawn to partners who were safe in their unsafety—foreign, temporary, non-committal, or clearly not built for longevity.
Another was intention, or rather, the lack of it. Every story was “unexpected” or “I wasn’t looking for anything”. But dating without intention is still a choice. When you date seriously, you hold standards with discipline. I didn’t. I let desire lead and blamed it on fate.
In hindsight, I was ultimately repeating what I had already learned at home. My parents’ relationship was defined by long stretches of unspoken tension, explosive disappointments, and then complete avoidance. I learned early on that conflict doesn’t get solved; it’s to be endured until someone walks.
Then there’s culture. Dating as an Indonesian woman in a conservative society comes with its own contradictions. When you date foreigners, you’re either fetishised, judged or praised, sometimes all at once. The pendulum swings between ‘gold digger’, ‘racial worshipper’ or ‘liberated anomaly’. But maybe it wasn’t about them being foreign at all. Maybe it just felt easier, what with the language, the familiarity, the psychological distance, the way it placed me outside the expectations I never felt at home in.
Epilogue
For years, I mistook movement for growth. New cities, new accents, new men. Each encounter felt like proof that I was changing, becoming someone freer. But part of me had always known that I was only leaving; before things demanded language, before conflict required repair, before intimacy asked me to stay when it stopped feeling intoxicating. In the end, it wasn’t a curse, and the truth wasn’t new—it’s just too loud to ignore now.
Foreign lovers may be a fantasy to many, but the myth collapses quickly. Foreign or local, temporary or serious—none of it matters, for unhealed patterns travel well.
So here I am, dear readers and possibly (though I truly hope not) past lovers, finally choosing to practise what I had long avoided: presence, honesty and the discomfort of being seen.