Nana,

This is a hard question you are asking. Your story is lovely but sad. I think you will get lots of advice from the friends here on the Turkish Class, but there is not easy answer to this. What you have to do is ask yourself lots of questions. If you live in america and he lives in turkey, how will you stay in touch? You have found the problems. Phone calls are so expensive. All Turkish boys work very very long hours, some of my Turkish friends often don't have time to go to the Internet Cafe and sometimes they also don't have the money.

Turkish boys also have to do what their parents tell them, even when they are much older than he is. If their mother or father tell them they must do something, they don't argue or rebel, they do as they are told. If his father says he has to work, then that is what he will do.

You have found another problem. He is also possessive of you. He doesn't want you to 'chat' on MSN because he is afraid you will meet other boys. What will you do if he says to you next time 'don't go out', will you agree? Will you lock yourself away in your house and stop going out with your friends? How long can you do that? Why would you do that?

Do you know anything about Turkish marriage customs? It is sometimes different in the City, where boys and girls meet each other at College or University and fall in love, but in the country it is very commom for the marriages to be arranged by the parents who know each other in the community. If his parents tell him he must marry someome else he will - a turkish girl.

Nana, the love you have for each other is lovely and I am sure it is real for you both, but you must ask yourself very carefully how will you be together? Ask yourself if you can live a life where you cannot live your normal life because he has asked you not to and yet you cannot 'be' with him, even on the phone or on MSN.

My advice is to speak to him when you can, MSN him when you can, but like loving friends. Think carefully about how your life will be if you spend your life waiting for him to have the money to phone you and doing nothing else but waiting.

Lots of turkish boys seem to be like 'players' and 'liars', and I think a lot of it is because their own lives are so hard and it is difficult for them to 'be' with turkish girls, so foreign girls are very attractive to them. I don't believe they are all liars and players, but their circumstances and lives make their romances with foreign girls impossible to keep up. My advice is to keep reading this site. Go to the forums pages where you can read about the experiences of others, wait to see what the Class mates have to say to you, read about turkish life and culture and you will begin to understand how it is for love and romance when the boy is turkish, poor and living in Turkey and you are living somewhere else. Good Luck Nana.

Hi Nana,

I have tried to break down everything piece by piece.

As you said talking international calls to each other is expensive, you did not say you can text. Which is a much cheaper way to keep in touch on a regular basis.

Men are just as much devoted, reliable and emotional as us females. If he is only 17years turning 18years. You will find young males in Turkey are unadulterated and will take love more seriously.

For as reading a forum of Turkish guys being liars and womanisers, every resort in the world is prone to this. It is because they get used to females coming and going every week or so, year after year. It becomes a way of life. Your guy was not working in a resort as far as I understood.

Family plays an important role, he may not want his family to know he is interacting with someone from another country, as the Turkish guys are expected to marry a Turkish girl.

Let us know what happens nana, as I'm sure he may still be very interested by what you have said.

Hi Nana,

This is a family story: My cousin his wife and daughter went on holiday to a resort. The daughter only 16 years old met a disc jockey in the bar where they went to. When she left she was in tears parting from him. Her parents paid for her to go out and meet him a few weeks later. When she returned she was pregnant. They waited until the baby was born a boy, then she went out to live with him and then they got married out in Turkey.

It cost the parents a few hundreds of pounds to rent accommodation for them to live in. Very expensive for visits and returns home.

The girl did not have much life, she sat around the bar with the child until the early hours in the morning, as he was working all this time. She used to also get jealous of him dancing with girls as this was part of his job.

She returned home with her son as the marriage was not working out well.
He was coming over to live and his visa was being sorted out when the bombing in the city of Istanbul started. After this he decided to stay in Turkey (he was from Ankara) and worked in a resort.
I was told he was never interested in his son, a beautiful boy. Her family are really delighted by his presence, and take him everywhere.