I’ve been a digital nomad for 11 years. The hardest part of this lifestyle is dating.

• Cait Charles has been a digital nomad for 11 years.
• She’s lived in 12 countries, visited over 30, and enjoyed romantic flings and relationships along the way.
• At 35, she’s still looking for a relationship on the road but avoids getting attached too early.

My  exist within a bubble of transience and time limits. There’s a feeling of urgency that pushes us to connect faster.

It may be fun at the moment to move in with a guy from the internet, make lifelong plans with the curly-haired Buddha, or spontaneously cancel your onward travels, but if you don’t live inside a romantic comedy movie, these are not ways to build an actual stable relationship.

Got a personal essay about long-distance dating that you want to share? Get in touch with the editor: akarplus@businessinsider.com.